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In the wake of 2011 Vale deaths, Ontario launches full mine safety review – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – December 19, 2013)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The Ontario provincial government of Wednesday launched a comprehensive mining safety review to improve the health and well-being of workers in the sector, heeding calls for reform after two miners died at Brazilian diversified mining group Vale’s Sudbury operations in 2011.

Starting early in the New Year, the province’s chief prevention officer would lead an advisory group of industry, labour, health and safety representatives to begin a sweeping review on a wide range of areas within the sector.

The review followed months of intense persuasion by several unions, families and friends of the two men – Jason Chenier (35) and Jordan Fram (26) – killed in a June 8, 2011 accident at Vale’s Stobie underground mine, near Sudbury.

Toronto-based Vale Canada, which owns and operates the operation, was in September fined a record C$1.05-million for the death of the men after Vale Canada pleaded guilty to three charges in a plea bargain, which some had billed as a betrayal of workers and their families by the provincial government.

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End of boom? Not for Australia’s iron ore miners – by James Regan (Reuters U.K. – December 18, 2013)

http://uk.reuters.com/

VALLEY OF THE KINGS, Australia – (Reuters) – A fleet of charter flights ferry thousands of workers to and from this outback mine site. The resort-like housing offers gourmet food, cheap alcohol, swimming and well-equipped gymnasiums.

Australian iron ore mining seems immune from the spending crunch afflicting other commodities as a slowdown in Chinese growth cools a decade-long mining boom.

Rio Tinto (RIO.AX), BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) and Fortescue Metals Group (FMG.AX) are bulking up in Western Australia’s iron-rich Pilbara desert as if the mining boom had never ended. A place where capital expenditure is still measured in the billions.

The miners are speeding up transformation of an area the size of Peru into a moonscape of rust-red pits linked via thousands of kilometres (miles) of rail lines to giant iron ore ports perched on the easternmost edge of the Indian Ocean.

“All this discussion about the end of the mining boom, we don’t see it,” said Fortescue Chief Executive Nev Power, before leading uniformed workers through dawn exercises at the company’s King’s mine. “We sell all we mine.”

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UPDATE 1-Vale seeks fertilizer partner; potash to top 4 mln T/yr – by Jeb Blount and Sabrina Lorenzi (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA expects to more than replace the 4 million tonnes a year of potash it stands to lose from the cancellation of its Rio Colorado project in Argentina as it opens mines in Brazil and Canada, its top executive said on Wednesday.

At least 2 million tonnes a year of potash output is expected from its Carnalita project in Brazil’s northeastern state of Sergipe and 3 million to 5 million tonnes a year could be mined from its Kronau project in Canada’s Province of Saskatchewan, Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira told reporters on Wednesday.

Vale canceled plans to build the $6 billion Rio Colorado project in Argentina in March on concerns the country’s currency-exchange policies made the mine, rail and port project unprofitable and after being denied legal tax breaks. It is now trying to sell shares of its fertilizer unit or stakes in specific fertilizer projects, Ferreria said.

“We are looking for partners in our fertilizer business,” he said at an annual holiday lunch with reporters. “But if the partner takes a stake in our fertilizer unit, we don’t want someone who is just a financial partner, we want someone who has their own production already.”

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Struggling fertilizer makers search for next great crop product – by Rod Nickel (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

WINNIPEG, Manitoba – Dec 18 (Reuters) – Fertilizer makers are boosting output of branded niche products, drawing from the playbook of plastics producers, just as the volatile crop nutrient industry endures its worst slump since the recession.

The products from companies like Mosaic Co, Intrepid Inc and Agrium Inc may have relatively small markets, but their unique nature leaves them somewhat buffered from the volatility of widely produced commodity forms of potash, phosphate and nitrogen.

Chicago corn futures are trading at about half their record high of mid-2012, dragging down fertilizer values, and last summer’s breakup of Belarusian Potash Co has upended the once tightly controlled potash trade.

But while conventional potash producers have cut back production, output of specialty products is on the rise. Some generate larger profit margins than traditional products, while others benefit from tapping markets with limited or no competition.

It is a strategy long followed by makers of polyethylene, the most common plastic. These companies have increased their profits through innovation, by developing such now-commonplace products as garbage bags with drawstrings and packaging designed to keep mixed salads fresh.

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Bigger battles await even if Northern Gateway panel endorses pipeline – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – December 19, 2013)

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

When a joint review panel of the National Energy Board hands down its recommendation Thursday on whether the Northern Gateway oil pipeline is in the public interest, it will bring to a close a four-year, $500-million-plus regulatory process, paid for by proponent Enbridge Inc. and 10 oil companies supporting it.

The panel is expected to approve the project to move oil from Alberta to the British Columbia coast — with conditions — after 18 months of public hearings in Northern communities along the pipeline route and reviewing evidence from 221 interveners, 13 government participants and 1,100 oral statements. The three-member panel also grilled 63 Northern Gateway technical experts for 69 days.

As Enbridge president and CEO Al Monaco put it last month: “We are confident that we have done a very thorough job, based on our application and the process we have gone through, and yes we think we will get regulatory approval.”

