Republic of Mining

[Saskatchewan] Gold mining set to increase – by Trilby Henderson (Regina Leader-Post – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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

With its massive production potential, northern Saskatchewan is securing its seat as one of the best locations in the world to mine gold. For the province’s gold production companies, this fact comes as no surprise as they find themselves on pace to achieve major production milestones in 2012.

Neil McMillan, president and CEO of Claude Resources, said the company is on track to draw its one millionth ounce of gold from its Seabee Gold Operation by August this year.

“A one-million-ounce ore body is considered a world-class ore body,” McMillan said. “But in many respects, we think we’re just getting started because we have the potential to expand that producing asset from 50,000 ounces per year, probably into the 100,000 ounces per year range in the next three to four years.”

Claude first began commercial production at the Seabee Gold Mine, located about 125 kilometres northeast of La Ronge, in late 1991 and has been in constant operation since then, churning out about 50,000 ounces of gold each year.

Mulcair digs in for long debate on ‘Dutch disease’ – by Gloria Galloway (Globe and Mail – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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.

Thomas Mulcair says it was never his intent to spar with the leaders of the Western provinces as he blames Alberta’s oil sands for the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in Canada’s other economic sectors.

“I have far too much respect for provincial premiers or for provincial politicians, having been one myself for so many years, to ever want to be interpreted as trying to dismiss them,” the Leader of the federal New Democrats, who was once a provincial cabinet minister in Quebec, said on Friday in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

“And if that is the way it was interpreted, of course,” he said, “I regret it.”

But Mr. Mulcair continues to press his belief that allowing development of the oil sands to proceed without demanding a greater price for the toll on the environment is driving up the dollar and hurting a wide range of industries including manufacturing, fishing and forestry. New Democrats say that without the oil companies paying the true cost of environmental remediation, their profits are unrealistically high and that is driving up the dollar.

St. John’s refuelled 20 years after the cod died – by John Spears (Toronto Star – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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.

ST. JOHN’S, NL—Moya Cahill lives in St. John’s but her business takes her half-way round the globe – and she has her eye on the other half. An engineer and naval architect by trade, Cahill owns one firm providing engineering and project management services based in Qatar.

With business partner Jacques Guigné, she’s also working full time on a second firm that’s developed unique acoustic-imaging technology for offshore industries probing beneath the seafloor.

Cahill’s ventures are one example of the new breed of outward-looking business growing up in a brash new capital that’s reaping the fruits of an unprecedented resource boom.

As Memorial University economist Wade Locke argues, Newfoundland is now Canada’s biggest petro-province, with a high proportion of its provincial revenue coming from oil (about 40 per cent) than Alberta, at about 30 per cent. Newfoundlanders’ personal incomes have shot above the national average.

Pipelines to prosperity? – by Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew (Toronto Star – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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.

For most Canadians, the 700,000 km of crude oil and natural gas pipelines that criss-cross the country are out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Until the massive energy infrastructure intersects with international politics, the economy and environmental activism.

Projects like Keystone XL, Enbridge’s Line 9, Northern Gateway bristle with controversy (despite U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pledge Friday to approve Keystone on his first day in office).

But the pipelines that carry millions of barrels of oil and millions of cubic feet of natural gas could transport Canada itself into the ranks of the world’s energy super powers.

But only if we move beyond our single biggest customer, the U.S., and begin supplying energy to the rest of the world – particularly energy-gobbling emerging markets, soon.

‘We weren’t even listened to'[Ring of Fire First Nations ignored] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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

Chief Sonny Gagnon of Aroland First Nation visited Sudbury on Thursday to begin what he says will be a process of educating other First Nations about developments related to the Ring of Fire and his community’s involvement in them.

Gagnon met with leaders from Atikameksheng Anishnawbek or Whitefish Lake First Nation, but would not say what was discussed at the two-hour session.

“There are a lot of dark areas where we have to enlighten ourselves,” the chief said Friday in a telephone interview from northwestern Ontario. “I think they know what happened in the past with Sudbury,” he said of the First Nation located 20 kilometres west of the city.

Gagnon says his community is not anti-development, but he doesn’t like the way the decision was made on the location of the ferrochrome smelter that Cliffs Natural Resources plans to build near Capreol.

The chief is “ticked off ” about the fact Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci, who is Sudbury’s Liberal MPP, did not consult with his community before the decision about the smelter was announced last Wednesday.

Searching for the universe’s secrets [at Creighton Mine] – by Rita Poliakov (Sudbury Star – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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

Tony Noble thrives underground. Two kilometres beneath the Earth’s surface, he strides from cavern to cavern, stopping to show off a lack of piping or a water chamber or a tall, thin device filled with liquid.

“It’s like a giant coffee percolator,” he says. “The water comes in at the top and falls down, allowing gas to diffuse out of the surface. Any gas in the water is stripped out. We’re worried about radon.”

