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Ring of Fire junior wins strategic victory – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – October 8, 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. Ian Ross is the editor of Northern Ontario Business ianross@nob.on.ca.

Frank Smeenk didn’t want to use the opportunity to gloat. “It’s important not to do that publicly,” chuckled the CEO of KWG Resources. The Toronto junior miner’s bitter rival in the Ring of Fire exploration camp, Cliffs Natural Resources, was dealt a blow last month in gaining road access to its Ring of Fire chromite projects.

Ontario’s Mining and Lands Commissioner ruled against the Ohio-based mining giant, which had been seeking an easement to cross the mining claims of KWG in order to build an ore haul road out of its deposits in the James Bay region.

In a ruling released Sept. 10, the tribunal ruled that granting an easement to Cliffs would interfere with KWG’s ability to work its claims since “numerous heavy trucks (passing) every day” would cover up future drilling and sampling sites.

“It’s extremely material,” said Smeenk of the commissioner’s office ruling. “There couldn’t be any more material information for the owners of KWG.” KWG has a 30 per cent ownership stake in the Big Daddy chromite deposit with Cliffs, but the junior miner holds a strategic piece of ground.

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Boart Longyear focused on weathering cyclic storm, building on lessons learnt – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – October 8, 2013)

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The world’s largest drilling company, Boart Longyear, has positioned itself to weather the difficult markets and emerge a leaner, more efficient company that had taken to heart lessons learnt in its recent overleveraged past.

CEO Richard O’Brien said the company was now positioned to perform better with its significantly reduced cost footprint.

“The plan is to keep the costs permanently off the balance sheet, even in the event of a rebound in market conditions,” O’Brien, who joined Boart Longyear this year from gold mining giant Newmont Mining, told Mining Weekly Online in an interview on Monday.

He blamed over-enthusiastic outlook assumptions for the debt blowout and spending that left the company exposed to the recent downturn. The Utah-based and Australia-listed company had last month finalised issuing $300-million in senior secured notes to retire most of its $450-million in debt.

Despite the newly issued notes bearing a 10% coupon, the debt restructuring would give Boart at least some relief from debt covenants that had cast an uncertain shadow over its immediate future.

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Vale Sees Iron-Ore Market Oversupplied From 2015 on New Capacity – by Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – October 7, 2013)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Vale SA, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, said supply of the steelmaking raw material is expected to grow faster than demand, reducing support for future increases in price.

Iron-ore producers may have between 5 percent and 6 percent more capacity than demand by as early as 2018 as China steel consumption slows and companies boost output, Vale’s head of Ferrous & Strategy Jose Carlos Martins told reporters in Sao Paulo yesterday. While iron-ore prices are expected to remain above $100 a metric ton, the extra supply will make prices less volatile and unlikely to repeat spikes seen previously, he said.

“We will probably start to have some surplus capacity around 2015,” Martins said at the World Steel Association’s annual congress. “Peak prices are unlikely to happen again.”

Vale, based in Rio de Janeiro, is spending almost $20 billion in its Serra Sul mine and logistics venture in Carajas, the world’s largest iron-ore complex, which is the industry’s most expensive project.

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NEWS RELEASE: OMA members help cancer fundraiser reach a higher goal

This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

The active and exuberant participation of Ontario Mining Association members Hatch and Glencore Canada in the Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer event helped the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation up its fundraising score. Consulting engineering firm Hatch had eight teams in the competition – a potential league of its own — and won the corporate challenge award by raising about $215,000, in total. The team from Glencore raised more than $24,000 and finished a very respectable 17th on the company contribution list.

Approximately 1,300 people participated in the Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer event, which was held recently at Ontario Place in Toronto, and it netted $2.3 million for personalized cancer medicine. This was the third annual Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer fundraiser. One hundred and thirty teams played five games each throughout the dawn to dusk tournament.

More than 60 celebrities – hockey stars, media personalities, Olympians and stars from other sports – were drafted by top fundraising teams to aid their cause. Three-time Olympic gold medal winner and five-time world women’s hockey champion Jennifer Botterill enhanced the roster of Team Glencore along with Philip Bousquet, OMA Manager of Industrial and Government Relations.

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Canada’s Brazilian spy machine makes little sense, but somebody should explain it – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – October 8, 2013)

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

Is the department of defence using its bureaucrats to hunt down commercial information — at a time when the world is awash in terror and other genuine security threats? That seems highly unlikely

State Capitalism Update: News today from Malaysia and Brazil, where state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are making headlines and generating fresh evidence that Canada has its hands full with the emerging global business of government business.

First to Rio de Janeiro, where an eight-minute documentary report on Brazil’s Globo TV network painted a mighty bleak picture of dark Canadian government espionage, an image that is now the focus of high-level Brazilian corporate and political agitation. Canada’s ambassador to Brazil has been called to account. Big-name Brazilian corporations — state-owned Petrobras and Electrobas, Aneel, Epe — are said to be the targets.

The eight minutes begin slow, with long shots of a massive office complex of distinctly Brazilian design overlayed with creepy music of the kind that’s now mandatory whenever TV networks need to build a story of sinister doings.

