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Igniting the [Ontario] Ring of Fire – by Harold Wilson (Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce President – July, 2011)

The progress towards development of the chromite deposit, now well established as “The Ring of Fire” north of Marten Falls, has been one of intense debate, considerable study, and much hope.  I attended a conference two weeks ago that was to focus on how this regional opportunity could be moved along, particularly the considerable infrastructure required. 

There were many excellent panels and presenters, the highlight for many being Thursday morning’s panel featuring William Boor of Cliffs Natural Resources, Paul Semple representing Noront Resources and our 2010 Chamber AGM speaker, Frank Smeenk from KWG Resources. 

All three panelists presented compelling rationales for their top choice of a transportation corridor.  While some attendees thought the three scenarios indicated discord, they were actually stating their preferred case but were prepared to accept one solution, provided it would be cost effective and expedited.  The main issue was for the Province to help “get on with it”. 

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[Kinross Gold] Good times in the gulag – by Paul Christopher Webster (Globe and Mail – Report on Business Magazine – April, 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.

Vladimir Putin, Tye Burt and Kinross’s Gold Rush in Siberia

Looking like a luxury liner that took a wrong turn somewhere in the Pacific, the living quarters at the Kupol mine stand in surreal contrast to the surrounding moonscape of snow, ice and searing wind. Built largely in Alberta and trucked here to northeastern Russia from a port on the Arctic Ocean, the facility, which is operated by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corp., boasts a huge gym, exercise rooms, high-speed Internet, extensive entertainment facilities and two spacious restaurants serving nearly 30 tonnes a month of remarkably palatable food.

Workers, who are flown in for four- to six-week stints from the city of Magadan, 1,200 kilometres to the south, peg their shift schedules to Sunday shashlik dinners. “I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere,” says Anatoly Orlinsky, a veteran of Russian resource development who runs Kupol’s power plant. “If this is the future for mining in my country,” he says with conviction, “it gives me hope.”

Here on Russia’s remote northeastern frontier, Kinross has secured its own private El Dorado just as gold prices head for the stratosphere. After 15 years of battling investor doubts about Russia, startling logistical improbabilities and sinister patches of resistance in a region first developed by prisoners of the Soviet gulags, Kinross has captured a prized part of Canada’s Cold War peace dividend.

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A global business perspective on managing for growth in a volatile international environment – by Rio Tinto Chairman – Jan du Plessis (November 4, 2011)

Location: Australian Institute of Company Directors – Sydney, Australia

Jan du Plessis – Rio Tinto Chairman

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It is a real pleasure to be with you today. 

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land we have gathered on today, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I pay my respects to elders past and present.

I first visited Sydney in November 1991 and, over the course of several subsequent visits, fell in love with the place.  Twenty years later, having travelled around the world more than I care to remember, I still believe this is the most beautiful city in the world. 

Now, before anybody says Sydney is not Australia, let me assure you that over the last two-and-a-half years since becoming Chairman of Rio Tinto, I have seen quite a lot of your country.  And my visits have not been confined to stopping over in most of your major cities.  I have visited several coal mines and (I confess) vineyards in the Hunter Valley;  more coal mines in Queensland; and paid visits to our alumina refineries, aluminium smelters and other facilities in and around Gladstone. 

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Warming Revives Dream of Sea Route in Russian Arctic [Mining Transportation] – by Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times – October 17, 2011)

The New York Times has the third highest weekday circulation in the United States (after USA Today and the Wall Street Journal) and is one of the country’s most influential newspapers.

ARKHANGELSK, Russia — Rounding the northernmost tip of Russia in his oceangoing tugboat this summer, Capt. Vladimir V. Bozanov saw plenty of walruses, some pods of beluga whales and in the distance a few icebergs.

One thing Captain Bozanov did not encounter while towing an industrial barge 2,300 miles across the Arctic Ocean was solid ice blocking his path anywhere along the route. Ten years ago, he said, an ice-free passage, even at the peak of summer, was exceptionally rare.

But environmental scientists say there is now no doubt that global warming is shrinking the Arctic ice pack, opening new sea lanes and making the few previously navigable routes near shore accessible more months of the year. And whatever the grim environmental repercussions of greenhouse gas, companies in Russia and other countries around the Arctic Ocean are mining that dark cloud’s silver lining by finding new opportunities for commerce and trade.

Oil companies might be the most likely beneficiaries, as the receding polar ice cap opens more of the sea floor to exploration. The oil giant Exxon Mobil recently signed a sweeping deal to drill in the Russian sector of the Arctic Ocean. But shipping, mining and fishing ventures are also looking farther north than ever before.

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[Energy] Democratic jackpot – by Lawrence Solomon (National Post – November 5, 2011)

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

The energy-short ­democracies will become top producers

The energy-short democracies — the United States, most European Union nations, Japan and Israel — are today mostly on the defensive, while energy-rich countries run by strong men — Russia, various Middle Eastern states, and Venezuela — are flexing their muscles.

