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Keeping Thunder Bay in the picture for Ring of Fire refinery – Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal editorial (March 15, 2011)

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal  is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario. This opinion piece was originally published on March 15, 2011.

MAYOR Keith Hobbs is trying hard to position Thunder Bay as the logical location to process chromite from the giant Ring of Fire mineral deposit far to the north. In competition with officials from other Northern Ontario communities, Hobbs has made a good case.

Thunder Bay has the services, the manpower and expertise, the transportation and the electrical energy needed for a project of this size. And sizable it will be, requiring enough electricity to power a community of 300,000 people. It will be the largest single user of power in the province, which puts enormous pressure on the provincial government to provide what Cliffs Natural Resources, the main Ring of Fire developer, refers to as “a key input. The availability of a large, reliable, long-term and cost-competitive supply of electricity is a key consideration in siting the ferrochrome production facility.”

Cliffs identifies Timmins, Sudbury and Thunder Bay as potential locations, though it has gone so far as to use Sudbury as its base case model for planning purposes because it is already an important mineral processing centre. Hobbs has gone to some lengths to ensure Thunder Bay remains fully in Cliffs’ consideration and he’s got an Ontario Power Generation plant as one ace along with a Seaway port that Sudbury does not have.

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Governments should fund railroad to Ontario’s Ring of Fire mining camp – by Stan Sudol

Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway at the turn of the last century

This column was published in the March 17, 2011 issue of Northern Life.

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

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

“In the next 25 years, demand for metals could meet or exceed what we have used
since the beginning of the industrial revolution. By way of illustration, China needs to
build three cities larger than Sydney or Toronto every year until 2030 to accommodate
rural to urban growth.” (John McGagh, Rio Tinto – Head of Innovation)

Commodity Super Cycle is Back

The commodity super cycle is back, and with a vengeance. China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and many other developing economies are continuing their rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization. In 2010, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest economy and surpassed the United States to become the biggest producer of cars.

During a recent speech in Calgary, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada remarked, “Commodity markets are in the midst of a supercycle. …Rapid urbanization underpins this growth. Since 1990, the number of people living in cities in China and India has risen by nearly 500 million, the equivalent of housing the entire population of Canada 15 times over. …Even though history teaches that all booms are finite, this one could go on for some time.”

At the annual economics conference in Davos, Switzerland, held last January – where the most respected world leaders in politics, economics and academia gather – the consensus was one of enormous global prosperity predicting that, “For only the third time since the Industrial Revolution, the world may be entering a long-term growth cycle that will lift all economies simultaneously…”

John McGagh, head of innovation, at Rio Tinto – the world’s third largest mining company – has said, “In the next 25 years, demand for metals could meet or exceed what we have used since the beginning of the industrial revolution. By way of illustration, China needs to build three cities larger than Sydney or Toronto every year until 2030 to accommodate rural to urban growth. This equates to the largest migration of population from rural to urban living in the history of mankind.”

The isolated Ring of Fire mining camp, located in the James Bay lowlands of Ontario’s far north, is one of the most exciting and possibly the richest new Canadian mineral discovery made in over a generation. It has been compared to both the Sudbury Basin and the Abitibi Greenstone belt, which includes Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Noranda and Val d’Or.

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Early bird incentive attracts So You Think You Know Mining (SYTYKM) video competition entries in advance of March 31 deadline

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 Early Bird incentive has helped to attract 13 excellent entries into the Ontario Mining Association’s third annual So You Think You Know Mining (SYTYKM) high school video competition before the March 31 deadline.  These videos from all areas of the province, which were received electronically at the OMA before midnight March 10, are eligible for all video award categories and for the draw to win the $500 Early Bird prize. 

This year’s SYTYKM competition is bigger and better than ever with $25,500 available in cash and prizes. To learn more about submitting a two to three minute video on the benefits of mining click on the SYTYKM box at the OMA website www.oma.on.ca.  Judging from some of the Early Bird entries, OMA e-news items are being used as a source for ideas and information by student film makers.