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Quebec looks to recharge economy with hydro lure – by Nicolas Van Praet (National Post – October 8, 2013)

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

MONTREAL – In a bid to rescue an economy in danger of slipping into recession, the Parti Québécois government has launched a multibillion dollar job creation effort anchored by a program that will offer Quebec’s surplus hydroelectric power at below-market rates to corporate investors.

With her minority government one-year old, Premier Pauline Marois has presided over a province that has generated barely 0.1% employment growth during that time. Meanwhile, the wider economy is at a near standstill, according to Desjardins Group, pulled down by a sputtering manufacturing sector and weak international trade.

“The recovery is slow to materialize,” Ms. Marois told an audience in the foyer of pension giant Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec’s headquarters Monday. “It’s important to act with every means at our disposal.”

Ms. Marois is now betting that she can stoke job growth and private sector investment by using Quebec’s vast hydroelectric resources as a lure. While the PQ has used the tool before — for example, to snare a $1.2-billion investment by Swedish communications technology firm Ericsson AB this year — the party is now enshrining it formally in policy and commanding a specific block of electricity totalling 50 TeraWatt-hours for that purpose.

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As Alberta struggles to get oil to new markets, B.C. builds LNG momentum quickly – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – October 8, 2013)

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

While historic energy powerhouse Alberta is struggling to get its resources to new markets, British Columbia is wasting no time getting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry off the ground.

Rich Coleman, head of a new super ministry to promote natural gas development in the province, said Monday the government of Liberal Christy Clark is on the verge of finalizing fiscal terms for LNG operators, will follow up with legislation early in the New Year to ensure long-term fiscal stability and anticipates the first major investment decisions to build LNG projects on the northern Coast in the third to fourth quarter of 2014.

“We are competing with other jurisdictions for customers and investment,” the minister said in explaining to reporters the urgency to launch the sector.

He was on his way to South Korea, China and Malaysia to promote the new industry, having just arrived back from meetings in Washington, D.C., with Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., which are “very interested” in LNG in B.C.

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Teck waiting for next coal wave to revive Quintette – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – October 8, 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.

VANCOUVER — Teck Resources Ltd. is sitting on a mountain of untapped coal at its Quintette property in northeastern British Columbia, hoping for market conditions to improve and give the project a new beginning.

Quintette supplied metallurgical (or coking) coal to Japanese steel mills from 1982 until it closed in 2000. Today the coal market is all about China, but prices have plummeted in the wake of the country’s slowing growth and ample industry supply.

In June of this year, the B.C. government issued a mining permit to clear the way for Teck to operate an open-pit mine at Quintette, which is forecast to produce three million tonnes a year of metallurgical coal, a key ingredient in the production of steel. But with coal prices down more than 50 per cent over the past couple of years, Teck announced in July that it decided to delay capital spending of $300-million in 2013 and $350-million in the first half of 2014 that had been earmarked for Quintette.

Having watched the corporation nearly collapse during the 2008-09 recession, Teck executives are being cautious in their approach to Quintette.

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Ring of Fire Needs Sustainable Development With Real Ottawa and Ontario Leadership – by Claude Gravelle (Huffington Post – October 7, 2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

Claude Gravelle is the Federal NDP MP for the riding of Nickel Belt.

The stalled Ring of Fire mining project finds itself at a critical crossroads with governments in Ottawa and Ontario needing to work together now more than ever. That will mean leadership that actually engages all parties and contributes to sustainable development.

Otherwise, this “project of the century for Northern Ontario” — with values from $50 billion to $120 billion being cited following discovery of world-class chromite deposits for stainless steel markets — may have to wait for another generation.

And with the ore under their feet, and time on their side, many First Nations communities are making it clear they can wait.

For some, 2013 had started off promising. In February, Ottawa had appointed Tony Clement to quarterback the Ring of Fire federal team to help break the inertia. A multi-department secretariat was announced. A modest but significant $4.5 million Aboriginal skills training project was made, picking up a New Democrat recommendation from the 2012 Natural Resources Committee study on northern resources development.

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Canada has ability to spy on Brazil, but lacks motive, security officials say – by Peter Koven and Stewart Bell (National Post – October 8, 2013)

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

Canadian security officials and mining companies were skeptical Monday over claims Canada had spied on Brazil’s mining and energy department, even as Brazil’s president accused Canada of apparent industrial espionage.

The Brazilian Foreign Minister summoned the Canadian ambassador to “transmit the indignation of the Brazilian government and demand explanations,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that followed the revelations that were aired Sunday night on Brazil’s Globo network. The report said the metadata of phone calls and emails from and to the ministry were targeted by Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) to map the ministry’s communications. It didn’t indicate if emails were read or phone calls listened to.

Ray Boisvert, who was director general of counter-terrorism at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said on Monday Canada would have little reason to spy on Brazil’s mining sector. “Like any crime drama, you look for capability and intent. Could CSEC do Brazil? Of course, it has significant capability to collect intelligence in the national interest. But on motive, you come up way short. If it was Iran, nobody would be surprised. But this is Brazil,” he said. “I’m really short on motive.”

