Twitter

NEWS RELEASE: Sherritt Provides Revised Estimates for the Ambatovy [Nickel Laterite] Project

TORONTO, June 14, 2011 – Sherritt International Corporation (TSX: S) today announced, following completion of a review of the estimated schedule and associated capital cost of the Ambatovy Project, that the Board of Directors has approved a revised schedule that anticipates first metal in first quarter 2012 and an associated capital cost estimate of US$5.5 billion, excluding financing charges, foreign exchange and working capital requirements. Sherritt will fund its 40% of the capital cost increase directly from funds on hand.

The 16% (US$740 million) increase from the prior estimate is attributable to:

• inaccurate bulk material quantity estimates (including piping and electrical materials), the additional cost to procure, ship and install the materials, as well as the impact of poor performance by certain contractors (US$300 million, or 41% of the increase);
• additional service costs associated with the extension of the schedule, including site support services (which include food and accommodation), and additional EPCM services (US$195 million, or 26% of the increase); and

Read more

Nickel Sulfide Versus Laterite: The Hard Sustainability Challenge Remains – by Gavin M. Mudd (2009)

Gavin M. Mudd works at the Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, CLAYTON, Victoria, Australia 3800 (Gavin.Mudd@eng.monash.edu.au)

“A major concern with this increasing proportion of laterite nickel is that, although technology such as HPAL now exists to make processing of laterite ores more viable (technically and financially), it is widely perceived to be at a higher environmental cost.” (Gavin M. Mudd – 2009)

ABSTRACT

There are widespread nickel resources around the world, but divided principally between nickel sulfide or laterite (oxide) resources. Historically production has been dominated by sulfide ores but future production is increasing shifting to laterite ores. The principal reason for this historically is that sulfide ores are easier to process, through conventional mining, smelting and refining, compared to laterite ores which require intensive hydrometallurgical processing (such as high pressure acid leaching or HPAL).

This means that laterite ores typically require substantially more energy and chemicals to produce than sulfide nickel. Given that many major nickel companies report annually on their sustainability performance, such as Eramet, Inco (now Vale Inco), WMC Resources (now BHP Billiton), Norilsk Nickel, there is data available to examine in detail the differences in the environmental costs of nickel sulfide versus laterite.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: Watts Griffis McOuat releases Cu-Ni-PGE Study [for best Canadian exploration targets]

Watts, Griffis and McOuat Limited (“WGM”) is Canada’s longest running (established in 1962) independent firm of geological and mining consultants providing value-added professional services of the highest standards to the global mineral resource industry.

May 10th, 2011

WGM has completed a yearlong study of potential Cu-Ni-PGE exploration targets in Canada. The objective of the study was to identify underexplored areas that exhibit significant exploration potential.

WGM’s team, led by J. Konnunaho, a geologist from the Finnish Geological Survey and an expert in such mineralization, reviewed and prepared an outline of prospective areas in Canada hosting the most favourable depositional environments that could contain such types of mineralization. The study identified and examined 26 such settings, all of which have various levels of demonstrated potential for hosting Cu-Ni-PGE deposits. Targets were then selected based on the following search criteria;

1) current economic potential;

2) accessibility to exploration (remote areas impact exploration costs);

3) geological setting, the presence of those features most favourable for Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization;

4) demonstrated historical and or recent exploration results;

Read more

The Charges Against Big Nickel [in 1946 by U.S. government] – by Richard Mills (Jun 9, 2011)

Richard Mills owns no shares of any companies mentioned in this report and none are advertisers on his site www.aheadoftheherd.com

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information

In 1946, in New York City, the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice filed a complaint against Inco and its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, International Nickel Co. Inc.

Canada’s Inco, at the time, owned 90% of the world’s nickel ore and supplied 90% of U.S. nickel needs.

The charges brought were:

■Conspiracy to prevent competition in the nickel industry
■Fixing prices
■Making cartel agreements with I. G. Farbenindustrie, A. G. and two French companies to prevent competition and peg prices in the world market

The Department of Justice said the nickel industry ceased to be competitive earlier in the century when Charles Schwab arranged a merger between Canadian companies with nickel ore and U.S. companies with the chemical process for separating nickel from copper. Holdings of this combine were consolidated under Inco, Ltd. in 1928.

