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Mining for high risk capital – by Lisa Davis (The Lawyers weekly – July 19, 2013)

http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=main

In a tight market, flow-through share issuers require close scrutiny

If there was ever any doubt that the mining exploration sector is pinched for cash, consider recent reports that more than one-third of the companies listed on the resource-heavy TSX Venture Exchange have less than $200,000 of working capital — barely enough to maintain a public listing — and 70 per cent of them are trading at below 20 cents a share.

For what should be obvious reasons, lawyers acting for flow-through share issuers and intermediaries in this cash-dry environment need to be particularly diligent in ensuring resource-sector issuers fulfil their obligations and that investors get the tax benefits they bargained for.

In order to attract high-risk capital for mineral exploration, early stage resource exploration companies are able to issue flow-through shares entitling investors to a tax deduction equal to the subscription amount (plus additional tax credits specific to surface exploration and provincial incentives).

Under the flow-through regime, funds raised in Year 1 have to be spent by the end of Year 2.

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China’s GDP growth slows to 7.5 percent, tests reform push – by Langi Chiang and Jonathan Standing – Reuters U.S. – July 15, 2013)

http://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING – (Reuters) – China’s GDP growth slowed in the second quarter to 7.5 percent year-on-year as weak overseas demand weighed on output and investment, lining up a test of Beijing’s resolve to revamp the world’s second-biggest economy in the face of deteriorating data.

Other figures showed industrial output in June rising slightly less than forecast compared with a year earlier, but retail sales increasing more than had been expected.

The latest year-on-year economic growth reading compared with the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 7.5 percent and showed the pace of economic activity easing from 7.7 percent annual growth in January-March.

“These figures are not surprising, adding to signs of downward pressure on China’s economy,” said Zhou Hao, an economist at ANZ Bank in Shanghai. The Australian dollar, which is highly sensitive to Chinese demand for Australian raw materials, rose on relief the GDP numbers were not weaker, following last week’s report of a surprise fall in exports in June from a year earlier.

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Queen’s Park: Ontario’s economic future out of its hands as Ring of Fire languishes – by Ian Harvey (July 15, 2013)

http://www.lawtimesnews.com/

Ian Harvey has been a journalist for 35 years writing about a diverse range of issues including legal and political affairs. His e-mail address is ianharvey@rogers.com.

From beaver pelts to the oilsands, Canada’s economy has benefited from a blessed treasure trove of resources. Why else would anyone slog through dense bush while fighting mosquitoes, navigate huge waterways, and pound through granite but for those rich rewards?

Toronto’s financial district owes much to mining, forestry, and energy as a quick glance at the Toronto Stock Exchange attests. Look west and the British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan economies are booming while Ontario’s moribund manufacturing sector struggles with a petro dollar that puts mainstays like the auto makers on alert as labour costs rise.

It wasn’t always like this, of course. Hooked up to cheap hydro electric power, Ontario was the engine that drove the nation. But today, it languishes as a have-not province in Confederation while hamstrung by deficits and a debt that will hover like a thundercloud over successive governments for generations.

What Ontario needs today is money. It needs lots of it and it can’t come soon enough. But the future of Ontario is mired in its past as well as lingering questions over aboriginal rights and which land claims are valid.

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Q & A with David de Launay, ADM Ring of Fire – (Onotassiniik Magazine – Summer 2013)

Onotassiniik, Wawatay’s Mining Quarterly, sets out to provide knowledge and information about the mining industry in northern Ontario to First Nations communities, individuals and leaders throughout the region.

David de Launay is the Assistant Deputy Minister, Ring of Fire – Community Relations – Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines

David de Launay is a member of the Ontario’s Ring of Fire Secretariat. As an assistant deputy minister, de Launay is responsible for “community and government relations.” He replaced Deborah Richardson of Pabineau First Nation on the Secretariat after she announced in January she was taking a two-year leave from the Ontario government. Richardson had filled the position in August when Harvey Yesno left it for his successful bid to become grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Prior to joining the Secretariat, de Launay’s assistant deputy minister duties for the Cabinet Office of Ontario involved reviewing oil and gas pipeline development. He has spent most of his career working within the Ontario government in Aboriginal Affairs and the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Bryan Phelan, Onotassiniik editor, asked him in March about his important new role with the Ring of Fire Secretariat.

