Republic of Mining

NEWS RELEASE: KWG & Bold to Resume Drilling at Black Horse

January 6, 2014

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Jan. 6, 2014) – Bold Ventures Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BOL) (“Bold”) and KWG Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:KWG) (“KWG”) are pleased to report that KWG is funding a further $2 million program under its agreement to earn from Bold an 80% interest in any chromite discovered within the claims optioned by Bold from Fancamp Exploration Ltd. hosting the Black Horse chromite occurrence. KWG may also earn a 20% interest in any other metals discovered on the property (please see the details of the option earn in agreements as described in Bold’s press release dated March 4, 2013 or on the Bold website (www.boldventuresinc.com) or at the KWG website (www.kwgresources.com)).

As recommended in the 43-101 report commissioned by KWG and prepared to document the inferred chromite resource following last winter’s drilling program, the possible down-dip extension of the resource will be tested with a series of deep holes. Orbit Garant Drilling Services Inc. has been awarded the drilling contract to utilize up to three drills. Mobilization is underway and drilling is anticipated to commence shortly.

Metallurgical test work which is ongoing has produced encouraging results to indicate that the Black Horse chromite appears to be amenable to reduction into metalized chrome and iron using natural gas. These results dictated that a number of transportation and underground mining trade-off studies be undertaken and those are currently underway.

Advocates want Canada to protect even more of its boreal forest – by Bob Weber (Canadian Press/Waterloo Record – January 6, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.therecord.com/waterlooregion/

Canada has made significant strides in protecting the vast boreal forest that stretches across most of its provinces and territories, but the world’s largest intact forest ecosystem still faces threats, says an environmental group.

The amount of boreal forest under some form of government protection has doubled since 2007 to about 12 per cent of the total area, biologist Jeff Wells of the Canadian Boreal Initiative said recently. “That’s a big rate of increase in a short time and we’re hoping that’s going to continue,” he said.

The boreal forest is the huge swath of green that stretches from Newfoundland to the Yukon. It’s home to millions of migratory birds, harbours endangered wildlife such as caribou and shelters hundreds of wetlands that clean water and store carbon.

A total of 708,000 square kilometres is now protected by government. Another 460,000 square kilometres are being harvested through sustainable practices such as those outlined by the Forest Stewardship Council, an organization that promotes responsible management of the world’s forests by setting standards, and certifying and labelling wood products.

‘Confiscate wealth of mining mafia’ (The Times of India – January 6, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/international-home

BHUBANESWAR: Reiterating his demand for a CBI probe into the multi-thousand crore mining scam, senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik on Sunday said the inquiry must go beyond the Justice M B Shah Commission report and sought an ordinance to confiscate wealth of the mining mafia.

The former state Congress president, in a press statement, said CBI investigation must go beyond leaseholders.

“The leaseholders are known legal entities and irregularities committed by them can be computed and accountability fixed, as has been rightly done by the Shah Commission,” he said. The Shah panel has recommended recovery of around Rs 60,000 crore from miners for illegalities committed by them.

On mining outside leasehold areas and abandoned mines, Niranjan said, “All entities involved in such illegal mining, as juxtaposed to irregular mining by known legal leaseholders, are remaining nameless and faceless. They have neither paid any royalty nor any income tax and there is no way they can be held accountable.”

S. Korea’s Former Miners Dig Up Nation-Building Past – by Agence France-Presse/Jakarta Globe (January 3, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Fifty years ago, several hundred South Koreans went to work in German mines in the first wave of a flood of Korean migrants whose remittances helped jumpstart one of the great economic transformations of the modern age.

The experience was often lonely, and for some their contribution was tainted on their return by the social stigma attached to a job that was tough, filthy and dangerous in a society that looked down on manual labour.

As a result, they feel their role in South Korean history has been largely overlooked, despite helping to seed South Korea’s economic growth and rapid industrialisation by sending funds home.

Mostly in their 20s, the miners — the first South Koreans to work overseas since the peninsula split into the capitalist South and a communist North in 1945 — were part of Seoul’s strategy to solve a high jobless rate and earn hard foreign currency. Bae Jung-Hwan left his homeland in 1970 to work at a German mine before returning a few years later. He says he only recently told his wife and children about his past.

Chilean miracle miners back in spotlight (AFP/Sydney Morning Herald – January 2, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/

At the bottom of a dank salt mine in Colombia, a 200-strong film crew featuring Spanish actor Antonio Banderas is reconstructing the incredible tale of 33 miners buried alive for 69 days in Chile in 2010. Actors from multiple countries work in suffocating heat on The 33, which traces the unlikely survival of the men trapped deep underground after a collapse at the San Jose copper mine in the Atacama desert.

“It’s not just about the physical ordeal these 33 men went through – it’s about the emotional one, of wondering if they would live or die, or if they would go crazy waiting to find out,” Gregg Brilliant, a spokesman for the American film production, told AFP.

To depict the incredible story that unfolded more than 600m underground, the production team chose to film at two sites outside the Colombian capital Bogota. Behind a security cordon, curious onlookers try to catch a glimpse of a star, but their Hollywood hopes are repeatedly dashed.

