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UN must challenge Canada’s complicity in mining’s human rights abuses – by Meera Karunananthan (The Guardian – April 24, 2013)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Canada is due for review at the UN human rights council – abuses by its mining companies must not be overlooked

Canada is scheduled for its universal periodic review (UPR) at the UN human rights council on 26 April. The UPR is an international mechanism established in 2006 to hold governments accountable for their human rights records. According to Ban Ki-moon, the review has the potential “to promote and protect human rights in the darkest corners of the world”.

When Canada stands before the UN to have its “darkest corners” examined, the international community must not turn a blind eye to its complicity with a global mining industry whose corporations are among the worst human rights and environmental offenders in the world.

The abuses by Canadian mining companies are a systemic part of an economic development policy that disregards human rights and disdains the environment. It is no coincidence that Canada is now home to 75% of the world’s mining companies, the majority operating overseas. The Canadian government has accelerated its pursuit of investment treaties in the global south to serve the interests of the extractive industry. These treaties allow companies to challenge environmental, public health or other resource-related policies that affect mining profits.

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Nickel City digs in to recognize mining industry – by Darren MacDonald (Sudbury Northern Life – April 24, 2013)

 http://www.northernlife.ca/

The city built on rock is gearing up to celebrate a week dedicated to Modern Mining and Technology Sudbury, which runs April 27-May 4.

A number of events are planned for the week, which kicks off Saturday with a Mining Industry Display and Career Fair from 9 a.m. To 5 p.m. at the New Sudbury Centre.

The event offers an opportunity for everyone to learn about mining and mining-related industries. In 2011, roughly 36 per cent of Sudburians were working in mining.

About 30 per cent of workers across northeastern Ontario worked in mining, and 19 per cent in northwestern Ontario. Employment in the southern part of the province, which is home to a number of non-metal mines, as well as mining head offices in Toronto, represented 15 per cent in 2011.

The mall display has evolved to include a career fair highlighted by mining exhibits, industry experts, mining supply and services providers and representations from government and educational institutions.

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NDP leader’s green pandering could return B.C. to dark ages – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – April 24, 2013)

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

With only three weeks to go to the British Columbia provincial election, the anti-resource development stance of the favoured candidate, NDP leader Adrian Dix, is looking scary.

With only three weeks to go to the British Columbia provincial election, the anti-resource development stance of the favoured candidate, NDP leader Adrian Dix, is looking scary.

In fact, it’s looking so anti-Canadian and, in particular, so damaging to Alberta’s interests that Mr. Dix, if elected, can kiss off any constructive relationship with his provincial neighbors.

Pandering to the anti-fossil fuels movement, which seems to have hijacked the election, Mr. Dix on Monday effectively declared his opposition to Kinder Morgan’s plan to expand its TransMountain pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C.

Already opposed to Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline plan, Mr. Dix’s TransMountain flip-flop would bar growth in oil sands exports from the West Coast, effectively killing plans for a new market for Canadian oil in Asia. The damage to Canada’s economy would be immense.

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NEWS RELEASE: LAURENTIAN UNIVERSITY CELEBRATES “THE NEXT 50 CAMPAIGN”

Over $65M invested during university’s most successful fund-raising drive

SUDBURY, ON (Thursday, March 28, 2013) – Laurentian University today celebrated the success of the most ambitious fund-raising campaign in its history. Launched as part of Laurentian’s 50th anniversary celebrations, “The Next 50 Campaign” set a fund-raising target of $50M to fuel the university’s growth and drive creativity, innovation and prosperity. The campaign has exceeded its goal and has raised more than $65.2M in private gifts alone excluding investments made by governments.

“The support shown for The Next 50 Campaign, both by members of the Sudbury community and donors across the country, has been quite extraordinary,” said Laurentian University President and Vice-Chancellor Dominic Giroux. “There is a growing awareness of the strengths of Laurentian’s signature programs, the expertise of its faculty, and the quality of its graduates. The university is clearly succeeding in its objective to build a national and international reputation for excellence.”