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K+S potash mine project progressing on time and on budget – by Bruce Johnstone (Regina Leader Post – October 7, 2013)

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

Project near Bethune set to begin production in 2017

It looks more like a big oil discovery than a multi-billion-dollar mining project, but Saskatchewan’s first new potash mine in 40 years is taking shape and set to begin production in 2017, according to the head of K+S’s $4-billion Legacy mine project.

“We’re right on track, in terms of not only schedule, but budget,” said Sam Farris, vice-president and general manager of operations for K+S’s Legacy mine project.

The reason the Legacy project looks like a hot oil play is the presence of not one, but two, big drilling rigs on the gently rolling prairie just north of Buffalo Pound Lake. “They’re not much different than a conventional oil rig,” said Farris. In fact, the drilling rigs being used by K+S are oil drilling rigs operated by Akita Drilling Ltd. Instead of oil, however, K+S plans to produce a briny mixture composed of potash, salt and water from three different potash formations about 1,500 metres below the surface. That salty solution will be crystallized to form the “mother liquor” that will later be processed into three different potash products.

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Where have all the mining towns gone? – by Ashleigh Gaul (Up Here Magazine: Life in Canada’s Far North – September 2013)

http://uphere.ca/

They’re toxic and deserted wastelands – but to those who once lived there, the remains of mining communities are worth holding onto.

In July Susan Mather packed her family into a motor home. She drove north from Calgary, four kilometres past Yellowknife, to a skeletal timber headframe so rickety that cranes can’t set demolition workers on top to assess just how rickety it is. At its base, a yellow-and black-painted board reads, “Giant Mines Yellowknife, Ltd. Last injury: May 1999.”

That was six months before the last gold brick was poured in Yellowknife, and three years after Mather left her first home. These days, when she wants to visit, she books in advance. A mine manager escorts the family through a line of buildings in various states of disrepair.

They’re given hardhats, safety glasses, reflective vests and a rundown of safety precautions, then asked to log in. When Susan fills out a single line on behalf of the whole family, her son Karl jokes, “This isn’t a guest book, mom, it’s a log. This is a worksite.”

Estimated to cost between $500 million and $1 billion, Giant Mine and the townsite it built to house its workers might be the single largest industrial cleanup in Canadian history.

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New road connects Renard diamond mine with other “Plan Nord” jobs – by Russell Noble (Canadian Mining Journal – October 2013)

Russell Noble is the editor for the Canadian Mining Journal, Canada’s first mining publication.

Stornoway Diamond Corporation of Longueuil, QC is proud that its Renard Diamond Mine has been officially deemed “Quebec’s First Diamond Mine,” but the company is equally proud of one more of its achievements; its Renard Mine Road, a 97-km-long portion of a 240-km route that now links the mine with the public highway, Provincial Route 167, and the popular mining communities of Temiscamie and Chibougamau.

The new road is a two-lane, 8.5-m wide gravel passage completed two months ahead of schedule and on budget. It’s an all-season road that will now enable the company to continue developing its Renard Mine year round without delays in the delivery of machinery, supplies, or people.

In fact, the new road brings a feeling of “community” with other Quebec mining companies in central Quebec because it now “connects” the mine and its workers with a permanent road to and from the site.

Since 1996 when the property was discovered, Stornoway’s geologists and field crews have relied either on a seasonal road or air support.

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Nunavik’s Makivik Corp. wants impact and benefits agreements to remain private – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq On-line.ca – October 7, 2013)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Reforms to Quebec’s mining act don’t reflect existing agreements: Nunavik groups

Nunavik groups say proposed changes to Quebec’s mining act don’t go far enough to address the region’s distinct needs and existing agreements. Bill 43, a bill to reform Quebec’s mining act, was presented last spring, although public hearings on the bill wrapped up in Quebec City Oct. 1.

The draft bill imposes tougher environmental protections while increasing legal requirements for mining companies looking to explore in Quebec — changes that are welcomed in Nunavik.

But Makivik Corp. said the bill should not require that impact and benefits agreements between Nunavik and mining companies be made public. In other words, these should remain secret.

Article 163 of Bill 43 calls for information obtained from holders of mining rights to be made public as the provincial government sees fit.  That information includes the quantity and value of ore extracted, as well as the royalties paid out during the previous year.

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Brazil summons Canadian ambassador over spying allegations – by By Laura Payton (CBC News Politics – October 07, 2013)

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

Canadian officials refuse to say whether they monitored Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry

Brazil’s foreign affairs minister summoned Canada’s ambassador to the country to explain spying allegations, a Canadian official confirmed to CBC News Monday.

The summons, a serious diplomatic measure, comes the day after a Brazilian television report said the Communications Security Establishment Canada used phone and email metadata to map the communications of Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry.

Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado summoned Jamal Khokhar, Canada’s ambassador in Brasilia, on Monday.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tweeted Monday that her country’s Foreign Affairs Department would demand an explanation from Canada regarding the allegations, Reuters reported.

Canadian officials have refused to respond to questions by reporters about the allegations by TV Globo that the Communications Security Establishment Canada used phone and email metadata to map the communications of Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry.

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