Republic of Mining

Oil lobby lagging reality – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – December 23, 2011)

December 23, 2011

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

It may come as a surprise to some, but the organization that represents Canada’s oil and gas industry feels pretty good about public sentiment about its activities in both Canada and the United States.

David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the sector’s efforts to improve its environmental performance and its communication are succeeding and will continue along the same lines next year.

“I think we have been stepping up, the stepping up has been relatively successful to date, but we also recognize that we got some very focused and very well-funded and very committed opponents to what we do, and we need to continue to step up,” Mr. Collyer said in an interview.

“I think it’s very important not to construe the very strong and vocal opposition from environmental activists and what I would characterize as a very small part of civil society as representative of civil society. Our view is that there is broad public support of the oil and gas industry and we need to keep it there.”

Market forces to buffet potash – by Ryan W. Lijdsman (National Post – December 22, 2011)

December 23, 2011

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

Ryan W. Lijdsman is an international business consultant and freelance writer who has been working with various companies and governments in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

While BHP Billiton failed in its attempt to take over Potash Corp., it is succeeding in transforming the Canadian potash industry from supply management to free market. BHP and other new entrants are opening new potash mines that will sell directly to buyers, bypassing Canpotex. Over the long term, this transformation will be positive for both the industry and the governments that receive royalties, but in the short term the proposed supply increases are far greater than current demand, leading to market volatility as the forces of supply and demand clash.

Canadian potash has traditionally been exported through Canpotex, a producer-owned export cartel made up of Potash Corp., Mosaic and Agrium. Canpotex manages the price and volume of exports and with the other large global exporter Belarusian Potash Co. – a consortium that controls the exports of Belarusian and Russian potash – controls 70% of the export market.

The supply management that Canpotex provided producers has benefited the industry by providing stability when supply was greater than demand.

The Northern Miner 2011 “Mining Person of the Year” Ross Beaty – by John Cumming (December 22, 2011)

December 22, 2011

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. Editor John Cumming MSc (Geol) is one of the country’s most well respected mining journalists. jcumming@northernminer.com

Walter Gretzky famously advised his son Wayne to “skate where the puck’s going, not where it’s been.” In the mining industry today, there’s no better exemplar of someone living that kind of wisdom than entrepreneur Ross Beaty, our selection as 2011’s Northern Miner Person of the Year.

Based in Vancouver, Beaty has been a driving force behind many wildly successful mineral explorers and junior mining companies over almost four decades, and has already been well-rewarded and recognized for his efforts. Over the last 25 years he has started 12 public companies and sold eight of them, converting about $1 billion of investment capital into shareholder wealth of more than $5 billion.

But 2011 was framed by two particularly sweet periods for Beaty: in January there was full fruition of the long-predicted blossoming of the silver market and the benefits created for silver miner Pan American Silver, which was carefully created and nurtured by Beaty in the nineties during the nadir of the silver market (and where he still serves as chairman); and, in the closing months of 2011, the almost too-easy grassroots exploration success at Lumina Copper’s large and growing Taca Taca copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in Argentina – the last major unsold asset left from the bundle of large copper deposits that Beaty and his team gathered under one corporate roof in 2003, similarly during a period of low copper prices.

Canada well behind Russia in race to claim Arctic seaways and territory – by Paul Watson (Toronto Star – December 22, 2011)

December 22, 2011

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.

MURMANSK, RUSSIA—An Arctic winter storm is a vision of terror for seamen: hurricane force winds battering heaving decks encased in thick ice, an ordeal that can drag on for days cloaked in darkness.

So far north, rescue teams are usually a very distant hope. The sinking of a Russian oil rig Sunday in a howling gale off the coast of Sakhalin, on Russia’s Far East coast, left 53 crew members confirmed dead or lost at sea, and added a new chapter to the harrowing lore of Arctic navigation.

Yet as the Arctic climate warms, and vast polar ice sheets melt, international shipping companies are eagerly eyeing two routes across the top of the world — one along Russia’s northern coast, the other through waters claimed by Canada.