Radon, it seems, is only the beginning of his concerns. Noble and his fellow scientists fervently try to avoid radioactivity. Everything in the underground lab is designed to reduce it. The floors are made of acrylic, the walls are

smoothed down so they’re easy to clean and all personnel are required to shower and change before entering. The facility is the deepest and cleanest underground lab of its kind in the world, meaning it has about 100 million times less radioactivity than what’s typically found above ground. “Any radioactivity is a problem for us,” Noble says.

This is because Noble is showing off SNOLAB, a 5,000- square-foot facility where the secrets of the universe are examined and broken down. The lab was built deep in Vale’s Creighton Mine and has received around $70 million in funding.

Inquiry needed into mining practices – by Gerry Lougheed Jr. (Sudbury Star – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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

John Donne wrote “Every man’s death diminishes me — for I am involved with mankind and therefore do not send to know for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee.”

On June 8 last year, the funeral bell tolled telling us that Jason Chenier and Jordan Fram were killed at Stobie Mine. We were a diminished people. No one should go to work with a lunch bag and leave work in a body bag. The tragedy not only took two lives, but it altered permanently the lives of the people who loved and lived with Jason and Jordan.

April 28 is Worker’s Memorial Day. The day’s motto is “Mourn the Dead and Fight for the Living.” I was asked to speak at the ceremony organized by the local Steelworkers to provide a better context and commitment to the motto’s “mourning” and “fighting”. As a funeral director for more than 30 years, I understand the “mourning.” It is a journey often difficult with many pitfalls and pit stops to vent normal feelings and find new directions.

In an effort to express the mourning of a mine accident, I contacted a woman whose husband was killed and whose name would be commemorated at the ceremony. I asked her if she could speak at the gathering, what she would say. What did our community need to hear? She said she would think about it and call me back. She did. She explained she wrote a letter to her deceased husband. This is what it said …

Most Cliffs jobs will be in the Northwest – by Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – May 19, 2012)

May 19, 2012

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

Michael Gravelle, MPP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, is Ontario’s Minister of Natural Resources.

There is very good reason for everyone in Northwestern Ontario to be excited about the growth of the mining sector in our part of the province. Mineral exploration investments are at an all-time high and we can expect the opening of several new mines in the region to employ hundreds, if not thousands of people, which will drive the economy forward to levels we have not seen before. These opportunities are being embraced by First Nations and municipal governments all across the region as they seek to seize the long-term benefits this renaissance in mining will provide.

There is no question that the project that has captured the most attention is the Ring of Fire, where an unprecedented level of investment is poised to bring economic benefits and jobs to thousands of people for many years to come.

While there are a number of companies making significant investments in this resource-rich part of the Northwest, most of the public attention over the past year or so has been focused on Cliffs Natural Resources, a U.S.-based firm that is eager to take the next major step forward in the development of a huge project; one that, if managed properly, will bring extraordinary long-term economic benefits to many First Nations communities and municipalities across our region.

Selective outrage [in Ring of Fire First Nations] – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Editorial (May 17, 2012)

May 18, 2012

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

THE CHIEF of a First Nation near the Ring of Fire mineral deposit has said he’ll die before he allows a mining company to cross a river near his community to access its property. Neskantaga Chief Peter Moonias said Cliffs Natural Resources’ chromite development at the headwaters of the Attawapiskat River could destroy his community.

Moonias wrote to Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci to express disappointment with Ontario’s decision to support Cliffs’ multi-billion dollar plan including a north-south all-season road linking the mine with a rail line near Aroland First Nation and the nearby town of Nakina.

“These decisions will have significant adverse effects on our lands, environment and way of life,” Moonias wrote. “Your government has made these decisions without adequate consultation with Neskantaga, in breach of your legal duties . . . .”

Moonias threatened to “use every lawful means at our disposal” to oppose the Cliffs project — the largest single component of the biggest economic development opportunity to hit Northern Ontario in a lifetime.

Wanted: New deal – by PJ WILSON, QMI AGENCY (Sudbury Star – May 18, 2012)

May 18, 2012

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

NORTH BAY — Northern Ontarians will be able to let the provincial government know where they stand on the ONTC divestment.

A partnership between the Northern Communities Working Group and the Northern Regional Publishing Group of Sun Media is giving residents of the North their chance to get a new deal for Ontario Northland.

The 11 Sun Media newspapers in Northeastern Ontario — The Nugget, Sudbury Star, Sault Star, Timmins Daily Press, Cochrane Times Post, Elliot Lake Standard, Kapuskasing Northern Times, Espanola Mid-North Monitor and Kirkland Lake Northern News — will run ads and window inserts calling for a New Deal for Ontario Northland.

“We are looking to show the government that there is support for a new deal for Ontario Northland and that Northerners expect the premier … to come to the North and meet with Northern mayors,” said North Bay Mayor Al McDonald.

He said mayors across the North have been trying to meet with Premier Dalton McGuinty since the March 23 announcement the province would divest Ontario Northland, but “the premier refuses to meet with the mayors.”

Plans to dig in space are not that far out – by Brenda Dalglish (Globe and Mail – May 17, 2012)

May 18, 2012

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.