Within a decade, this energy order could flip. Many of the Western democracies are likely to become major oil and gas producers, helping to glut the world and collapse energy prices. And today’s energy-rich countries, most having undiversified economies, will then lose the lion’s share of their revenues and become neutered politically.

The game-changer is “unconventional fossil fuels,” much of it trapped in shale — rock that often contains oil or gas. In the case of gas, the U.S. is developing so much, so fast in so many places that the domestic price for natural gas has more than halved.

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[Sudbury, Canada] City in economic sweet spot – by Star Staff (Sudbury Star – November 5, 2011)

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

Sudbury is still an “economic sweet spot” when it comes to job creation, but faces the prospect of labour shortages, a Laurentian University economist says.

David Robinson made the comments in an analysis of October’s employment numbers released Friday by Statistics Canada. They showed the unemployment rate in the city dropped to 6.3% last month, compared to the national unemployment rate of 7.3%. Ontario’s jobless rate was 7.6% in October.

“We said last month that Sudbury was in the economic sweet spot for Canada’s economy,” Robinson wrote in his analysis, posted Friday on the Institute of Northern Ontario Research and Development website. “It remains true. Ontario’s economy is stalled but employment in Sudbury rose 1.1%, which is just slightly less than the 1.3% increase reported last month. Employment rose by 900 on a base of 83,800.

“If this rate of increase continues for 12 months, it would represent an annual growth rate for employment of 14%. A 14% growth rate would add 11,746 jobs in one year.”

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Anglo American shakes up diamond industry with De Beers takeover – by Peter Koven (National Post – November 5, 2011)

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

Anglo American PLC is poised to be the new leader in the diamond-mining industry after striking a landmark deal that promises to transform the business.

On Friday, Anglo American unveiled an agreement to buy 40% of De Beers, giving it majority control of the company that not only dominates the modern diamond industry, but largely created it.

Since its early years in the 1870s, Johannesburg-based De Beers has been the global leader in diamond mining — it had a market share of more than 80% through the 20th century as it controlled production out of Southern Africa. It still has about 40% of the market today.

De Beers’ influence has been just as strong on the marketing side, in which it helped create huge consumer demand for diamonds by linking them with love and marriage. The phrase “A diamond is forever” is one of its iconic slogans.

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[Canada] The energy superpower that isn’t – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – November 5, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. Terence Corcoran is the editor and columnist for the Financial Post section of the National Post.

Canada hardly rates a mention in Daniel Yergin’s new book

When a “global energy superpower” starts delivering tough talk to its potential customers, that superpower had better be sure that people will listen. It has also better be sure it is in fact a superpower; otherwise, it may find itself talking tough to the wind.

In recent weeks, Canada — a self-proclaimed global energy superpower — has been trying to throw its weight around over the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada Corp.’s $7-billion project to ship oil sands production from Alberta to Texas. In Houston on Tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver let the Americans know that Canada had other options. “What will happen if there wasn’t approval [of Keystone] — and we think there will be — is that we’ll simply have to intensify our efforts to sell the oil elsewhere.”

Canadian oil executives, who have a lot invested in the superpower notion, are also issuing aggressive-sounding statements aimed at the United States. A headline in The Globe and Mail Friday sounded like a threat: “Oil patch to U.S.: OK pipe or lose our oil.” The story didn’t quite back up the headline, but the sense was that Canada was developing alternatives and that China is the big alternative.

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Instead of pipelines, build refineries here – by Susan McArthur (National Post – November 5, 2011)

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

Susan McArthur is a senior investment banker at Jacob Securities Inc.

$100-billion ­investment needed over 20 years

The continuing controversy in the U.S. surrounding TransCanada’s proposed Keystone pipeline may just be the best thing that ever happened to Canada. Perhaps it will force us to finally just say no to being hewers of wood and drawers of water. While Keystone’s success is important, it’s time Canada comes of age and starts to transform more of its resources into value-added products at home.

When it comes to our oil resources, this is no small undertaking. The price tag to build the infrastructure and refining complex scaled for our vast oil reserves could be as much as $100-billion and could take 20 years.

We have the resources, the natural proximity to ports, rail infrastructure and voracious customers south of the border and within 36 hours of our export terminals. All it takes is vision, capital, know-how, tenacity and chutzpah. And a big bold plan.

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Canadian pipeline hits 11th hour opposition – by Bruce Campion-Smith (Toronto Star – November 5, 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

OTTAWA—A last stand or a lost cause. Nebraska residents and their politicians are mounting an 11th hour stand against the Keystone XL pipeline, offended by the proposal to build it straight through a sensitive aquifer.

Racing against the clock, the state legislature will debate a motion in a bid to give Nebraska lawmakers the power to control the routing of the controversial pipeline. Its supporters are hoping to get it passed before the U.S. State Department issues its own ruling — promised by year’s end — whether the pipeline can be built.

