Republic of Mining

NEWS RELEASE: Indian Mining Companies Flex their Muscles

September 13, 2011

Date: 13 September 2011

Intierra Resource Intelligence notes that by mine output, India is the fourth largest producer of zinc, and the sixth largest producer of lead. However, the actual impact of Indian commerce on global mining is felt far more widely.

Recent Indian mining investment has been broad-based, sizeable and reflects a willingness to invest in early stage and pre-feasibility projects. Intierra’s CEO Peter Rossdeutscher, notes this trend and provides a typical example: “Tata Steel has been very active building a mining company to help feed its steel business. In the last four years it has bought into projects in Canada (Taconite Magnetite Project) and Mozambique (Benga Colliery), where it now partners with Rio Tinto. Tata is also looking for more projects in Australia and North America.”

Other notable Indian companies targeting investment are Adani Enterprises and Jindal Power and Steel. Adani has invested over US$2 billion purchasing Linc Energy’s Bowen Basin tenements and also buying the Abbott Point Coal Terminal. Jindal operates the El Mutun iron ore mine in Bolivia and is also active in Madagascar.

Ontario Teachers take mining lessons back to the classroom

September 5, 2016September 12, 2011

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.

The Ontario Mining Association has helped 27 Ontario teachers gain a better perspective on the mineral industry through its participation in the second annual Teachers’ Mining Tour. This educational professional development program was held at the Canadian Ecology Centre (CEC) near Mattawa from August 15 to 19, 2011.

The program exposed teachers to all phases of the mining cycle, industry professions, Earth science and mineral education specialists, Earth science presentations, educational resources and numerous field trips. George Flumerfelt, President of North Bay-based mine contractor Redpath and an OMA Director, provided a “Mining 101” presentation for the educators to kick off the intensive week.

Tours included visits to Vale’s smelter complex in Sudbury and Xstrata Nickel’s Nickel Rim South Mine. In North Bay, the teachers toured Boart Longyear’s drill manufacturing facilities including a highly automated operation featuring robotics. Also, a representative of consulting engineering firm Knight Piesold made a presentation on the role of environmental assessments in resource development to this group of teachers.

Thompson, Manitoba USW Local 6166 and Vale reach tentative deal- by John Barker (Thompson Citizen – September 12, 2011)

September 12, 2011

The Thompson Citizen, which was established in June 1960, covers the City of Thompson and Nickel Belt Region of Northern Manitoba. The city has a population of about 13,500 residents while the regional population is more than 40,000. editor@thompsoncitizen.net

Ratifcation vote Sept. 15

USW Local 6166 and Vale’s Manitoba Operations have reached a tentative agreement three days before the current three-year collective is due to expire Sept. 15, says Ryan Land, manager of corporate affairs for Vale’s Manitoba Operations, and Murray Nychyporuk, president of USW Local 6166, in a joint press release issued Monday.

The USW will be holding two meetings today with its members to present the offer and “express its unanimous support of the proposed Offer of Settlement,” says Nychyporuk and Land.

Members will have two days to review and consider the offer. The ratification vote will take place Thursday, Sept. 15, beginning at 8:30 a.m.

If ratified the deal in Thompson will break a pattern of two long and bitter labour disputes, both now resolved, in Sudbury and Voisey’s Bay. After almost a year on the picket line between July 2009 and July 2010, striking Steelworkers at Local 6500 in Sudbury and Local 6200 in Port Colborne, Ont. voted about 75 per cent to ratify a five-year deal with Vale, four days short of a year of going on strike.

New rules will cost Quebec lost investments, miners warn – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – September 12, 2011)

September 14, 2011September 12, 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.

MONTREAL – Quebec’s reputation as one of the most mining-friendly places in the world is taking a beating as exploration companies sound the alarm over stringent new government regulations they say could scare away at least $1-billion in investments.

Quebec is pushing ahead with proposed new legislation that would force exploration companies to win approval from local and municipal authorities for their projects.

The proposed law – Bill 14 – means companies would have to deal with a third level of regulation for their projects besides federal and provincial rules.

It also spells potential chaos as small and medium-sized companies try to navigate the uncertainty of dealing with individual municipalities which have their own local standards, say industry officials.