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The story hidden in grandfather rocks [Northern Ontario First Nations] – by Andy Fyon (Onotassiniik Magazine – Summer 2013)

Onotassiniik, Wawatay’s Mining Quarterly, sets out to provide knowledge and information about the mining industry in northern Ontario to First Nations communities, individuals and leaders throughout the region.

Andy Fyon is the Director of the Ontario Geological Survey, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines

Do you collect rocks? Isn’t it interesting how they’re all so different? Some rocks are round, others have sharp and pointy edges, some are colourful, and others are dull.

When I was a child, I collected rocks. I wondered about the stories they had to tell. Where did they come from? How did they arrive where I was standing? Why were there so many different types of rock in that small area?

That curiosity about rocks always remained with me, so, naturally, I became a geologist – a person who seeks knowledge about the earth: “ahki nanatookiikaenge gay wininii.” I am now the leader of the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines’ Ontario Geological Survey (OGS). We seek to understand the story hidden in the Ontario rocks, soils and landforms.

What is the Ontario Geological Survey?

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Marten Falls youth win mining video award – by Christian Quequish (Wawatay News – July 14, 2013)

http://wawataynews.ca/

Youth from Marten Falls First Nation were the recipients of the best overall video award for the Ontario Mining Association’s 2013 So You Think You Know Mining video contest this past June.

The winning youth from Marten Falls were: Christian Peters, Matthew Waboose, Allen Waboose, Jared Peters, Drew Waboose, Craig and Skye Achneepineskum. The filmmakers travelled to Toronto to attend a ceremony at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) that recognized the winning contestants.

“Visiting Toronto was awesome, I got to meet new people and visit the CN tower,” said Drew Waboose, one of the recipients of the mining video award of $5,000 and a trophy. “My mom was so proud when she found out we won first place. Hearing my group’s name get called I felt happy because we never thought we were going to win.”

Allen Waboose, another one of the filmmakers, said some of the challenges during production were getting a boat to use for the film and climbing on top of the community arena to get a good shot of a helicopter flying in supplies. “It started off with Kaitlyn Ferris (of Noront Resources), it wasn’t all my idea,” said Allen Waboose. “She came to my reserve and I just randomly joined the project.”

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Industrial policy is back — except in Ontario – by Eugene Lang (Toronto Star – July 14, 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.

Eugene Lang is BMO Visiting Fellow at the School of Public and International Affairs, Glendon College, York University.

Countries with robust industrial policies — especially in Asia and other emerging markets — have seen superior growth performance post-recession.

Industrial policy — government interventions to grow and improve the competitiveness of select industries — is back in fashion, according to a new paper by John M. Curtis and Dan Ciuriak published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP).

In fact, industrial policies never really went out of style, except in the Anglo-American democracies. For the past three decades governments in the Anglosphere — regardless of the party in power — have shied away from industrial policies and embraced the notion that state interventions to promote specific economic sectors usually do more harm than good. This is allegedly because governments don’t have the necessary information to “pick winners.” The market, according to this view, is always far superior at allocating resources than any government ever could be.

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Double Standards (Vale waste spill) – St. John’s Telegram Editorial (July 13, 2013)

http://www.thetelegram.com/

There’s an old saying about money and moguls: if you owe the bank $10,000 and you can’t pay, you’re in trouble. But if you owe the bank $10 million and you can’t pay, your banker’s in trouble.

It’s got to do with scale: essentially, there’s a point at which your size creates its own kind of motion — or its own kind of inertia — and you end up being treated differently than anyone else might be.

Keep that in mind and ask yourself if it might apply to this question: if Vale/Inco has a problem with toxic waste spilled into Arctic waters, is that really their problem or, given their size, is it a problem for the provincial government?

Because Vale is having a problem — one that they may well be trying very hard to solve, and one that the federal government has recently charged them over. Vale was charged with three charges related to the release of toxic materials into Anaktalak Bay in Labrador.