How ironic that in 2010 the US did not have any active nickel mines. Nickel has a very interesting history and is still extremely important in the everyday functioning of our modern economies.

Read more

Is a Profitable Nickel Laterite (HPAL) Mine a ‘Black Swan’? – by Patrick Whiteway (Canadian Mining Review Blog – January 31, 2011)

Canadian Mining Review: Discussing ideas and issues related to mining in Canada 

Thoughts on mining nickel laterites inspired by two recent books: ‘Linkages of Sustainability’ and ‘The Black Swan.’  

It’s October 2008 and I’m relaxing in a second-row seat of an air conditioned tour bus. It’s crossing the Swan River in beautiful downtown Perth, Australia, when the driver suggests to passangers that the river should be called the Black Swan River. That’s because 300 years ago, he explains, European explorers first visited this part of Western Australia and saw black swans for the very first time. Up until then, the only swans they had seen were white ones. Seeing black swans on this wide, lazy river revolutionized their thinking.

Reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s best-selling book “The Black Swan,” could revolutionize your thinking. This book is all about highly improbable events. Taleb skillfully questions how we think about these events that turn out to have serious consequences. He calls them ‘black swans’ and as I’ll show here, they have a significant role to play in the mining industry.

As a Canadian mine engineer who has visited and written reports on many mines in Canada, I can tell you that improbable events, sometimes called simply luck, surprises, randomness or human error, have enormous consequences for the success or failure of many mines. The only successful, high pressure acid leach (or HPAL) nickel laterite operation in Australia is one of my favorite examples.

Read more

Nickel plunging into bear market on biggest glut in 4 years – by Agnieszka Troszkiewicz and Maria Kolesnikova – Bloomberg News (National Post – June 13, 2011)

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

www.bloomberg.com

At a time of scarcity in everything from crude oil to copper to corn, nickel is heading for the biggest glut in four years, driving prices lower into 2012.

Next year’s surplus will rise to 60,000 metric tonnes from 12,000 tonnes in 2011, making nickel the most oversupplied metal relative to output or use, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the most-accurate forecaster tracked by Bloomberg over two years. New mines will boost supply 11% in 2012, the most in 17 years, Macquarie Group Ltd. says. Prices may drop 12% to US$20,000 a ton by Dec. 31, the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 17 analysts and traders shows.

“I’m not particularly optimistic about nickel,” said Ian Henderson, who manages about US$10 billion of natural-resource assets at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London, including the Global Natural Resources Fund, which doubled in two years. “I don’t think there is a commercial logic for the price where it is today. A nickel price of US$15,000 is entirely possible.”

While raw-material producers are failing to extract enough copper and oil and droughts threaten crops, nickel supply is expanding faster than demand.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: Rare earth supply crunch a wakeup call for mining companies everywhere: Ernst & Young

Click here for: Technology minerals: The rare earths race is on!

Demand for specific minerals set to jump more than 60% in the next five years

(Montreal, 11 May, 2011) Soaring demand for rare earth metals – used in the production of everything from smart phones to computer hardware to energy-efficient lights – is generating new but risky opportunities for mining companies in Canada and around the world, Ernst & Young says.

“Rare earth metals are feeding the production of high-tech and green products. Demand is expected to jump more than 60% in the next five years alone,” says Zahid Fazal, partner and leader of Ernst & Young’s mining practice in Quebec. “The problem is China accounts for virtually all rare earths production, and their export restrictions are driving prices higher. What’s more, Chinese domestic consumption of rare earth materials is predicted to outpace supply between 2012 and 2015.”

Fazal says the situation represents a unique opportunity for Canadian and other companies to rebuild the supply chain outside of China. While this could help prevent a supply shortage and keep a lid on soaring prices, these projects are higher risk and that brings additional challenges into the mix.

Read more

Barrick Gold Corporate History (1980-2000) – International Directory of Company Histories

For a large selection of corporate histories click: International Directory of Company Histories

Company History:

Barrick Gold Corporation is an anomaly in the gold exploration and mining industry; it has little debt and low-cost production, yet high yield and even higher sales. Though Barrick began as a less than spectacular petroleum and oil company in Canada founded by Peter Munk and David Gilmour, they turned to prospecting in 1983 and became the quintessential success story. While gold mining operations may spend decades searching for the motherlode, Barrick began by acquiring established mines and bringing them to new levels of productivity and profit.