In the salt mines of Nemocon, the humid and musty environment combine with the thin mountain air to recreate the oppressive atmosphere at San Jose, located 800km north of Chile’s capital Santiago.

MTO in midst of pan-northern transportation strategy – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – December 30, 2013)

January 6, 2014

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. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

A provincial plan to access the Ring of Fire may be lacking, but for almost three years the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has been quietly working on a major pan-northern planning exercise to support future regional economic development.

Known as the Northern Ontario Multimodal Transportation Strategy, the multi-year study is directly tied into the Liberal government’s implementation of the Northern Growth Plan.

“It’s definitely a first for the MTO in Northern Ontario,” said Tija Dirks, the ministry’s director of transportation planning, of the comprehensive process which began in 2011.

“The scope of the issues that we’re looking at is much broader. We’re truly looking at the transportation system and not just the highway network.”

[McEwen] Mining’s golden boy – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – December 31, 2013)

January 6, 2014

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.

Ian Ball, 32, was just promoted to president of McEwen Mining Inc. in ageing world of mining.

When Ian Ball was 5, he earned an allowance moving rocks from the lawn of his Bowmanville, Ont., home back onto the gravel driveway for his parents.

It turned out to be quite a training ground. Lately, the 32 year old has been spotted driving a 100-tonne haul truck at the silver mine he discovered in Mexico, and the Bay St. hotshot makes a nice allowance for his work in this field, too.

But the road from junior rock picker to the top floor of Brookfield Place as the new president of McEwen Mining Inc. took a number of twists and turns — not the least of which is that he never planned on getting into the gritty gold mining game in the first place.

“I was a horrible student. I barely graduated high school,” Ball recalls candidly in an interview, impeccably dressed in a dark grey suit and golden yellow tie with his hair perfectly slicked back.

Oil industry’s 2014 resolution: to focus on aboriginal issues – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – December 26, 2013)

January 6, 2014

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.

CALGARY — For the oil patch, 2014 has to be the year it finally gets its act together on aboriginal issues.

Industry leaders know they have to rethink their approach, and that the clock is ticking as they seek to get oil and gas through First Nations territories to export markets before opportunities vaporize. It stands to be their toughest task yet.

One problem is that the oil and pipeline companies are already behind in the trust-and-relationship-building departments after some misadventures that created bad blood, especially during the regulatory process for the Northern Gateway oil pipeline to the Pacific from Alberta.

For proof, take a peek at a recent survey by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, which found that one-third of aboriginal Canadians have no trust whatsoever in oil and gas companies.

Paucity Amidst Plenty [India Mining Problems] – by N. Madhavan, K.R. Balasubramanyam and Anilesh S. Mahajan (Business Today – December 22, 2013)

January 6, 2014

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/ [India]

Why a country flush with natural resources finds itself grappling with their shortage.

Billionaire Lakshmi Niwas Mittal has the uncanny ability to work successfully with governments of all kinds across the globe. That, and his unbridled ambition, have enabled him to set up or acquire steel factories in 20 countries. But the man who created the world’s largest steel empire from scratch tasted the bitter fruit of failure when he decided to invest in his country of birth – India.

In a bid to capitalise on India’s huge iron ore deposits and rising steel consumption, Mittal in 2005 announced plans to set up a steel project in Jharkhand that year and in Orissa the next. Later, he proposed another mill in Karnataka. The total intended investment was $30 billion.

In July this year, ArcelorMittal, Mittal’s company, scrapped its $12-billion mill in Orissa after having failed to acquire land and iron ore mines for seven years. Its other projects have not yet been called off, but are also facing delays. Mittal’s decision came just a day after South Korean steelmaker Posco, the world’s fifth-largest, abandoned a $5.3-billion project in Karnataka for similar reasons.

[India] Bullion smuggling outstrips narcotics to feed gold habit – by A. ANANTHALAKSHMI AND SIDDESH MAYENKAR (Reuters India – December 4, 2014)

January 6, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE/MUMBAI – (Reuters) – Indian gold smugglers are adopting the methods of drug couriers to sidestep a government crackdown on imports of the precious metal, stashing gold in imported vehicles and even using mules who swallow nuggets to try to get them past airport security.

Stung by rules imposed this year to cut a high trade deficit and a record duty on imports, dealers and individual customers are fanning out across Asia to buy gold and sneak it back into the country.

Sri Lanka, Thailand and Singapore are the latest hotspots as authorities crack down on travellers from Dubai, the traditional source of smuggled gold. In a sign of the times, whistleblowers who help bust illegal gold shipments can get a bigger reward in India than those who help catch cocaine and heroin smugglers.

“Gold and narcotics operate as two different syndicates but gold smuggling has become more profitable and fashionable,” said Kiran Kumar Karlapu, an official at Mumbai’s Air Intelligence Unit.