At each donor’s request, funds received in support of The Next 50 Campaign were earmarked for a variety of university projects and initiatives, including the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, the Centre for Excellence in Mining, expansion of the Ben Avery Centre, the Indigenous Sharing and Learning Centre, the Goodman School of Mines, student scholarships and bursaries and cutting–edge research and studies. The tremendous momentum the campaign has generated will allow Laurentian’s Development staff to continue to identify and engage new donors in support of the university’s strategic directions.

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Potash Corp. sees rising demand in North America, overseas markets – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail)

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.

The clouds are parting over the global potash market, the world’s largest producer of the crop nutrient says.

After four consecutive quarters of falling profit, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan said Thursday it’s seeing higher sales to China, Latin America and India as customers are lured back by low prices after a buyers’ strike last year.

“We believe we are in a recovery year this year,” Bill Doyle, the ever-optimistic chief executive officer of Potash Corp. and the industry’s most vocal champion, said on a conference call with analysts on Thursday. “The impact was evident in our first-quarter earnings.”

Global potash demand slumped hard last year as key consumers in India and China delayed signing new contracts with producers for months, resisting high prices for the nutrient used to strengthen plant stalks against drought and disease. The impasse ended in December when Canpotex Ltd., the joint venture of Potash Corp., Agrium Inc. and Mosaic Co. that sells potash outside of North America, agreed to significantly lower-priced long-term contracts.

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Centerra Gold and Kyrgyzstan: time for a marriage counsellor – by David Trilling (Globe and Mail/Report on Business Magazine – April 26, 2013)

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.

The guys who had set up the roadblock agreed to meet me in the dirt lane outside the village of Barskoon’s school. At sunset, as arranged, a black Mercedes-Benz comes creeping along the edge of the soccer field. An electric window drops and a hand waves me over. The local “youth council” has arrived to talk about the gold mine.

The question at the heart of our meeting: Is a Canadian mining company here in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan taking advantage of the locals, as the young men say–or the other way around?

Naris Kalchayev and his two friends, all in their 20s, look a little out of place in the village. Kalchayev prefers speaking Russian over Kyrgyz. Wearing a turquoise baseball cap with a Superman decal pulled low over his eyes, he looks like a nightclub DJ—not a shepherd, like most of the local guys.

Kalchayev says he’s concerned about what’s happening on the remote plateau far above this sleepy hamlet. But it’s unclear if he is legitimately worried about the environment and corruption, or is just political muscle. He might be more persuasive if he didn’t use the words “blah, blah, blah” to punctuate his arguments.

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Brazil’s Vale ‘Confident’ in Direction of New Mining Laws – by Paul Kiernan (Wall Street Journal – April 25, 2013)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

RIO DE JANEIRO–Brazil’s Vale SA (VALE, VALE5.BR) has taken a largely favorable view toward a major overhaul of the country’s mining regulations that the government expects to send to Congress in coming weeks, Chief Executive Murilo Ferreira said Thursday.

“We’re confident in the new mining framework in Brazil, that it won’t create constraints and that it will bring motivation for investments,” Mr. Ferreira said in a conference call with analysts to discuss the company’s first-quarter results.

He expressed doubt that the regulations, which are widely expected to raise royalties charges levied on Brazilian mining companies, would include a so-called special-participation tax by the federal government on large projects. Analysts earlier this year had expected such a tax, which would come on top of steeper royalties fees.

“I think on a series of doubts that the market had, we’re going in a very positive direction,” Mr. Ferreira said.

Regarding the other black cloud that has hung over Vale’s share price in recent months–the company’s roughly $15 billion in disputed tax liabilities–executives offered little news. General Counsel Clovis Torres said, however, that the company won’t have to set aside guarantees that are normally required in disputes with tax authorities.

–Brazil’s Vale sees 30 million-40 million tons of additional iron-ore capacity to pressure prices in second-half 2012

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Utah copper mine landslide will hurt state economy – by Paul Foy (Associated Press/Houston Chronicle – April 26, 2013)

http://www.chron.com/

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The landslide that washed over the terraced steps of a mining pit nearly a mile deep left only the tip of one giant electric-powered shovel poking out of the dirt. The rubble buried three of them, along with 14 enormous haul trucks.

Even more of Kennecott Utah Copper’s equipment lay buried under uneven piles of rubble as high as 300 feet at the bottom of the pit west of Salt Lake City.

