Twitter

OMA member Vale makes lasting conservation commitment

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.

 

Community leaders, environmentalists, painters and award-winning folk singers all applauded the announcement by Ontario Mining Association member Vale to surrender portions of its aggregate license near Willisville, located south of Espanola.  The subsequent result is that historic Willisville Mountain will be untouched by the company’s future operations in the area.

“Willisville Mountain is an area rich in beauty and even richer in history,” said Jon Treen, General Manager of Vale’s Ontario Operations.  “It is an iconic landmark that should remain undisturbed and Vale is committed to the ongoing stewardship of the area.”

Vale and predecessor company Inco have operated a quarry in the area since the middle of the past century, which supplies silica to the nickel producer’s smelting operations in nearby Sudbury.  “On behalf of the residents of Willisville, the LaCloche Mountains Preservation Society and their many supporters, I applaud Vale on their leadership and resolve to save the pristine wilderness,” said Jon Butler, President of the La Cloche Mountain Preservation Society and Willisville resident.

Read more

The World’s 10 Most Prolific Gold Fields – by Paul Carter (CMI Gold & Silver, Inc.)

CMI Gold & Silver Inc. is one of the oldest gold and silver dealers in the United States and has played a major role in introducing investors to the gold and silver markets. http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/

Please note that this article has errored by including “Dawson City, Yukon, Canada” (Klondike Gold Rush) on the list. The Klondike’s short-lived, decade-long goldrush only produced 12.5 million ounces of the precious metal. By comparison, the Porcupine Camp (Timmins, Ontario), discovered in 1909 and still in production, has produced 72-million ounces, once again booming Kirkland Lake, originally discovered in 1911, has produced 38-million ounces to date and Red Lake, originally found in 1925, has produced 26-million ounces up to 2006, and is currently experiencing another boom. Link here for: Battle of the Canadian Gold Rushes: Klondike Versus Northern Ontario. – Stan Sudol/RepublicofMining.com

The World’s 10 Most Prolific Gold Fields

Gold has long been one of mankind’s most prized possessions. Yet most people have little idea where gold comes from, other than from “gold mines.”

Mining gold today often becomes monumental undertakings, truly some of man’s greatest engineering feats. Imagine gold mining shafts nearly two and a half miles below the surface and it taking two hours for miners to get to their work stations. Imagine a pit so large that it can be seen from outer space.

No reason to imagine, those are the realities in the mining of gold revealed in “The World’s 10 Most Prolific Gold Fields.”

1. Witwatersrand Basin (Johannesburg, South Africa)

The head frame of the Tau Tona Mine is the lone entrance to over 500 miles of tunnels.

Located in South Africa, the Witwatersrand Basin represents the richest gold field ever discovered. It is estimated the 40% of all of the gold ever mined has come out of the Basin. In 1970, South Africa’s output accounted for 79% of the world’s gold production. By 2009, South Africa’s share of world gold production had dropped to less than 8%.

Mining in the Witwatersrand Basin is accomplished by creating deep underground tunnels that are necessary to reach the plentiful reserves. The Tau Tona Mine features the deepest tunnel in the world extending a full 2.4 miles below the earth’s surface. A massive ventilation and air conditioning system is required to overcome the extreme working conditions throughout the over 500 miles of tunnels. At its deepest levels, the air temperature reaches 131 F and the rock face itself 140 F. The mine is so extensive that it takes workers a full two hours to travel from the surface to the deepest sections of the mine where they must then contend with pockets of lethal gas, water and a continual barrage of small earthquakes.

Read more

For Barrick, a golden opportunity to expand [into copper] – by Brenda Bouw and David Ebner (Globe and Mail – April 30, 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.

“When you are not prepared to look at new things because you are struck in your own
success because the commodity is going up, that is when danger occurs. … Isn’t that what
business is all about, to take advantage of opportunities when they arise? … I am not an
employee. It’s my legacy, it’s my life. I live this company.” 
(Peter Munk – Chairman Barrick Gold Corporation)

Peter Munk has heard the howls of protest from Bay Street before.

The founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corp. was lambasted in 1994 when he paid $1.7-billion (U.S.) for gold miner Lac Minerals to expand outside of North America, and then again in 2006 when he took out rival gold producer Placer Dome for $10-billion, picking up 12 new mines to secure the company’s position as the world’s largest gold producer.

But the cries were particularly shrill this week after Barrick surprised the mining industry with a $7.3-billion (Canadian) bid for Equinox Minerals Ltd., a copper producer with operations in Africa and Saudi Arabia. Even as gold prices hit new highs this week, Barrick shares dropped 9 per cent since the deal was announced Monday.

Investors quickly voiced a number of concerns about the deal, from the rich premium paid, to increased political risk. But their biggest beef centres around the shift in strategy. Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, is betting a bundle on a different class of metal: copper.