On its Goldstrike Property on the Carlin Trend in Nevada, Barrick has established the Betze-Post and Meikle Mines: the former is the richest and most productive mine in the United States while the latter is the largest underground mine in North America. Ongoing exploration and drilling continue in the region, as well as on properties in Canada, South America, and Africa, with projections to reach more than five million ounces of gold production by 2003. Since Barrick’s mining and processing facilities are among the most technologically advanced in the world, this is all but a fait accompli.

Read more

Asbestos back in the spotlight – by Fe de Leon and Sarah Miller (Toronto Star – June 14, 2011)

The Toronto Star, which has the largest broadsheet circulation in Canada,  has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Fe de Leon and Sarah Miller are researchers with the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

Over the next few weeks, Canada has two important opportunities to reduce its contributions to the mining and export of chrysotile asbestos.

First, Canada’s international reputation will again be under the microscope when countries convene in Geneva June 20 to consider adding chrysotile asbestos to Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention. The convention was designed to facilitate information exchange on hazardous chemicals among countries. Canada’s position at these meetings is being monitored closely because it is one of a few remaining countries that continue to mine and export chrysotile.

Second, efforts by investors to reopen the Jeffrey mine in the town of Asbestos, Que., are in the works. Chrysotile from the Jeffrey mine is expected to be exported to numerous countries, mainly developing countries. Investors are relying on this global demand as they wait for confirmation by July 1 to determine if they are able to secure their investments. With secured investments, the companies expect to save 350 jobs at the mine.

Read more

Surging costs delay Sherritt [Madagascar Ambatovy nickel] project – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – June 15, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media. Brenda Bouw is the Globe’s mining reporter.

Sherritt International Corp. is the latest in growing list of mining companies to report double-digit cost increases and project delays resulting from surging prices for energy and raw materials.

Toronto-based Sherritt said the total cost of its 40-per-cent owned Ambatovy nickel-cobalt project in Madagascar is expected to rise 16 per cent to $5.5-billion (U.S.). Production, set to begin this summer, is now delayed until the first quarter of next year.

“We find this embarrassing and painful,” Sherritt chief executive officer Ian Delaney told investors on a conference call Tuesday. Sherritt’s stock fell 6 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday, its lowest level since last summer.

Rising costs are becoming a huge hurdle for miners as they rush to boost production and capitalize on global demand and metal prices while they remain strong.

Read more

Gold bug Rob McEwen sees silver lining in proposed mining merger – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – June 15, 2011)

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Gold investment maverick Rob McEwen sees a sterling future for silver with the proposed merger of his firms US Gold Corp. and Minera Andes Inc. that would form a mid-sized player amid a red hot metals market. The combination “would be transformative, creating a dynamic, new precious metal company,” said McEwen, who is chief executive of both companies.

The deal is valued at $608 million. His personal investment in the combined firm, which will be called McEwen Mining Inc., would be about $345 million and catapult his junior explorers to mid-tier status with a market cap of $1.4 billion.

The announcement comes amid a soaring price environment for precious metals. Gold broke a new record last month of $1,541 (U.S.) an ounce and silver climbed to 30-year highs of $48.70 (U.S.) in April before a recent correction that shaved 20 per cent off the silver price.

Read more

[Sudbury Basin’s] ‘Victoria’s secret’ has eyes popping in Canada’s mining industry – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – June 14, 2011)

Lisa Wright is a business reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

“After almost 130 years of mining activity, it’s amazing that we keep finding
such significant and rich deposits like the Victoria mine,” says mining industry
consultant and Sudbury native Stan Sudol. “The Sudbury basin has not given up
all her geological secrets—not by a long shot,” adds Sudol, who writes the
popular RepublicOfMining.com blog.

Michael Winship laughs when he thinks of the racy nickname his colleagues gave to a grubby nickel deposit with 110-year-old working roots in the Sudbury basin.