But just try getting anyone to talk about not only the issues involved in the case, or about Vale’s past record of failing a series of tests on effluent, and you find that everyone is pretty much mum.

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Opposition critic Norm Miller says government policies hinder mining – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – July 12, 2013)

http://resourceclips.com/

Ontario: A partisan view

Is Ontario’s Liberal government out of touch with the exploration and mining sector? Certainly there’s been widespread criticism from a range of sources. Early-stage explorers say they’re unfairly burdened by new regulations. A formidable entity like Cliffs Natural Resources took shots at the province when suspending the Ring of Fire’s largest project. Most recently, Northern Graphite TSXV:NGC CEO Gregory Bowes said bureaucratic delays put his company at a competitive disadvantage. On July 12 ResourceClips.com spoke with an admittedly partisan source, Norm Miller, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives’ official opposition critic for Northern Development and Mines.

As a mining jurisdiction, Ontario once held first place in the Fraser Institute survey, Miller says—conveniently for him, when his party was in power and current leader Tim Hudak was minister of Northern Development and Mines. Now the province ranks 16th, down from 13th last year. “I think the delays Northern Graphite faces are part of the reason,” he says.

He’s heard this from other companies. The privately held Ontario Graphite, which says it plans to start mining in Q4, is located in Miller’s riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka. “They had similar challenges getting their permits and it was getting critical for them at one point,” he says. “They came to me as their MPP to try to speed the process up.”

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NEWS RELEASE: MEGA PRECIOUS METALS INC. ALLOWED TO CONTINUE WORK AT THE MONUMENT BAY PROJECT

Thunder Bay, Ontario (July 12, 2013)

Mega Precious Metals Inc. (MGP-TSX-V) and Rolling Rock Resources Corporation (Mega): Further to the news release of July 4, 2013, the Court of the Queen’s Bench, Manitoba has granted an indefinite extension of the injunction and Mega is able to continue its planned exploration work at its Monument Bay Project.

Mega sought the injunction in response to a “Stop Work Order” and a “Notice of Eviction” Letter delivered to Mega on July 2, 2013 by Chief Leslie Harper of the Red Sucker Lake First Nation (RSLFN).

Glen Kuntz, President and CEO stated “Mega remains interested in exploring further opportunities for collaboration with RSLFN to those already in place.” Mega has been actively engaged with RSLFN since 2010 and believes that it continues to demonstrate respect for RSLFN’ Treaty rights.

Mega Precious Metals has had all of the necessary permits from the Government of Manitoba to operate its camp and to conduct exploration activities on Crown land in the Monument Bay project area since December of 2010. The permits that Mega has received from the Manitoba Government provide for continued engagement with Aboriginal communities to ensure that traditional activities and areas of cultural significance are protected and respected.

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[Mining Documentary] Pandora’s Promise rethinks nuclear power: review – by Linda Barnard (Toronto Star – July 12, 2013)

(Above) Pandora’s Promise – Official Clip #1 (HD) Documentary

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.

Pandora’s Promise makes some compelling points about how a global acceptance of nuclear power could save the environment.

The “beginning of a movement,” heralded at the end of director Robert Stone’s Pandora’s Promise, won’t be one to make some environmentalists smile, but it will certainly spark a lively debate on both sides of the nuclear power issue.

In that regard, Oscar-nominee Stone (for 1988’s Radio Bikini, about nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll) has achieved a documentarian’s aims. But there’s not much in the way of balance in this often bone-dry documentary about the bum rap nuclear power has gotten thanks to misinformed, if well-meaning, environmentalists and energy experts.

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Global Iron Ore Shortage Looms Due to Rio Tinto’s Delay in WA Mine Expansion – by Vittorio Hernandez (International Business Times – July 12, 2013)

http://au.ibtimes.com/commodities/

JPMorgan warned of a global iron ore shortage because of Rio Tinto’s (ASX: RIO) plan to delay the expansion of its $5.4-billion iron ore mine in Western Australia. The bank reviewed Rio’s plan to boost its yearly production of the key steelmaking ingredient commodity by 70 million tonnes.