Read more

2011 ACTION PLAN FOR ONTARIO MINING: TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A CRITICAL WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY – Ontario Mining Association (OMA) Policy Paper

This policy document was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province. 
 
2011 Ontario Mining Association (OMA) Policy Paper

“China needs to build three cities larger than Sydney (or Toronto)
every year until 2030 to accommodate rural to urban migration.”
(Rio Tinto Presentation)

Ontario has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources, including untold mineral potential. For more than a century, word-class mineral discoveries in this province have brought development and prosperity, along with scientific and technological advances, enabling Ontario’s economy to evolve through innovation. From the earliest times, mining spurred on infrastructure development, enabled more equitable regional development and sustained a variety of support industries. These industries include obvious ones like manufacturing, but also perhaps some unexpected ones like education and financial services.

Today, mining continues to be an economic pillar of Ontario.  It is well positioned to grow its contribution to our economy.  Though the number fluctuates with various commodity price changes, mining in Ontario had revenues of $6.3 billion in 2009 (down by about 30% due to the global economic downturn).  The industry provides a major boost to our financial sector, with the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) currently being the leading global mining exchange, listing 57% of the world’s public mining companies and raising more mining equity capital than any other exchange.

Read more

Mining Association of Canada Policy Document (April 14, 2011): Canada’s Mining Industry – Contributions, Challenges and Recommendations

The mission of the Mining Association of Canada is to promote, through the collective action of members, the growth and development of Canada’s mining and mineral-processing industry, for the benefit of all Canadians.

(A) Economic Impact of the Canadian Mining Industry

The mining industry contributed $32 billion to Canada’s GDP in 2009, employing 306,000 workers in mineral extraction, smelting, fabrication and manufacturing, and providing business to over 3,200 suppliers of engineering, environmental, financial and other expertise. In the years leading up to 2008, industry was paying an annual average of $10 billion in taxes and royalties to federal and provincial/territorial governments.

Although a drop in commodity prices brought this figure down to approximately $6 billion in 2009, tax and royalty payments are now increasing, and are expected to return to, or go beyond, pre‐2008 levels. While the industry is important in small communities, it also generates prosperity in our larger cities – Toronto (finance), Vancouver (exploration), Montreal (aluminum, iron ore), Edmonton (oil sands), Calgary (steelmaking coal) and Saskatoon (uranium, potash) have all emerged as global mining centres in particular areas.

On the international scene, the industry accounts for 19% of Canadian goods exports, with multi‐billion dollar exports in a dozen commodities. Over half of the freight revenues of Canada’s railroads are generated by the mining industry – high portions of Canada’s port and marine revenues are also attributable to the industry.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: MININGWATCH CANADA – Three of Four Federal Parties Would Introduce Measures to Curtail Abuses of Mining Companies – Conservatives Continue to Lag Behind Canadians’ Expectations

MiningWatch Canada is a pan-Canadian initiative supported by environmental, social justice, Aboriginal and labour organisations from across the country. It addresses the urgent need for a co-ordinated public interest response to the threats to public health, water and air quality, fish and wildlife habitat and community interests posed by irresponsible mineral policies and practices in Canada and around the world. http://www.miningwatch.ca/

(Ottawa – April 12, 2011) MiningWatch Canada commends the Liberals, the NDP and the Green Party for their election platforms that include stronger measures to ensure that Canadian mining companies live up to international human rights and environmental standards in their operations overseas. Harper’s Conservative Party platform offers nothing new.

“It is clear that the Liberals, NDP and the Green Party understand that Canadians expect our mining companies to respect human rights and protect ecosystems that sustain communities, whether they operate in Canada or in developing countries,” says Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada.

Unlike the Conservatives’ platform, the platforms of these three parties refer to the consensus reached by representatives of the extractive industries, labour, academics and civil society in 2007. MiningWatch was a part of the multi-stakeholder advisory group that made recommendations following the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Extractives Sector.

Read more

NDP Jack Layton’s Mining Strategy for Canada

When the NDP first released their Mining Strategy on March 7, 2011, probably very few in the mining sector paid much attention to the document. That was then and this is now! With the unprecedented surge in NDP support across the country – a historic game changer in Canadian political history – perhaps the mining sector had better pay much closer attention to NDP mining policy. – Stan Sudol

NEWS RELEASE: NORTHERN NEW DEMOCRATS ENDORSE MINING STRATEGY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7, 2011

NDP only party with a mining strategy, and a mining critic – MP Gravelle

SUDBURY, ON – New Democrats unanimously endorsed a New Democrat Mining Strategy at this weekend’s Northern Council in Sudbury.