Although miners were the villains in James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar, about a 22nd-century mining colony exploiting a local tribe on a lush moon called Pandora, the Canadian-born director’s latest business project involves real-life asteroid mining.

Mr. Cameron has joined a group of technology tycoons, including Google chief executive officer Larry Page and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, in a company called Planetary Resources Inc., of Seattle, which announced a plan last month to work toward mining valuable minerals from asteroids for profit.

While it sounds more like a science fiction story than a business plan, the possibility of mining in space is rapidly emerging, and several Canadian companies and agencies are quietly working on projects that will be needed when the search for off-Earth resources begins.

“It’s a new paradigm. Canada is a mining country with a lot of mining expertise,” said Jean-Claude Piedboeuf, director of space exploration development with the Canadian Space Agency in Ottawa. “So what we’re looking at is how we can apply this expertise in space.”

BRICS: A hyped concept that needs to be retired – by David Olive (Toronto Star – May 15, 2012)

May 18, 2012

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.

As artificial constructs go, the phantom colossus of emerging economic superpowers known as BRICS has had an overhyped 11-year run and needs to be retired.

The acronym was coined by a global economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the New York investment bank, in 2001. At that time, Brazil, Russia, India and China – the first countries to which Wall Street applied this new marketing term (South Africa, the “S” in BRICS, was added last year) – were, or at least appeared to be, characterized by rapid GDP growth that outpaced the developed world, and the adoption of Western-friendly free-trade practices, deregulation policies, and streamlined bureaucracies.

If not one of the bigger hoaxes of the new century, the BRICS certainly aren’t the threat to the old world order they’ve long been touted as.

The torrid GDP growth rate that prevailed in the BRICS countries through the 2000s has markedly slowed in each of them. And the Western-friendly reforms have stalled or were stillborn.

Reviving Arctic oil rush, Ottawa to auction rights in massive area – by Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – May 17, 2012)

May 18, 2012

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— Ottawa has placed 905,000 hectares of the northern offshore up for bids, clearing the way for energy companies to snap up exploration rights for an area half the size of Lake Ontario. The scale of the offer indicates eagerness in the oil patch to drill for new finds in Canada’s northern waters less than two years after such plans were put on hold following the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a major Arctic drilling safety review.

The Arctic exploration auction resumes as the Harper government is promoting greater development of the country’s resources. It has taken steps to speed regulatory approvals for major energy projects such as the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, promising to limit the ability of environmental groups and other opponents to block or delay new developments.

The prospect of further northern drilling fits squarely with that mandate, said Jason MacDonald, spokesman for John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, which oversees the northern land auction.

“The bid call reflects the potential that we see for resource development,” he said.

Two Sudbury OMA contributors – Charlie Graham and Bob Onucki – gain CIM recognition

May 18, 2012

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.

Two significant and long-serving contributors to Ontario Mining Association activities and initiatives have recently been presented with major awards by the Canadian Institute of Mining. Bob Onucki, Senior Global Account Director Mining for Sandvik, won the CIM Distinguished Service Medal and Charlie Graham, Managing Director of the Canadian Mining Industry Research Organization (CAMIRO), was the first winner of the Underground Mining Society Award.

Presentations of these mining industry awards were made recently at the Canadian Institute of Mining’s 114th annual conference, which was held in Edmonton. Both Mr. Onucki and Mr. Graham are based in Sudbury. They were part of a contingent of 10 people from the Sudbury area who received recognition at this awards ceremony. The CIM Distinguished Service Medal was inaugurated in 1956. It is presented for distinguished and meritorious service to the CIM and the mineral industry, of a nature not necessarily technical or scientific.

“This award culminates 40 years of my being in the mining business and more than 25 of those years as a CIM member,” said Mr. Onucki, who has always been a champion of promoting students interested in the industry. “This award reminds me of the great people and interesting moments in the business and it is absolutely fantastic to be recognized by my peers.”

Image makeover needed to draw fresh talent to mining – by Brenda Dalglish (Globe and Mail – May 18, 2012)

May 18, 2012

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.

It is almost unheard of for CEOs to grant media interviews about human resource matters because in most companies hiring does not require the scarce resource of CEO attention.

But Steve Letwin, chief executive officer of Iamgold Corp., Canada’s sixth-largest gold producer last year with mines in Suriname, Burkina Faso, Mali and Quebec, not only agreed to be interviewed about the serious global labour shortage confronting the resource sector now, but he also spoke frankly about the striking adjustments his company is making to address the shortage of skilled workers.

“We have this massive gap between the mining people who are ready for retirement and young people who are willing to go to locations that are not downtown Toronto,” Mr. Letwin said. “We’ve raised our children – and I have three of them – to want the good life. That’s fine, but the good life is not defined as somewhere in West Africa or deep in the jungles of South America or northern Quebec. So to get people educated, trained and motivated to go to these spots is not exactly easy.”

The Mining Industry Human Resources Council was set up in 1996 to help mining workers transition out of the industry bec