Anyone who complains the review wasn’t good enough can only be motivated by a desire to obstruct new pipelines. Only the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline Project review rivalled Northern Gateway in scope and intensity, and that one took so long that, by the end of it, the Mackenzie pipeline was no longer needed.

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Vale CEO talks ‘consortium’ with Glencore – by Staff (Sudbury Star – December 19, 2013)

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

A comment by Vale chief executive officer Murilo Ferrira, reported by Reuters on Wednesday, will have people talking again about a potential merger, or partial merger, between Vale and Glencore Xstrata operations in Sudbury.

Reuters reported Ferreira as saying he expects Vale’s “consortium” with Glencore in Sudbury nickel projects to be defined by the first quarter of 2014 and for the venture to operate as a single unit.

Vale spokesman Cory McPhee said Ferreira’s statement was made at an end-of-the-year luncheon with reporters in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday at which Ferreira answered several questions.

His answer to the one about a Sudbury merger was a repetition of what he said during Vale Days at the New York and London Stock Exchanges a few weeks ago when he told reporters he expected to conclude the discussions in the first quarter of 2014, said McPhee.

“He’s speaking very broadly to potential outcomes,” said McPhee.

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Decline Shutters [South African] Mines – by Paul Burkhardt (Bloomberg News – December 17, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

A half-dozen unemployed workers from the Blyvooruitzicht gold mine southwest of Johannesburg finish off the last scraps of a slaughtered cow in the searing October heat. Since losing their jobs in August, meals have become much less predictable.

The men stand near a small wood fire as the sun shines off a hill of extracted earth, in sight of a housing block that was supposed to be vacated. One holds a jaw bone over the flame, nibbles the meat off, and tosses the rest into a rusty barrel. What’s left of the carcass with its entrails spilling out is starting to dry at their feet.

The scene, resembling something from an apocalypse film out of Hollywood, is an extreme example of the impact gold’s 25 percent drop this year may have on towns around the world that are dependent on the precious metal. Mining companies have announced plans to shutter mines or reduce operations from Nevada and Peru to Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean, as gold heads toward its first annual loss in 13 years.

Blyvooruitzicht’s name means “happy prospect” in Afrikaans. These days that’s not such a sure thing. The mine’s most recent operator, Johannesburg-based Village Main Reef Ltd., cut funding and closed it last summer, letting go the remaining 1,700 workers. Plunging prices made it difficult to profitably extract gold, especially with electricity prices soaring and workers demanding higher wages.

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Ontario to review mine safety after Vale deaths in 2011 (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO – Dec 18 (Reuters) – The Ontario government will launch a review of mining safety, looking at the effectiveness of health and safety rules, enforcement and prevention in the Canadian province after the 2011 deaths of two men at a Vale SA mine prompted calls for reform.

The review, announced on Wednesday and to commence in early 2014, comes after more than a year of lobbying by the families and friends of the men, Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram.

The two were killed at one of Vale’s Sudbury, Ontario, nickel mines, and the Brazilian miner’s Canadian unit was hit with a record C$1.05 million ($984,900) fine for the incident in September. It had pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the province’s workplace safety law.

Mining has long been a major industry in Ontario, and miners, including big international players such as Glencore and Goldcorp Inc, produced some C$10.7 billion worth of minerals in 2011, according provincial government figures.

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Flake graphite price could spike as China orders production halt – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – December 18, 2013)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – One of China’s primary flake graphite producing regions had been ordered to halt production on environmental grounds, which would take about 10% of the world’s flake graphite supply off the market, the equivalent of 60 000 t/y, UK-based market research firm Industrial Minerals Data said this week.

Given that China produces almost 75% of the world’s graphite and that ‘flake’ is the most sought-after form of natural graphite for value-added, high-technology carbon products, this was a significant development.

The last time a supply shortage close to this magnitude happened in China, was in 2009, which was seen as the catalyst for flake graphite prices reaching over $2 500/t in a year.

Industrial Minerals Data manager Simon Moores said in a report published on Monday that up to 55 miners and processors of graphite in the town of Pingdu, located in the east-coast province of Shandong, had been ordered by the local government to stop production after failing to improve wastewater, dust and gas emissions.

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Fed cuts bond-buying but stresses easy policy – by Jonathan Spicer and Jason Lange (Reuters U.S. – December 18, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON – (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve announced plans to trim its aggressive bond-buying program on Wednesday but sought to temper the long-awaited move by suggesting its key interest rate would stay lower for even longer than previously promised.

In what amounts to the beginning of the end of its unprecedented support for the U.S. economy, the central bank said it would reduce its monthly asset purchases by $10 billion to total $75 billion. It trimmed equally from mortgage and Treasury bonds.

The move, which could come as a surprise to many investors, was a nod to better prospects for the economy and labor market and marks a historic turning point for the largest monetary policy experiment ever.

The Fed’s asset purchase program, a centerpiece of its crisis-era policy, has left it holding roughly $4 trillion of bonds, and the path it must follow in dialing it down is rife with numerous risks, including the possibility of higher-than-targeted interest rates and a loss of investor confidence.