“I am so pleased that provincial and federal New Democrats from Northern Ontario endorsed this plan which protects Canada’s strategic interest by ensuring Canadian workers and their communities will be the primary beneficiaries of our natural resources,” said NDP Leader Jack Layton. “Recent years have seen foreign control over Canada’s mining sector rise from 12% when the Harpers Conservatives took power to over 40% today. And Northern Ontario has paid its own price for this increase in foreign control.”

“Over 300,000 Canadians, particularly those living and working in rural, Northern and remote communities, are directly employed in the mining sector,” said Claude Gravelle, (Nickel Belt), the NDP’s Mining Critic and the strategy’s author. “The mining, metals and mineral exploration sector, is worth $66 billion and directly contributes almost 4% of Canada’s total GDP, even before consideration of economic spin-offs. So, it is critical that we have a strategic plan in place to defend our interests.”

Read more

‘We have so much potential here’ [Sudbury] – by Laura Stricker (Sudbury Star-April 29, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. This article was published on April 29, 2011.

“We could be the research hub for mining and development in the world, and I know
we’re almost there…We have so much potential here in Sudbury. We’ve got wealth
and resources, we’ve got infrastructure … We could truly start to look at the big
pictures and start bringing things together.” 
(NDP Candidate-Glenn Thibeault, April 29, 2011)

Glenn Thibeault wants an oil and gas ombudsman with “teeth, not dentures.”

“The ombudsman can do a couple of things, as long as they have teeth. The one thing I don’t want to do is create this level of bureaucracy that costs money and doesn’t do anything besides saying, ‘Hey, you’re bad,’ ” Sudbury’s MP said during an editorial board meeting with The Sudbury Star.

The ombudsman would have to have punitive powers against the oil companies, Thibeault said, adding that he hopes the NDP’s plan to cut oil subsidies will have an impact.

“I’m hoping that ending oil subsidies is one of the things we can do to make (the companies) take notice, because right now the Conservatives are saying, ‘Yes, gas prices are high, but we’ll continue to give them a subsidy’ and the Liberals are not talking about this issue.”

Read more

Gravelle on the gun registry: ‘I didn’t lie. I changed my mind’ – by Tony Muma (Sudbury Star-April 23, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. This article was published on April 23, 2011.

Gravelle touted the NDP’s Canadian Mining Strategy initiative and was surprised to learn nobody had ever thought of a mining strategy for Canada. The Mining Strategy would also involve better consultation of First Nations, Gravelle said.

Gravelle said the NDP would not have stopped a Vale takeover, they would have made it “more transparent. We’re not against foreign ownership, we’re against foreign takeover. But at the end of the day, we want such a takeover to be of net benefit to Canada.”

Claude Gravelle took time away from campaigning to have an editorial board meeting with The Sudbury Star and said simply: “e-12.”

In election speak, Gravelle was referring to the 12 days remaining (at that time) until Canadians go to the polls again to decide who will represent them in Ottawa. The federal election is May 2.

Gravelle, who held many different positions at Inco before becoming a town councillor in the former Town of Rayside-Balfour, said he knew what he was getting into when he became MP for Nickel Belt in 2008.

He said representing the riding involves “many long days, long hours, but it’s been fun.”

Read more

Northern Ontario seats get attention – by Brian MacLeod (Sudbury Star – April 28, 2011)

The Sudbury Star, the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper. This column was published on April 28, 2011 and is by Brian MacLeod, the paper’s Managing Editor. brian.macleod@sunmedia.ca

Federal parties have tried to court Northern Ontario votes with varying degrees of love — which is surprising, given potential voter volatility in the North. You’d have thought they’d be throwing pebbles at every window.

The NDP is giving the North a big hug. The Liberals are offering up a sibling kiss. And the Conservatives, well, they’re just not that into the North, it seems.

Seven of Northern Ontario’s 10 ridings are held by the NDP. Two are held by Conservatives (including Parry Sound-Muskoka’s Tony Clement) and one, Nipissing-Timisking’s Anthony Rota, is Liberal. That’s a big change from 2006, when the Liberals held seven of the North’s 10 ridings, with the NDP holding just two and the Conservatives one.

Read more

Northern [Ontario] leaders unite through FONOM – by The Daily Press

The Daily Press is the newspaper of record for the city of Timmins.

Municipalities speaking ‘with one voice’ on provincial issues

Municipal leaders in Northern Ontario have formed a united front on provincial issues impacting their communities. Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) president Al Spacek, mayor of Kapuskasing, announced Thursday the organization is concerned with the impact legislation has had on the North.

“What do imposed Royalty Taxes on Diamonds, the Far North Act and the Caribou Conservation Plan have in common?” he asked. “The answer: They were based on limited consultation and little regard for the opinions of Northerners.