[Indonesian] Ore Export Ban Is Definitive, Official Says – by Muhammad Al Azhari (Jakarta Globe – January 2, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Indonesia will be consistent in banning mineral-ore exports this year, as mandated by the 2009 Mining Law, and the government regulation would set processing and purification requirements before companies can export, a senior government official said.

R. Sukhyar, the newly appointed director general of coal and mineral resources at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry talked with the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday, almost two weeks before the Jan. 12 deadline, to clarify the government’s stance about the mineral-ore export ban.

Reports last month said the government would set exemptions, but that is not the case, according to Sukhyar. “The law says mineral ore mined from Indonesian soil must be processed [domestically] and be purified. That’s clear, that means no more mineral-ore exports. That’s non-negotiable,” said Sukhyar, a veteran bureaucrat, who officially started his new position on Dec. 20.

The government regulation, he said, will regulate technicalities about the smelting and purification level for metals including copper, nickel, bauxite, tin, iron ore, manganese, gold, copper. It will also regulate the adding of value to non-metals, such as limestone, quartz and marble, before they can be exported.

Small-Scale Gold Mining Pollutes Indonesian Lands – by Joe Cochrane (New York Times – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/

CISITU, Indonesia — In the remote mountains of West Java, workers like 15-year-old David Mario Chandra are an integral part of Indonesia’s gold industry.

A workshop next to his family’s house in Cisitu, in Banten Province, contains machinery that turns gold ore into usable nuggets. The procedure seems simple enough: The crushed ore is tumbled with other ingredients in cylinders called balls until the valuable stuff is amalgamated. But there is a crucial material — and a final step — that alarms environmental and health experts around the world.

“We put 15 kilograms of gold ore and water into each ball, and we use 100 grams of mercury per ball,” or 3.5 ounces for 33 pounds of ore, said David, who runs the family’s workshop. Workers then purify the nuggets using an open flame, burning off the mercury in sites among residential areas throughout the village.

Yuyun Ismawati, an environmental campaigner based in Britain, says the scope of the problem is evident in the amount of mercury being exported from around the world to Indonesia, her home country. Most of it, she says, is brought in illegally.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, the country imported slightly less than one metric ton of mercury in 2012 through two local companies, primarily for commercial manufacturing, including the production of light bulbs and batteries, and for use in hospital equipment.

Why many of Ghana’s gold miners are giving up – by Matthew Davies (BBC News – December 29, 2013)

January 3, 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Ghana – Kwaku Boham worries about the future. For years, he and his four fellow gold miners have scratched out a living on a tiny plot next to the roadside near Tarkwa in south-western Ghana.

All day in the tropical heat and humidity, they dig out the red soil and rocks and crush them in a noisy grinder, hoping to yield some small nuggets to cover their expenses and feed their families.

But they have no control over what they sell any nuggets for – that’s set in markets in New York and London. And over the past year, the price of gold has been falling.

On 1 January this year, the spot price of gold was $1,687.22 an ounce, this month it has been trading around $1,240 an ounce – a loss of around 25%. The outlook for 2014 is not much healthier. The reason gold is losing its lustre is that global economies are looking a lot healthier than they did a year ago.

The US economy grew by 3.6% in the third quarter of 2013, its best performance in 18 months, while unemployment, which hit a 26-year high at 10% in 2009, dropped to 7% last month – a five-year low.

Development hopes still alive for Ontario’s Ring of Fire – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

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.

Hopes for development of the promising $60-billion Ring of Fire mineral belt in northwestern Ontario took a heavy blow in November but they aren’t dead yet.

Hopes for development of the promising $60-billion Ring of Fire mineral belt in northwestern Ontario took a heavy blow in November but they aren’t dead yet.

Just weeks after Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. stunned the province by suspending its $3.3 billion project, a Toronto mining company is taking a major step forward.

Noront Resources Ltd., the second-largest player after Cliffs, has completed studies required for an environmental assessment of its plan to develop the Eagle’s Nest deposit of high-grade nickel, copper, platinum and palladium estimated to be worth $700 million.

“We believe that Eagle’s Nest will be the first mine developed in the Ring of Fire and this brings us one step closer to achieving that goal,” said chief executive Alan Coutts.

Tanzania: Gold Mine Boosts Villagers’ Livelihoods – by Mugini Jacob (All Africa.com – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://allafrica.com/

Tarime — TARIME District Council has said it is now seeing remarkable development in the villages surrounding the North Mara Gold Mine at this time compared to the past.

Located in Nyamongo area, North Mara Gold Mine is one of Tanzania’s largest gold mines operated by African Barrick Gold (ABG) “There are big things happening in Nyamongo.

Nyamongo of today is not Nyamongo of the past”, Tarime District Council Chairman Mr Amos Sagara told a full council meeting at the District Council Conference Hall recently.

The latest full council meeting which sat to discuss development issues was attended by all Tarime councillors including those hailing from the villages around the mine and senior government experts based in the area.

The top council leader commended ABG, Tanzanian largest gold producer for speeding up implementation of Villages Benefits Implementation Agreements (VBIA’s) signed between the mine and surrounding villages late 2011.