Russia has a decades-long lead in controlling its Arctic coast. If Canada doesn’t catch up in claiming territory, the country may not have the power to decide who navigates the Northwest Passage through a sweeping archipelago of more than 19,000 Canadian islands.

Attawapiskat’s ‘dire’ conditions are deeply concerning: UN human rights official- by Thandi Fletcher (National Post – December 20, 2011)

December 22, 2011

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

OTTAWA — A United Nations human rights expert says he is deeply concerned about the “dire” conditions in the Attawapiskat First Nation community.

“I have been in communication with the Government of Canada to express my deep concern about the dire social and economic condition of the Attawapiskat First Nation,” wrote James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, in a letter to the Canadian government published Tuesday on the UN website.

Anaya, who reports to the UN’s Human Rights Council, said he is especially worried for the people of the northern Ontario reserve as temperatures drop to extreme levels. “Many of this First Nation’s approximately 1,800 members live in unheated shacks or trailers, with no running water,” he wrote. “The problem is particularly serious as winter approaches.”

Attawapiskat is at the centre of a political battle over unsafe and unsanitary housing conditions on Canada’s First Nations reserves.

Ontario’s debt, Canada’s woes – by Andrea Mandel-Campbell (Globe and Mail – December 22, 2011)

December 22, 2011

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.

Andrea Mandel-Campbell is a former anchor at CTV’s Business News Network and author of Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson.

No one was really surprised when Ontario’s debt rating took another drubbing last week, adding Canada’s largest province to a long list of debt-swamped jurisdictions from Italy to Spain to be singled out by credit rating agencies for critical review.

Moody’s expressed displeasure with Ontario’s ballooning debt and dismal growth projections by lowering its outlook for the province’s debt rating to “negative.” It’s the latest in a cascade of downgrades beginning in 2009 after the province, having indulged in a massive uptick in government spending, was blindsided by the financial crisis.

Ontario’s Finance Minister Dwight Duncan promised to take the warning seriously – and the rest of Canada had better hope he means it. Ontario represents 40 per cent of the country’s GDP. As Janice MacKinnon, Saskatchewan’s former finance minister, recently pointed out, the rating agencies don’t look at Ontario in isolation, but at the country in its entirety. Ontario’s debt woes “hurt Canada as a whole,” she said.

Hate oil? Try living without it – by Tasha Kheiriddin (National Post – December 22, 2011)

December 22, 2011

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

It’s official: Ottawa has gone bananas.

In recent days, a war of words has erupted over a campaign by a website called EthicalOil.org that urges consumers to stop buying fruit from Chiquita Brands International Inc., following an announcement by Chiquita that it would like its business partners to reduce their use of high-greenhouse-gas fuel sources, including Canada’s oil sands.

Conservative Ministers Jason Kenney and Rona Ambrose tweeted their support for the banana ban, while NDP leadership candidate and MP Megan Leslie accused the government of ignoring climate change. (Meanwhile, most Canadians breathed a sigh of relief that Chiquita doesn’t sell cranberries, and got on with their Christmas shopping.)

The Chiquita saga is only the latest protest to hit the world of petropolitics over the past year. 2011 saw actresses getting arrested, pipelines encircling the White House, ranchers teaming up with environmentalists, and Saudi Arabia taking legal action against television ads.

Mining exploration trends – Metals Economics Group Jason Goulden Interview (Mineweb.com – November 30, 2011)

December 21, 2011

http://www.mineweb.com/

On the release of Metals Economics Group’s Corporate Exploration Strategies, Jason Goulden looks at why green fields exploration is falling and where companies are looking for new ounces

Interviewer: Mineweb.com’s Geoff Candy

GEOFF CANDY: Welcome to this Mineweb.com Newsmaker podcast – joining me on the line is Jason Goulden, he’s the vice president for research at the Metals Economics Group – they released last week, their 22nd edition of the Corporate Exploration Strategies and they estimate that the 2011 budget for non-ferrous metals exploration is going to jump to $18.2bn. Perhaps if we look first at where this exploration is taking place, you mention in the report that it’s the high risk regions that have seen some growth to 23%. Does that imply a higher tolerance for risk or the fact that they can’t find anything in less risky areas?