Chasing Rare Earths, Foreign Companies Expand in China – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – August 25, 2011)

September 11, 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.

CHANGSHU, China — China has long used access to its giant customer base and cheap labor as bargaining chips to persuade foreign companies to open factories within its borders.

Now, corporate executives say, it is using its near monopoly on certain minerals — in particular, scarce metals vital to products like hybrid cars, cellphones and energy-efficient light bulbs — to make it difficult for foreign manufacturers of high-tech materials to build or expand factories anywhere except China. Companies that continue making their products outside the country must contend with tighter supplies and much higher prices for the materials because of steep taxes and other export controls imposed by China over the last two years.

Companies like Showa Denko and Santoku of Japan and Intematix of the United States are adding factory capacity in China this year instead of elsewhere because they need access to the scarce metals, known as rare earths.

Liberals come out swinging – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – September 10, 2011)

September 26, 2011September 11, 2011

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. cmulligan@thesudburystar.com

For the web’s largest database of articles on the Ring of Fire mining camp, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

The Liberals were the first party to offer a plan for the north and they will expand upon it if they are re-elected Oct. 6, says Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci.

A key component of the Grits’ Forward. Together plan is to make the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. a permanent fixture so future governments can’t abolish it, and to boost the fund from $100 million to $110 million.

It has created more than 16,000 jobs in eight years and will create 4,000 more per year for the next four years if the Grits are re-elected, the Sudbury MPP says. Bartolucci also vowed his party would facilitate at least eight new mines in the next 10 years and provide more family health care to underserviced areas of the province.

The Liberal incumbent was flanked by Nickel Belt Liberal candidate Tony Ryma and Timiskaming-Cochrane Liberal hopeful Denis Bonin at a news conference Friday to unveil the plan.

Bye bye Howie [Hampton] – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – September 4, 2011)

September 11, 2011

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca

Around here’s he’s just known as Howie. When Howard Hampton quietly announced last month that he wouldn’t be running in the Oct. 6 election, it caused surprisingly few ripples in the Queen’s Park political pond.

When he stepped down as leader after the 2007 election, many pundits were surprised he stayed on as MPP for Kenora-Rainy River.

In his northern riding, his departure signals a seismic shift in the political tectonics. Hampton is a powerful political force in northwestern Ontario.

As NDP leader, he often fought a long, lonely battle to put northern issues on the government’s agenda. He is the quintessential small-town northern son.

Raised in Fort Frances, a gritty mill town across the border from Minnesota, his father worked in the local pulp mill. His brother still works there.

Northern [Ontario Kenora] riding in transition – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – September 4, 2011)

September 11, 2011

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper. christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca

Kenora- Rainy River up for grabs since Howard Hampton unexpectedly ended his 24-year political career

KENORA — Husky the Muskie presides over the waterfront in this gloriously beautiful northwestern city on the Lake of the Woods.

The giant fish statue is the place where newlyweds go to get their pictures taken. You have to think Husky was shocked to the gills, like everyone else here, when veteran New Democrat MPP Howard Hampton recently pulled the plug on his 24-year political career.

You even wonder if New Democrats in the former NDP leader’s own Kenora-Rainy River riding were ready for him to hand over the baton. Local Liberals were clearly caught off-guard.

Anthony Leek, the young Emo councillor who’s carrying their banner is certainly sincere, but at 27, hardly brings much by way of a track record to the race.

Northern Chambers of Commerce challenge province’s Far North Act – by The Timmins Daily Press (September 10, 2011)

September 26, 2011September 10, 2011

The Daily Press, the city of Timmins newspaper. Contact the writer at news@thedailypress.ca.

For the web’s largest database of articles on the Ring of Fire mining camp, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

“The Far North Act affects us collectively and
individually, and we want to ensure that it is
carried out in a responsible and inclusive manner
that respects all northern groups – be they
businesses, municipalities or First Nations.”
(Julie Denomme, vice-chair of the Greater Sudbury
Chamber of Commerce)

The province should reconsider how development is handled in Ontario’s Far North if it is to properly serve the region’s communities, First Nations, and business, according to the Chambers of Commerce of Timmins, Sudbury, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie.