It will take months for the major U.S. copper mine to recover from the devastating landslide, even though it had been anticipated by the company. It ran farther out than expected, burying equipment that had been staged there for a dig-out.

Yet company officials tried to sound optimistic Thursday as they opened Bingham Canyon mine to view for the first time since the April 10 slide. “There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a future in mining here,” Kennecott Utah Copper chief Kelly Sanders said. “We’ll meet this challenge.”

Sanders said the company might be able to resume limited ore digging within days, but a full recovery could take a year. Kennecott, which will work from a stockpile, will run out of copper in months and has cut its production goal for 2013 by half. The company has asked 2,100 workers to take vacation or unpaid leave, but few are doing so yet.

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Brazil on cusp of domestic potash and phosphate revolution – by Simon Rees (MiningWeekly.com – April 25, 2013)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Fertilisers and their increased application will be vital in driving Brazil’s status as a global agricultural powerhouse. The country is already the world’s fourth-largest consumer, according to Reuters.

Rather than rely on imported raw material for fertiliser production, Brazil’s government is keen to facilitate the growth of a robust domestic potash and phosphate industry. Several significant projects are already in various stages of development, including those being advanced by MBAC, Brazil Potash and Verde Potash.

MBAC is close to bringing on stream its Itafós project, located in the vast Cerrado area, Brazil’s new agricultural frontier.

Construction work is just more than 90% complete, with proven reserves standing at 15.9-million tons and probable reserves at 48.9-million tons. Life of mine is estimated at 19 years, with an average ore grade of 5.08% P2O5 (phosphorus pentoxide). Yearly output is estimated at an initial 500 000 tons single super phosphate (SSP).

“We’ve accomplished a lot over the last four years: we’ve drilled over 75 000 m; obtained the necessary permits and filed the necessary technical reports; [and] secured financing in difficult market conditions,” MBAC VP corporate development Steve Burleton told Mining Weekly Online.

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Golden opportunities ahead: mining report – by Carl Clutchey (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – April 26, 2013)

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

Northwestern Ontario’s burgeoning mining sector is expected to create 10,000 full-time jobs over the next decade and bring in up to $1.7 billion in overall economic revenue each year over the same period, says an exhaustive report.

But Thunder Bay’s Mining Readiness Strategy also warns that the city, the province, outlying municipalities and Aboriginal agencies have a lot of work to do to prepare for the boom: energy needs, housing shortages, aging roads and sewers, and worker training are all areas that need to be quickly addressed.

The overall buoyant outlook in the report suggests that the region will not be left out when the province’s economic recovery kicks in, as was the case during the forestry crash.

Spearheaded by Thunder Bay’s Community Economic Development Commission, the study was deemed complete Thursday and posted to the city’s website.

The rosy forecast is based on 10 new mines or major expansions, nine of which are in the advanced stage of exploration, including the Ring of Fire, Stillwater Canada’s proposed copper and palladium mine near Marathon and Goldcorp’s Channel Gold project at Red Lake.

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Lower mineral, energy prices bound to hurt B.C., economist says – by By Gordon Hamilton (Vancouver Sun – April 25, 2013)

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

Analysts differ on timing and effect of the end of commodities ‘super-cycle’

Commodities, the lifeblood of the British Columbia economy, are at the beginning of a long, downward trend that is bound to affect both government and households, says a Simon Fraser University economist.

“We have seen the best days in terms of dramatic increases in commodity prices,” David Jacks, an economic historian at the university, said in an interview.

He said commodities, particularly minerals and energy, are characterized by long-term trends related to global industrialization and urbanization. That growth runs up against capacity constraints, particularly in minerals and energy, leading to rising prices. New capacity to meet the new demand then leads to prices easing.

The current cycle, which has been going on since 1998, is being driven by Asian, specifically Chinese, economic growth and urbanization. Jacks has written a paper, From Boom to Bust, on the super-cycle, which he prepared for a recent conference in Australia on commodity price volatility. Jacks said his is not the only voice warning that commodities are beginning to trend downward in price — investment bankers Goldman Sachs and Citybank have done the same.

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Sulawesi Mining to Invest $1.06b in Smelter – by Damiana Ningsih Simanjuntak (Jakarta Globe – April 26, 2013)

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/

Sulawesi Mining Investment, an Indonesian-Chinese joint venture company, plans to invest $1.06 billion in a Central Sulawesi nickel mining operation, including a plan to build a smelter, an industry executive said on Thursday.