“In this provincial election year, it is important that the FONOM board speak with one voice on behalf of the citizens of Northeastern Ontario, and concerns about resource sharing and legislative policy development that affects the North should be voiced, so that they directly benefit the taxpayers of the North.”

Read more

Fix No. 1 [Trans-Canada] Highway – by Livio Di Matteo and Wayne Simpson (National Post-April 27, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This article was originally published in the Financial Post section on April 27, 2011.

Livio Di Matteo is professor of economics at Lakehead University. Wayne Simpson is professor of economics at the University of Manitoba. (Financial Post)

The Trans-Canada is far from the world-class Interstate Highway System that exists in the United States

The federal election has highlighted the need for transportation infrastructure in Canada’s Far North with the recent federal budget’s announcement of $150-million for an Arctic highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. While the goal of a national highway system from sea to sea to sea can be seen as an important nation-building goal, the fact remains that the east-west Trans-Canada Highway system is still inadequate despite its crucial role as a national transportation artery.

While much of Highway 1, as it is known in much of Canada, is four lanes, it is still deficient in parts of Eastern and Western Canada. Moreover, even what is four lanes is still a far cry from a world-class highway system, as exists in the U.S. Interstate system or the European autobahns.

Canada is the largest developed country in the world without a system of fully grade-separated roadways that allow uninterrupted traffic flow between its major urban centres. The key roadblocks include the two-lane stretches from the Manitoba border to Sudbury and much of the route between the Alberta border and Kamloops.

Read more

[Teck Resources] Don Lindsay learns to keep his appetite in check – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – April 16, 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.

“If you are building a great country, there are certain things that anchor, that form a base, that you should not give away, and no other country does. Unfortunately, we did give it away in 2006-2007 [Inco and Falconbridge] and we’ve seen what happened.”
(Teck CEO Don Lindsay-April 16, 2011)

Commodities are booming and Teck Resources Ltd. is flush with cash. But the company isn’t in a rush to spend it – and neither, apparently, is Don Lindsay. Today, he’s lunching on a soup-and-sandwich combo from Tim Hortons – a meal he regularly eats at his desk on the 34th floor of the company’s Vancouver headquarters.

“How much growth do we need?” the 52-year-old chief executive officer asks. “Because we have a lot.”

A focused approach is the product of a tough lesson for the diversified miner, which only two years ago was on the brink of disaster after a debt-heavy acquisition on the eve of the global economic meltdown.

Mr. Lindsay was in his third year as the company’s CEO when he orchestrated the ill-timed $14-billion purchase of Fording Canadian Coal Trust. The deal, which Teck financed with $9.8-billion (U.S.) in debt, pushed the company close to ruin. Fearing the worst, investors drove Teck stock to a multiyear low of just above $3, and some were calling for his resignation.

Read more

Clash of cultures blamed in Vale Inco strike – by Tony Van Alphen (Toronto Star – March 27, 2010)

Tony Van Alphen 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. This article was originally published March 27, 2010.

Mark Cutifani runs a gold mining company in South Africa now, long gone from Vale Inco in Canada where he had begun engaging workers and changing an adversarial climate that had defined labour relations for more than half a century.

That adversarial climate is back in a big way at the mining giant in Sudbury and Port Colborne, where more than 3,100 employees have remained off the job in an increasingly bitter 8 1/2-month strike.

The classic labour-management struggle threatens to set back labour relations for years and undermine the value of one of the richest mineral deposits in the world.

The United Steelworkers union says a clash of cultures is at the root of the dispute. It argues that Inco’s Brazilian owners want to instill a foreign brand of subservient labour relations here; run roughshod over existing workers’ rights and cut bonus pay at a time when the company is profitable. Vale Inco says the union’s statements smack of racism and the company rejects the idea that cultural differences have anything to do with the strike.

Read more

[Vale Inco Miner’s Income] Where upper-class incomes are earned underground – by Tony Van Alphen (Toronto Star-May 18, 2008)

Tony Van Alphen 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. This article was originally published May 18, 2008.

SUDBURY– Jack (Coco) Simons could retire today with a good pension. But he’s having too much fun making a whole lot of money underground.

Riding the boom of all booms here, Simons collected about $152,000 in gross pay last year as a top-notch production miner at Vale Inco’s Coleman Mine in the northwest end of the city.

This year, Simons says he could crack the $165,000 mark with a little more overtime. “It would be foolish for me to quit now,” says the fit, 53-year-old Simons, relaxing on his couch after a 12-hour shift. “I love this. The money is just too good. It’s motivational. Why not go for it.”

Sudbury miners are making more money than ever because of soaring nickel prices and worldwide demand for the mineral, a key element in stainless steel and other alloys. Simons receives a base rate of $27.81 an hour but earns a great deal more because he’s a member of one of numerous elite crews that each extract thousands of tons of ore every week.

Read more