In a joint statement issued Friday, the four chambers agreed that the Far North Act, as passed by the Ontario government in October 2010, fails to consider the needs of those who are most affected by it.

The province’s stated goal of protecting “at least” 50% of the 225,000 square kilometres that make up the Far North was reached without consultation with the region’s First Nations who, through this legislation, are being forced to set aside portions of their land for protection.

Ontario’s Provincial Election and the North: What Is the Issue? – by Livio Di Matteo (September 9, 2011)

September 10, 2011

Livio Di Matteo is Professor of Economics at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Visit his new Economics Blog “Northern Economist” at http://ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca/

“Indeed, the most innovative set of Northern policies ever
proposed in my living memory was the Peterson government of
the 1980s which set forth three planks: the Northern Ontario
Heritage Fund, Northern Health Travel Grants and a program
of decentralization of provincial government offices to the
north. Since then, there has really not been articulated
any similar set of innovative strategic and concrete
nitiatives for the North.” (Livio Di Matteo, Sept/9/2011)

As the provincial election campaign begins, undoubtedly the need to articulate northern issues will be an important one. The conventional wisdom would probably argue that the most important issues are jobs and the economy, followed by health care. A glance at the “northern platforms” of the three parties certainly would suggest that the economy is an important focus and there are indeed some similarities across the three main parties when it comes to the economy.

The New Democratic Party argues the North has been ignored by the provincial government and is pledging “respect for the North. ” Its northern policy wants to hire more doctors for under-serviced communities, remove the HST from home heating and electric bills, cap gas prices, create a Northern Ontario legislative committee to address Northern issues and change laws so mining companies must process their raw materials in the province (incidentally, something similar was done a long time ago in Ontario for logs harvested on Crown lands under the rubric of the Manufacturing Condition).

Failing [Aboriginal] kids in our [Ontario] north – (Toronto Star Editorial – September 10, 2011)

September 10, 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.

A coroner’s inquest into a suicide routinely results in recommendations for more accessible, comprehensive and better funded mental health services. Ontario’s examination of the suicides of 16 children on a northern First Nations reserve is no different on that score. It’s Ontario deputy chief coroner Dr. Bert Lauwers’ call for other things — things so basic that they shouldn’t need mentioning — that really make his report stand out.

Access to clean water. Indoor plumbing. A decent school. How can communities without such basic necessities still exist in Ontario? The level of poverty and deprivation in the fly-in community of Pikangikum First Nation, 100 kilometres east of the Manitoba border, is appalling. It helped to create such deep despair that children, like the 12-year-old boy who hanged himself from a poplar tree outside his grandmother’s home and a 16-year-old girl who hanged herself with a shoelace in the laundry room, could see no way forward.

The coroner’s 100 recommendations are not just a blueprint to stem the dramatically high suicide rate of First Nations children and youth in northern Ontario. They are an indictment of the conditions that Ottawa has allowed to persist for far too long.

Northeastern Ontario Chambers Joint Policy Statement About Far North Act-Bill 191

September 10, 2011

A joint statement by the Timmins Chamber of Commerce, Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce and North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce on the Far North Act – Bill 191.

The provincial government introduced the Bill 191 for First Reading on June 2, 2009. The Act passed Third Reading on Sept. 23, 2010 and received Royal Assent on Oct. 25, 2010. Its purpose is to permanently protect at least half of Ontario’s Far North for the “sustainable development of natural resources” as well the preservation of biological diversity and ecological processes.

The legislation puts forward a process for community-based land-use planning that will ultimately set aside at least 21% of the province’s total landmass, or half of the Far North’s 450,000 square kilometers, in an interconnected network of protected areas. The region reaches from the Manitoba border in the west to James Bay and Quebec in the east and north along a line several hundred kilometers north of Red Lake, Sioux Lookout, Hearst and Cochrane.

This area contains 24,000 people spread across 34 communities (31 of which are First Nations). It is also host to the socalled “Ring of Fire,” an area of potential significant mineral wealth that includes a world-class deposit of chromite,deposits of nickel and other base and precious metals. It is expected that $1.5 billion will be spent over the next 10 years to develop this area in advance of mineral extraction.