The Fed “modestly” reduced the pace of bond buying in light of better labor market conditions, it said in a statement following a two-day policy meeting.

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Dream of a road to the Arctic Ocean takes shape – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – December 18, 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.

TUKTOYAKTUK, NWT — On a November morning just outside Tuktoyaktuk, diesel engines break the silence as trucks and graders trundle back and forth, slowly pushing their way across the tundra toward Inuvik, about 140 kilometres south.

With the sun barely rising above the horizon on the northernmost reaches of Canada’s mainland, the crew is constructing a winding road that will provide the first year-round link between the Arctic Ocean and the rest of the country. It is a remarkable piece of engineering that is like laying a thick carpet across a giant frozen sponge.

The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk gravel highway, a dream that goes back to the 1950s, will take about three years to complete, with most of the work being done in the long, bone-chilling winter. Northern residents, governments and aboriginal leaders are looking to it as a path to a brighter economic future following decades of high hopes and bitter disappointments.

Those have included an energy exploration boom in the 1970s, which ended when oil prices tumbled in the following decade, and on-again, off-again plans for a multibillion-dollar Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline.

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UPDATE 2-Australia to ship more iron ore as miners shrug off China risks by James Regan (Reuters India – December 18, 2013)

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Australia raised its forecasts for exports of iron ore and metallurgical coal — its two top export revenue earners — reflecting massive expansion work underway to meet demand for raw materials to make steel in China.

Despite moves to curb industrial growth rates and close some ageing steel works, China continues to produce more than 2 million tonnes of crude steel daily, almost 10 times the rate in the United States.

Australia, the world’s biggest producer of iron ore, forecast a 23.3 percent rise in exports to 650 million tonnes in the 2013/14 fiscal year, data from Australia’s Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) showed on Wednesday.

The forecast was raised from an estimate of 615 million tonnes just three months ago.

“The super cycle is not over yet,” said Keith Goode, an analyst for Eagle Mining Research in Sydney, referring to unprecedented commodity demand driven by Chinese demand. “In China, the main demand still appears to be for iron ore.”

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Iron ore, chrome rates under pressure on poor demand – by Sadananda Mohapatra (Business Standard – December 17, 2013)

http://www.business-standard.com/ [India]

Prices of iron ore and chrome ore are witnessing downward pressure on poor demand from within the country, precipitated by stagnated consumption growth of finished steel products, traders and analysts said.

In Odisha, the major iron ore producing state, the rates have been hovering around Rs 5000 to Rs 6000 per tonne for 62 to 65 grade mineral for last one month. “The rates will stay at current levels for next one month or so. Actually it should be coming down as demand for the mineral is not so strong. But supply problems are supporting the rates,” said an official of Altrade Group, which has five iron ore mines in the state.

Major miners such as Essar and Rungta have rolled over the rates of iron ore lumps from November levels in anticipation of weak demand from sponge iron makers, a major user of the raw material.

“The iron ore rates have been trading at similar levels for past one month due to sluggish demand from sponge iron makers as steelmakers are preferring to use imported scrap instead of sponge iron.

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TransCanada mulling rail bridge if Keystone XL delays continue, CEO Russ Girling says – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – Decemeber 18, 2013)

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

TransCanada Corp. could develop a rail bridge from Canada to Nebraska if the northern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline continues to be held up by the U.S. government, president and CEO Russ Girling said Tuesday.

The Calgary-based company has ongoing dialogue with railways and oil companies about options to Keystone, and “if we need to bridge with rail, we will bridge,” Mr. Girling said in an interview.

“I don’t think we would ever stop pressing the pipeline option, but there is a point in time at which we would consider a rail option,” he said. The company is awaiting the release any day of a much-delayed final environmental impact statement by the U.S. State Department on the $5.4-billion, northern leg of the cross-border project to carry oil from Canada’s oil sands all the way to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

The department has jurisdiction because the pipeline crosses an international border. The southern leg, known as the Gulf Coast Project, was fast tracked because it didn’t need approval and is due to start delivering oil on Jan. 22.

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RepRisk Releases “Special Report on Consumer Electronics: The Human Toll Behind the Mining”

www.reprisk.com

Zurich, December 18, 2013 – RepRisk’s latest “Special Report on Consumer Electronics: The Human Toll Behind the Mining” highlights the social and environmental issues associated with sourcing the minerals required for the manufacturing of everyday electronic products.

While the sale of cell phones, laptops, tablets and other consumer electronics is booming, mining of metals and minerals worldwide have been directly linked to violence, armed conflict and grave human rights abuses. Many developing countries rich in mineral resources have been torn apart by brutal conflict as a result of their natural wealth.

Certain studies have suggested that 40 percent of all intrastate conflicts in the last 60 years have been linked to natural resources. Human rights groups have repeatedly drawn attention to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in particular, where minerals have spurred regional conflict by helping to finance various domestic and international armed groups.

RepRisk has identified numerous news articles, which have linked mining activities to violent repression by police and armed forces, forced displacements, overuse of water and other basic necessities, environmental degradation, child labor, as well as poor and dangerous working conditions.

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