Though the new chief operating officer of Quadra FNX Mining Ltd. has spent more than 30 years in the metals game, you don’t have to have his globe-trotting resume to know that mine sites aren’t the least bit sexy or glamorous environments to set foot in.

But considering the jaw-dropping find that the Toronto firm’s geologists recently made just a kilometre from the previously-mined Victoria site — and which they quietly felt for some time could turn into something spectacular — the cheeky ‘Victoria’s secret’ moniker fits just fine. “We’ve got one of the richest deposits in Sudbury in the last few decades,” the affable Winship says in an interview.

Read more

Magnetic North: The Canadian (Mining) Miracle – by Mark P. Mills (Forbes – June 12, 2011)

www.forbes.com

Mark P. Mills is a founding partner in energy-tech-focused Digital Power Capital, a private equity firm focused on new technologies that arise from the convergence of power and the tools, materials and software of the digital age.

In child psychology birth order is often considered significantly determinative.  Younger siblings often learn lessons watching the elder ones, well, screw up.  Canada is almost a full century younger than its North American sibling.  What exactly is going on above the 49th parallel?  First quarter 2011 my Canadian brethren and sisters (full disclosure, je suis Canadien) delivered a 3.9 percent GDP growth rate against an enervating 1.8 percent U.S. rate.  Just a few short years ago, nobody would have predicted this.

Nearly one-third of Canada’s GDP is export-based with nearly half of that coming from minerals, metals and fuels.  It is a nation extracting value from its natural environment, not ‘plundering’, as Canadians’ respect for their land is deep and abiding.  And America benefits, receiving three-fourths of Canada’s exports.

Of particular interest these days is the re-invigorated gold rush in that vast northern expanse.  No surprise.  Gold is expensive again, bouncing around $1,500 an ounce.

Read more

The best investment in the world [Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Region] – by Matthew Mendelsohn and John Austin (National Post – June 13, 2011)

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

Matthew Mendelsohn is the director of the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto. John Austin is the nonresident senior fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program at Washington, D.C.’s Brookings Institution. To learn more, visit www.greatlakessummit.org.

Regions are becoming more important because capital and talent tend to cluster
geographically so that employers have easy access to potential partners and
employees. Clusters emerge in regions that possess natural, cultural and place-
defining attributes that make them attractive places to live and work. They also
emerge near centres of public and private research and education.
(Matthew Mendelsohn and John Austin)

In the first in a five-part series ahead of the Mowat Centre and Brookings Institution Summit on the Future of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region, starting next week in Windsor and Detroit, two experts argue that with proper governance, the Great Lakes region could be the success story of the century ahead.

Regions will be just as important as nation-states in ensuring the wellbeing of communities in the coming decades. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region – made up of the eight states and two provinces (Quebec and Ontario) that surround these great waters – has everything necessary to succeed in this new world.

Regions are becoming more important because capital and talent tend to cluster geographically so that employers have easy access to potential partners and employees. Clusters emerge in regions that possess natural, cultural and place-defining attributes that make them attractive places to live and work. They also emerge near centres of public and private research and education.

Read more

Rafting down the Albany River to the Ring of Fire – by Tanya Talaga (Toronto Star – June 12, 2011)

Tanya Talaga is the Queen’s Park reporter with the Toronto Star, which has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

ALBANY RIVER, ONT.

There is a Cree legend about the insatiable appetite of big brother. Always famished, big brother demands his little brother work harder to bring him more timber, gold and fuel so he can feed his hungry belly.

Ed Metatawabin tells this story from a wooden raft as it slowly makes its way through the pummeling rain down the 1,000-kilometre-long Albany River in Ontario’s Far North.

Directly above the Albany lies the Ring of Fire — more than 5,000 square kilometres of pristine wilderness that is believed to contain a $30 billion deposit of chromite, the ore used to make stainless steel. Prospectors also say a treasure trove of platinum and diamonds lies underneath.

But the pursuit of these riches means little brother must blast, bulldoze and bigfoot through the Albany watershed, the surrounding boreal forest and the swampy peatland of the Hudson Bay lowlands.

The race to develop the ring is already furiously underway. International mining companies have staked more than 9,000 claims covering 480,000 hectares. All-weather roads, bridges and a railway line are being planned to transport the precious ore south.

Read more