Although the second-largest global miner has began building the port and rail capacity, it has not yet committed to the mine expansion, which would delay the iron ore ramp-up by three years from the current 2016 target.

As it is, Rio is expected to report this week a 2-million-tonne shortage of iron ore production for Q2 due to the rains and conveyor belt problems. The delay in expansion plans is because Rio, like the other large miners, are reducing spending and cost due to lower demand and commodity prices in the international market.

Besides delaying expansions and slashing costs, mining companies are also reducing the compensation packages of their executives. Rio’s new iron ore chief executive, Andrew Harding, axed about 50 middle management position at the company’s iron ore office in Perth.

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The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013 – by Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt (July 2013)

(Above) Pandora’s Promise – Official Clip #1 (HD) Documentary

For the full report, click here: http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/20130712msc-worldnuclearreport2013-lr-v2.pdf

Foreword by Peter A. Bradford, Adjunct Professor, Vermont Law School, teaching “Nuclear Power and Public Policy”, former commissioner U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Co.

Nuclear power requires obedience, not transparency. The gap between nuclear rhetoric and nuclear reality has been a fundamental impediment to wise energy policy decisions for half a century now. For various reasons in many nations, the nuclear industry cannot tell the truth about its progress, its promise or its perils. Its backers in government and in academia do no better.

Rhetorical excess from opponents of nuclear power contributes to the fog, but proponents have by far the heavier artillery. During the rise and fall of the bubble formerly known as “the nuclear renaissance” in the U.S. many of their tools have been on full display.

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Opportunity Knocked: Is Ontario Compounding the Challenges Faced by Explorers and Miners? (Stockhouse.com – July 12, 2013)

http://www.stockhouse.com/

Opportunity Knocked: Is Ontario Compounding the Challenges Faced by Explorers and Miners?

Working in Ontario has become a competitive disadvantage, according to at least one CEO. Explorers have already expressed widespread disenchantment with new mining regulations that took full effect last April. Then Cliffs Natural Resources partly blamed government intransigence for the company’s decision to suspend its Ring of Fire chromite project. Now Northern Graphite (V.NGC) CEO Gregory Bowes has slammed the province’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines for what he says are unaccountable delays.

In a July 8 news release, Bowes said his company submitted a mine closure plan for its Bissett Creek project to the ministry on October 31, 2012. “This ‘45-day approval process’ has been ongoing for over seven months despite Bissett Creek being a relatively benign operation with no major environmental issues. It has strong community support and first nation consultations have been positive and constructive,” the news release stated.

According to the company, the ministry completed its review but must issue a mining lease before it can approve the project. The company applied for the lease in October 2011. The following July, the company stated, it was ordered to “redo” a government survey. “The survey was submitted to the surveyor general’s office in November 2012 for a 30-day approval process but a mining lease has still not been issued. The company believes approval is imminent but cannot provide further guidance and suggests any interested parties contact the MNDM directly.”

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Bruised by purity rule, Indonesia tin exporters face trading overhaul – by Michael Taylor and Yayat Supriatna (Reuters India – July 12, 2013)

http://in.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, July 12 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s plans to force tin producers to trade through a domestic exchange could be a new source of disruption for shipments by the world’s top exporter, coming just as firms are trying to meet new tin purity rules, industry sources said.

The Southeast Asian nation has been trying to boost its profile in commodities markets in the hope of setting its own price benchmarks, but so far has faced an uphill task to attract enough liquidity to challenge benchmarks on overseas exchanges.

Under the new rules, all 51 registered tin exporters must trade on a domestic exchange after August 29. The trading plan is in addition to new rules brought in this month to raise minimum purity levels for tin exports to 99.9 percent, which are already expected to slash exports over the next few months, potentially lifting tin prices.

The Indonesia Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (ICDX) launched the country’s only physical tin contract last year, although it has struggled to challenge the dominant London Metal Exchange (LME) contract. “The new trading rules will promote sustainable tin mining, (and) will be good for producers and Indonesia,” said Megain Widjaja, ICDX’s chief executive, assuring there could be a transparent market with a fair price for producers and buyers.

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