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Barrick Chair John Thornton plots overhaul for post-Munk Era – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 5, 2013)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

John Thornton has laid out his vision for Barrick Gold Corp.: a more diversified mining company that can tackle big projects by accessing capital and partners in Asia. With his leadership, he thinks Barrick is in position to become a world-leading company, not just in gold but in “a range of minerals.”

“That’s where I’d like to see Barrick go,” he told reporters. His comments indicate that the world’s biggest gold producer could undergo a significant facelift in the years to come. Mr. Thornton even suggested that hedging, an extremely unpopular strategy among gold investors and one that previously backfired on Barrick, is something the company should be “carefully following at all times.”

Mr. Thornton was officially declared the Barrick’s next chairman on Wednesday after Peter Munk, 86, retires at next year’s annual meeting.

In a joint meeting with reporters, Mr. Munk talked about how he feels the world’s centre of gravity has shifted from West to East, and that Barrick needs a leader who can access capital and key business leaders in that country.

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Rinehart mining fight: Roy Hill livestock farmers stand up against mining project – by Claire Moodie (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – December 5, 2013)

http://www.abc.net.au/

In the heart of iron ore country in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, brothers Murray and Ray Kennedy are standing their ground against the mining industry.

The veteran pastoralists have run Roy Hill cattle station for over forty years but they have become an endangered species.

Many Pilbara stations have been bought up by mining companies but the Kennedys, now in their twilight years, have refused to move on. “I don’t see why we should,” Murray Kennedy said. “Not at 25 percent of the value of the property, no way, that’s just robbery.”

The brothers are well-known in the Pilbara for their tough negotiating skills and the colourful characters are rarely seen without their pet dingo, Baby. “She’s the boss,” Ray Kennedy said with a laugh.

“She rounds up Murray and I and we’ve got to do as we’re told. Simple, she’s a bloody female.” Baby even has her own security pass to the nearby Fortescue Metals Group’s (FMG) Christmas Creek mine and has a meeting room at the mine-site named after her.

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The inside story of the frackers who blasted a hole in the U.S. energy crisis – by Richard Warnica (Canadian Business – December 4, 2013)

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/

Those crazy frackers

Last month, outside the village of Rexton, N.B., dozens of protesters clashed with police. They were there to demonstrate against hydraulic fracturing, a method of drilling for oil and gas better known as fracking. The protesters, many from the nearby Elsipogtog First Nation, had been blocking access to a seismic testing site operated by SWN Resources, the local division of a large Texas-based natural gas company. In one day alone, 40 protesters were arrested at the site, and six police cars were torched amid charges from both sides of escalating violence and brutality.

The battle in Rexton, though unusually nasty, was hardly unique. In the past five years, fracking—which involves breaking up subterranean rock formations using a slurry of water and chemicals—has become a magnet for activist ire. In the U.S., frackers have been blamed for polluting water tables, destroying ranches and even causing earthquakes. In Canada, anti-fracking protesters have pushed for fracking bans across the country.

But while the environmental side of the fracking story has been well told, the business side has not. And no matter what you think of fracking, it is a remarkable business tale.

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Munk, Mulroney leave, new faces slated for Barrick board – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – December 5, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Outgoing board co-chairman Peter Munk welcomes former Goldman Sachs executive John Thornton as new board chairman.

A major shakeup on Barrick Gold Corp.’s board of directors Wednesday included the replacement of chairman and legendary founder Peter Munk and the departure of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a longtime director.

The world’s largest gold miner also announced Jim Gowans, the former chief executive of De Beers Canada, is the new chief operating officer and the nominations of veteran Canadian money manager Ned Goodman and three others to the board in moves it hopes will revive the company’s tarnished image and weak share price.

“This has been a stormy year for Barrick,” said Munk, who welcomed co-chairman John Thornton to his new job as sole chairman.

He said he was going to leave in 2012 and sail around the world with his wife, but too many things “hit the fan” at the beleaguered miner — namely cost overruns building its prized Pascua Lama project, soaring debt and the falling gold price, which have helped carve the company’s share price by more than half.

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Wieliczka Salt Mine Is an Incredible Polish Underground Amusement Park – by Nina Strochlic (The Daily Beast – November 14, 2013)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/

Ever windsurfed across a saltwater lake or visited a 400-year-old chapel—underground? Try it out in Poland, at an unbelievable mine-turned-subterranean playground outside Krakow.

More than 1,000 feet underground in Poland, seemingly impossible things are happening. Hot-air balloons have been launched. A bungee jumper has taken the plunge. A windsurfer has been propelled across still saltwater. A brass band has bellowed on its instruments.

Stretching nine levels beneath the earth, Poland’s Wieliczka Salt Mine is roomy enough to fit the Eiffel Tower and then some. For centuries, miners have been carving out spectacular chapels and sculptures of the country’s most beloved figures underground, not far from the medieval city of Krakow.