JASON GOULDEN: A little bit of both actually – as exploration tends to increase year-on-year and at times when we have very high exploration like we do now, companies tend to be a little more tolerant to that risk – they will go into those countries, where we see strong dips and exploration spending like we did in 2009 – that’s the first exploration spend that tends to be cut.

MEG NEWS RELEASE: Exploration budgets up 50%—surging to new all-time high

December 21, 2011

Metals Economics Group’s 22nd Corporate Exploration Strategies Study

U.S. dollar currency is used throughout this press release.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 23, 2011 – According to Metals Economics Group’s (MEG) 22nd edition of Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES), the estimated total 2011 budget for nonferrous metals exploration surged to $18.2 billion. Despite increased volatility in recent months, metals prices—the primary driver of exploration spending—have remained relatively strong in 2011, giving confidence to the industry; as a result, exploration budgets increased by $6.1 billion, up 50% from 2010 to set a new all-time high. (Note: nonferrous exploration refers to expenditures related to precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium, and some industrial minerals; it specifically excludes iron ore, aluminum, coal, and oil and gas.)

Estimated Global Nonferrous Exploration Budgets and Indexed Metals Price*, 1993-2011**

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Step forward for local [Sudbury] gem industry – by STAR STAFF (Sudbury Star – December 21, 2011)

December 21, 2011

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

Sudbury will continue to shine as one of Canada’s few diamond cutting and processing facilities because of a new agreement with the Government of Ontario.

Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci announced Tuesday that Vancouver- based Crossworks Manufacturing Inc. will receive the 2012-2015 allocation of diamonds from Victor Mine.

Crossworks runs the diamond processing facility in downtown Sudbury, employing 29 people to cut and polish the precious gems. The number of employees will increase to 50 during the next three years, said Bartolucci, who is minister of Northern Development and Mines.

Under an agreement between De Beers, which owns Victor Mine, and the Ontario government, 10% of diamonds mined at Victor must be processed in Ontario.

The North loses a great leader: John Zigarlick Jr. – by Bill Braden (Canadian Mining Journal – December 20, 2011)

December 21, 2011

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Across Northern Canada, the mining and transport industries mourn the death of John Zigarlick Jr. One of the North’s modern-day mining visionaries and builders, he died suddenly in Edmonton Dec. 17, of natural causes. He was 74.

It was his audacious decision in 1980 to build the Lupin Gold Mine by air that secured his place in mining history. As President of Echo Bay Mines, he bought a Boeing 727 and a Hercules freighter and airlifted 64 million pounds of material from Yellowknife. This and other developments vaulted Echo Bay into the spotlight as a mid-tier world gold miner.

Lupin was also the genesis of the 600 km Tibbitt to Contwoyto ice road, first built in 1982, that supplied the mine for the rest of its 18 year life. By the early 1990s, John had left Echo Bay and, in a joint venture with the Inuit of western Nunavut, started the Nuna Corporation which since 1997 has built and operated the road for the NWT’s diamond mines. John grew Nuna into a multi-layered construction, training and consulting services to mining and exploration companies across the arctic.

Eldorado aims to double production with European Goldfields bid – by Tim Kiladze (Globe and Mail – December 20, 2011)

December 20, 2011

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.

Eldorado Gold Corp. is on the cusp of creating a mining powerhouse around the Mediterranean. With a $2.5-billion bid for European Goldfields, (EGU-T11.800.524.61%) the owner of two undeveloped Greek gold projects, the Vancouver-based Eldorado is hoping the new assets will help it meet its goal of more than doubling this year’s production to about 1.4 million ounces by 2015.

The agreement, which was announced Sunday, comes at a time when gold has been hit hard. Since bullion peaked just shy of $1,900 (U.S.) per ounce in August, it has dropped 15 per cent, and some argue it could fall even more.

Still, analysts on Monday were generally positive about the deal. The acquisition fits into Eldorado’s strategy because it consolidates a region in which the miner is already established, Brad Humphrey at Raymond James wrote in a note to clients. It will also help keep cash operating costs low and maintains a gold-only focus, they said.

Investors were less impressed, sending Eldorado shares tumbling more than 12 per cent in Toronto trading on Monday.