Alexander Barus, vice president of Bintangdelapan Mineral, the Indonesian firm in the venture, said that some $96 million would go toward the smelter and support the power plant in Morowali, Central Sulawesi, while $100 million would be for the mine and supporting facilities.

Halim Mina, vice president commissioner of Sulawesi Mining, said that the investment would be split into two stages. “For the first phase, the investment will stand at $340 million and the second phase at $640 million,” Halim said.

“The plan is for the first phase to become operational at the end of 2014,” he added, noting that about 30 percent of the first phase had already been completed.

He said the smelter’s output would mostly be exported to China, but gave no details, adding only that its products would be marketed domestically “in line with the demand” for nickel.

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The duty to consult [in Ring of Fire] needs support – by Shawn Bell (Wawatay News – April 25, 2013)

http://wawataynews.ca/

The tragedies of multiple suicides in Neskantaga, and the First Nation’s declaration of a state of emergency, should be a wakeup call for everyone involved in trying to push the Ring of Fire ahead.

If there ever is a time for people working in government and in the mining industry to step back and look at the big picture, this is it. Seven tragic deaths have shaken the community of 420 people over the past year. Another 20 people tried to end their own life but failed. Everyone is exhausted, emotionally and physically.

Meanwhile, as councilor Roy Moonias said, Neskantaga is under “overwhelming pressure” from mining companies and governments who want to negotiate with the community on the Ring of Fire mining development.

The situation taking place now is a repeat of what happened in December. At that time Neskantaga was also dealing with youth suicides. A crisis intervention team was in the community. Meanwhile the deadline to respond to the terms of reference on Cliffs’ Natural Resources environmental assessment was coming up quick.

At that time Neskantaga’s only option, if it wanted to respond to an environmental assessment on a project that could profoundly change northern Ontario, was to ask for an extension in light of “exceptional circumstances”.

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Kasabonika pondering economic development opportunities – by Lenny Carpenter (Wawatay News – April 25, 2013)

http://wawataynews.ca/

Although the community of Kasabonika Lake First Nation recently celebrated the grand opening of a new Northern Store, it finds itself struggling to identify economic opportunities due to a lack of electricity.

“There’s no room for growth,” said Ken Albany, a band councillor with the First Nation. “It goes back to the capacity of the power plant. It’s basically holding us back.”

The power station in the community reached its maximum capacity in 2007. Kasabonika secured funding from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development of Canada (AANDC) to upgrade the generators to 2 MW, but then the federal government pulled the funding and told the community not to expect funds until 2015.

“The federal government has failed us,” said Mitchell Diabo, manager of special projects for the First Nation. “They say we’re on their top priority list but we have no idea when that is.”

The lack of power capacity has severely limited construction of any houses or projects, including a business centre the First Nation had hoped to build in the community. The proposed business centre would have housed the Northern Store and offered space for any potential entrepreneur to start up a business such as a coffee shop or deli.

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Dix’s pipeline flip-flop is a resource chiller – by Gary Mason (Globe and Mail – April 26, 2013)

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.

The B.C. election was proceeding along fairly uneventfully until NDP Leader Adrian Dix decided to make it interesting.

Mr. Dix used Earth Day to reverse his previously held position on the proposed $5.4-billion Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. As recently as two weeks ago, Mr. Dix was saying that – as a matter of principle – he would not prejudge the pipeline builder’s plans until they’d been filed as part of the federal environmental review process later this year. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait any longer.

Now Mr. Dix is against the project, saying he doesn’t believe Vancouver should become a major oil exporting port. Kinder Morgan wants to triple its current pipeline capacity, from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 – a move that would significantly increase tanker traffic in the port of Vancouver.

While surprising, the NDP Leader’s position isn’t the roll of the dice it might seem. There are plenty of people in the province who agree with his position, and not just those who make up the enviro brigade. Support for the expanded pipeline is particularly low in the Vancouver area. Many First Nations groups don’t want it, either. That said, it’s widely accepted that Mr. Dix jumped off his earlier stand because of the threat an ascendant Green Party poses for him.

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