And in the past half century, as salt mining slowed and then halted, and tourists began arriving, the cavernous chambers have been transformed into an incredible underground amusement park of grand halls, health spas, museum-worthy art, and record-setting spectacles.

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First Nations can mine $650 billion – by Don Marks (Winnipeg Free Press – December 5, 2013)

 http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

Don Marks is the Editor of Grassroots News

If you have been wondering what all the fuss about resource extraction and development on First Nations land means, you need look no further than a recent report by the Fraser Institute. It reveals the enormous potential in wealth and jobs that can be created by developing these resources. According to the report, 600 projects worth $650 billion depend on co-operation between First Nations and mining companies within the next 10 years.

With much of this development to take place in rural and northern Canada, where most First Nations are located, you might say a huge chunk of this country’s future is at stake, especially when you recognize the population of First Nations and Métis is growing by almost 50 per cent while the rest of the Canadian population is increasing by only eight per cent.

If a fair share of the jobs and profits from that $650 billion in estimated value doesn’t go to First Nations, which are plagued by poverty and unemployment, this country is going to face an economic mess like never seen before.

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Exclusive interview: Peter Munk on ‘hubris,’ ‘stupidity’ and the future of Barrick Gold – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – December 5, 2013)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

It was spring 2011, and a frenzy had gripped the mining industry.

As China consumed ever-growing amounts of copper, gold, nickel and other metals, prices were breaking records and mining companies were launching multibillion-dollar deals. The mantra in the resource sector was “growth, growth, growth.”

Barrick Gold Corp. was readying its arsenal. With gold prices flying high, the company earned a record $3.3-billion (U.S.) in 2010. The gold producer had the strongest credit rating among its peers, and everywhere Barrick chairman Peter Munk turned, brokers were offering to lend the company billions of dollars at low financing rates.

At the time, the large Lumwana copper property in Zambia owned by Toronto-listed Equinox Minerals Ltd. was a coveted prize for industry’s big base metals players. As a gold company, Barrick was not seen as a likely bidder.

But when China’s Minmetals Resources Ltd. offered $6.3-billion (Canadian) to acquire Equinox, the situation proved too tempting for Mr. Munk.

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The keys to exploration success and mining the market – Friedland – by Alex Williams (Mineweb.com – December 5, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/

In a wide ranging conversation with Rick Rule, Robert Friedland discussed among other things, the mining cycle, the need not to punish creatives and institutional stupidity.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – Ivanhoe Mines founder, Robert Friedland urged investors to take a longer term view of the mining industry, on Wednesday, reminding them that the current bear market will turn, at the final event of this year’s Mines & Money Conference in London.

In a conversation with investor Rick Rule, chairman of asset manager Sprott US Holdings, Friedland called the bottom for mining stocks. “This is very much what a bottom feels like,” he said. “Most of the CEOs of the major mining companies have had their heads cut off and used as bowling balls by their chairmen, so the major companies are risk-averse and the junior companies are living in an anaerobic environment where capital is really difficult to achieve.”

“This is going to result in a spectacular bull market,” Friedland said. “It could take a year or two before there’s a sudden and violent turn for the better, but the school of fish will turn.”

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PRESS RELEASE: The Fraser Institute: Mining Investors Wary of Quebec’s Changing Regulations and Restrictions

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/

For the full report, click here: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/quebec-mining-policy-performance.pdf.pdf

CALGARY, ALBERTA–(Marketwired – Dec. 5, 2013) – Uncertainty about protected areas and environmental restrictions, combined with increased regulation and tax changes, has damaged Quebec’s image in the eyes of mining investors, concludes a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

The study, Quebec’s Mining Policy Performance: Greater Uncertainty and Lost Advantage, highlights four key barriers to investment in Quebec and the potential impacts to the province.

“When a jurisdiction loses mining investment, it loses jobs for skilled workers, wealth that goes along with those jobs, and the subsequent government revenue. If Quebec wants to prevent further decline and recapture its status as a top global mining jurisdiction, its government needs to reconsider its mining policies,” said Dr. Kenneth P. Green, project director and senior director of natural resource studies at the Fraser Institute.

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Steelworkers, safety advocates welcome review of mine standards – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – December 5, 2013)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

Details of exactly how a comprehensive mining safety review will unfold haven’t been released, but those involved in pressuring the province to conduct it are convinced it will make Ontario mines safer in a matter of months.

Representatives of United Steelworkers and MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support) announced Tuesday they have hammered out an agreement with Labour Minister Nasir Yaqvi to guide the review. USW Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand told a news conference at the Steelworkers Hall the union and MINES are pleased with the terms of the agreement reached with Naqvi for a comprehensive review.

While it isn’t the public inquiry into mine safety the union began calling for in February 2012, the review will involve labour, industry and government in a process that will produce recommendations that will be acted upon to improve mine safety.