“We feel that if we have a . . . law in place before the presidential permit is granted across the Canadian-U.S. border we’re on sound constitutional ground,” Nebraska state Senator Ken Haar said in an interview.

“We’ve been late getting this done but we still need to get it done.”

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Trou Story: Digging up dirt [anti-mining] – by Jeff Heinrich (Montreal Gazette – November 3, 2011)

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

MONTREAL – The title – Trou Story, or in English, The Hole Story – is typical Richard Desjardins: a play on words, vaguely scatological, loaded with droll sarcasm. It’s the title of his latest film, made with longtime colleague Robert Monderie: a trenchant documentary about the devastation wrought by a century of mining in the Canadian Shield of northeastern Ontario and Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the filmmakers’ home turf.

The duo have been making social-commentary docs about their far-flung region since the late 1970s. In 1999, they took a whack at the forestry industry with L’erreur boréale (Forest Alert), which won a Jutra and led to the Coulombe commission inquiry into forestry management. Another Jutra followed in 2009 for Le peuple invisible (The Invisible Nation), about the plight of the Algonquin people.

Now, Desjardins and Monderie are back with Trou Story – and already, their doc is controversial.

Produced by the National Film Board and narrated by Desjardins, the film begins with a 30-minute exposé of the history of mining in the Shield and toll it’s taken on human life: Canadian soldiers killed by bullets made from Sudbury nickel that was sold to the Germans in the First World War; unsanitary conditions that led to a typhoid epidemic in the silver-mining town of Cobalt; arsenic from abandoned Abitibi gold mines that continues to seep into the water supply.

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[Ring of Fire] Push on for ramped-up mine site review – by Carl Clutchey (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – November 4, 2011)

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

A group of nine First Nations calling for an enhanced environmental review of Cliffs Natural Resources’ proposed chromite mine project is mulling its options in the wake of what appears to be a mute response from the federal government.

“The chiefs are going to be meeting to work on a strategy,” Matawa First Nations spokesman Jason Rasevych said Thursday from the group’s Thunder Bay office.

On Oct. 21, Matawa gave the government a week to respond to its demand for the appointment of an independent review panel into Cliffs’ project in the Ring of Fire, about 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. Matawa hasn’t said what it will do if its demand isn’t met, but there has been speculation about the issuing of eviction notices and action in the courts.

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[Kinross Gold] The gold standard for safety – by Mary Teresa Bitti (National Post – November 4, 2011)

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

 Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corp. is a $17-billion market cap company with 8,000 employees in 10 countries on four continents. Its annual gold production is about 2.7 million ounces and it has more than 100 million ounces of aggregate gold and resources. It is one of the largest gold producers in the world and is working on a series of new gold mines that will also make Kinross the fastest-growing gold company in the world.

Kinross president and CEO Tye Burt says the company’s corporate culture is the adhesive that has allowed it to operate and grow safely and successfully, and that crosses cultures and geographies to link employees together and keep them focused on the same goal.

“Our culture starts from our four core values: putting people first, outstanding corporate citizenship, high performance and rigorous financial discipline,” Mr. Burt says. “These values define our top priorities. We try to live those values every day and reward our folks accordingly.

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Oil patch gives a dire warning to the U.S. – Nathan Vanderklippe, Shawn McCarthy, Carrie Tait (Globe and Mail – November 4, 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.

CALGARY, OTTAWA, CALGARY – Canada’s oil sands companies are warning that a U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline would slam the door on their plans to expand exports into the lucrative American market.

In a measure of the substantial national and corporate interest riding on the controversial TransCanada Corp. project, both supporters and opponents are attempting to raise the stakes on a Washington approval verdict that had been expected by year-end, although it may now be delayed.

For industry, that has translated into increasingly dire warnings over the consequences of a decision on the $7-billion project to be made by U.S. President Barack Obama, who earlier this week said he will personally weigh in.

This week, some of the highest-ranking executives in the Canadian oil patch publicly detailed potential alternatives to Keystone XL amid a sharpening rhetoric that included a blunt caution: For some, an unfavourable decision will effectively close off the U.S. to future crude export growth, shutting down an option that has long underpinned Canada’s oil sands expansion plans.

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Revising route could kill Keystone XL: TransCanada – Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – November 2, 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.

CALGARY— As Nebraska considers the first attempt to divert the Keystone XL project, TransCanada Corp.is cautioning that any change to the pipeline’s route stands to delay its construction by as much as three years.

It’s the sternest warning yet from TransCanada, which has spent 38 months battling through a lengthy environmental review process on Keystone XL. The $7-billion pipeline would carry crude from the oil sands and northern United States to refineries on the Gulf Coast, and is a major plank in industry plans for expanding Canadian oil output. TransCanada has spent $1.9-billion to secure land and equipment for the project. It has readied itself to begin construction in the new year, in the belief that the State Department will grant its blessing in December.

But Nebraska, where the pipe would cross a delicate ecosystem called the Sand Hills, is contemplating new rules that could dramatically unsettle TransCanada’s plans.

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