The call was made after USW Local 6500 completed an eight-month investigation into the June 2011 deaths of two men at Vale’s Stobie Mine. Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, died after being overrun by 350 tons of muck while working at the 3,000-foot level of the mine.

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Stephen Harper to meet Kathleen Wynne to talk Ring of Fire – by Susana Mas (CBC News – December 4, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has agreed to meet Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Parliament Hill Thursday afternoon to discuss Ontario’s Ring of Fire, a mining development project worth an estimated $60 billion.

Wynne is hoping to break the current impasse and convince the prime minister to match the costs of developing the mineral rich region, 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, in northern Ontario.

The Ontario government told CBC News last week it was surprised to hear the prime minister dismiss the development in the Ring of Fire as a provincial issue, given that repeated calls for the federal government to play a role in the project had gone unanswered in recent weeks. Harper recently said “this is a project that is primarily under provincial jurisdiction because ultimately resources belong to the provinces and resource development is a provincial responsibility.”

Rich in chromite, nickel and gold, the Ring of Fire is considered to be mining jackpot for the province, but Wynne is making the case that the federal government has a responsibility in the development and funding of the infrastructure required.

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Potash Corp. cuts shock Saskatchewan community as hundreds lose jobs – by Jennifer Graham (The Canadian Press – December 4, 2013)

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/

REGINA – There was shock Tuesday in a small town east of Saskatoon after Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX:POT) cut hundreds of jobs at a mill.

The Saskatoon-based company is slashing its workforce by about 18 per cent, affecting 1,045 people.

The biggest job cuts will be in Saskatchewan, where 440 people will lose their jobs, and most of those will be at the company’s Lanigan division, where one of two mills will suspend production by the end of the year.

“These layoffs were effective immediately. People were sent home this morning,” said Rick Suchy, an electrician at the Lanigan mine and president of Unifor local 922.

“This was the end of their shift. Some guys were supposed to come back tonight. They won’t be coming back tonight. Some guys were phoned at home. They weren’t there. And many people were coming in for the day shift and they were sent home. “It was a really shocking experience.”

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Mining firms to spend $297M in ’13 (Regina Leader-Post – December 4, 2013)

http://www.leaderpost.com/index.html

Mining exploration and development companies are expected to spend about $297 million in Saskatchewan in 2013, down from $324 million in 2012, according to preliminary estimates released by the Saskatchewan Geological Survey.

This year’s expenditure estimate “reflects the difficulty many junior companies continue to have in raising exploration capital,” said the report, which was released at the Saskatchewan Geological Survey’s open house in Saskatoon Tuesday.

Expenditures for mineral exploration and evaluation projects in Saskatchewan in 2013 are also expected to be lower than the $293 million spent in 2011 and the $321 million in 2010.

“Despite the decrease, exploration spending in Saskatchewan continues to be well above historic levels,” the report said. “In the past decade over $2.7 billion has been spent on exploration and evaluation programs, a dramatic increase when compared to the total $674.5 million spent in the 20 years previous.”

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Timmins, Saskatchewan colleges sign agreement – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – December 3, 2013)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Northern College in Timmins and Northlands College in Saskatchewan have signed an agreement to train students through the mining engineering technician program at the Haileybury School of Mines.

The new agreement is built upon an established relationship between the two colleges. Northlands has delivered the program in the past, offering enrolment once every two years. The new agreement, which will be valid for seven years, will see six consecutive intakes of first-year students.

Earlier this year, an agreement was established with Confederation College to allow graduates of Confederation’s mining techniques program to take the second year of the mining engineering technician program at Confederation.

“The fact that Haileybury School of Mines programming is being delivered by multiple colleges in both Ontario and Saskatchewan is a testament to the quality of our mining programs,” said Fred Gibbons, president of Northern College, in a news release.

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Potash Corp. Rivals Seen Following With Cuts – by Christopher Donville (Bloomberg News – December 4, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.’s decision to cut 18 percent of its workforce and reduce capacity probably foreshadows similar actions by North American rivals amid a price war in the $20 billion global potash market.

Potash Corp., the world’s largest fertilizer company by market value, said yesterday it will close a Canadian potash mine, lower output at another and halt a processing mill. Calgary-based Agrium Inc. (AGU) and Mosaic Co. of Plymouth, Minnesota, are likely to follow with job and capacity cuts, said Peter Prattas, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald LP, and Mark Gulley, an analyst at BGC Partners LP.

“Something has to give,” Gulley said yesterday in a telephone interview from New York. “They have to be looking at the same issues in terms of price and profit-margin pressure.”

The potash industry has been in turmoil since the end of July when Russia’s OAO Uralkali, which produced more of the crop nutrient last year than any other company, quit a sales accord with its Belarusian competitor. Uralkali’s strategy now is to raise output to gain a bigger market share. That’s spurred some customers to defer purchases in anticipation of lower prices.

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