In order to help spread awareness of SYTYKM, the OMA ventured into the realm of social media and used Facebook as a venue to promote the competition from the start.  This year, the OMA is also using Twitter.  As of today, there are 168 followers on Twitter and the number is growing as the SYTYKM deadline approaches.  Many of the tweets address the philosophical question “can rising global demand for greener cutting-edge products and services be met without mining?”   Check it out @OntMiningAssoc on Twitter.

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Yes Virginia, there is a commodity super-cycle (August 3, 2007) – Stan Sudol

This column was originally published in the August 3, 2007 issue of Northern Life.

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Emerging economies are growing at record levels

Sometimes when it looks, sounds and walks like a duck…then it is duck! The continuing decline in the price of some metals including nickel has many analysts clucking that this mining boom is over.

That is definitely not the case according to Europe’s top-ranked natural resources investor BlackRock Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. Blackrock is one of the world’s largest publicly traded investment management firms with assets of about $1.23 trillion (US). Let me emphasis that the figure is trillion not billion!

Evy Hambro, who manages Blackrock’s World Mining Fund, recently said in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, “We find it astonishing that, six years into a cycle, the analysts are still getting it wrong. They have been too pessimistic for six years in a row and seem to be behaving like desperate gamblers, always betting on the same number.”

According to Hambro, the four emerging giant economies – the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries – will need more oil, aluminum and copper by 2015 than the entire planet used last year. According to current projections, the BRIC countries alone will need 121 percent of oil, 140 percent of aluminum and 105 percent of copper produced globally last year.

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Miners should dig deeper – by William Watson (Financial Post- March 17, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This article was originally published in the Financial Post on March 17, 2011.

Mining companies pay just 9% in corporate taxes, while retailers fork out 23%

Here in Canada we may be lumberjacks, to paraphrase the famous Monty Python song, but we’re not OK. Or at least we may be OK in an overall sense but we’ve never been very OK about being lumberjacks. Hewing wood, drawing water and digging for ores for a living, even if it has given us a very good living, has always been a source of shame for us. Couldn’t we find something, well, harder and more demanding of cleverness in order to earn our way in the world?

Hewing, drawing and digging all seem so mindless. They’re not, of course. Done the modern way, they all involve much more brain power than brawn. But still we’re sheepish.

Which makes the results of a new study from a couple of U.S. business school researchers all the more puzzling. Douglas Shackelford of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kevin Markle at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth have just published a comprehensive study of the corporate taxes paid by 11,602 public corporations from 82 countries from 1988 to 2009. They trace corporate ownership structures across countries and are mainly interested in whether multinational companies can manage their affairs so their worldwide tax burden doesn’t much depend on where they locate. They find that in fact domicile does matter, which is an interesting result in this supposed age of footloose capital. But it’s their comparison of tax rates by industry that caught my eye.

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NEWS RELEASE: Mining Watch – Video: Oral Promises/Broken Promises Shows Alternative Interpretation of Ontario’s Treaty 9 (February 25, 2011)

Feb 25 2011 This video by MiningWatch Canada questions the jurisdiction of the Ontario provincial government over the traditional territories of northern Ontario’s First Nations, and the government’s right to unilaterally grant access to the resources within these territories to mining companies or other industries.   First Nations signed a number of treaties with the …

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OMA member profile: North American Palladium — helping us all breathe easier

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.
 

We should all be able to breathe a little easier with Ontario Mining Association member North American Palladium’s plans for expanding production.  Palladium is resistant to oxidation and high temperature corrosion and is useful in eliminating harmful emissions from internal combustion engines.  Autocatalysts are the major end use product of palladium, converting more than 90% of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen into carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapour.

The company’s Lac des Iles mine, which is located approximately 85 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, has been in production since 1993.  It has about 200 employees and it is one of only two primary palladium mines in the world. 

At this time, North American Palladium’s Lac des Iles mine is involved in a multi-faceted $270 million mine expansion program.  The goal is to increase production from 95,000 ounces of palladium in 2010, to 165,000 ounces in 2011 and then gradually building up to 250,000 ounces in 2015 at significantly reduced cash costs, which are expected to be less that $150 (US) per ounce.  The current palladium price is in the $800 (US) per ounce range. 

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Ring of Fire buring issue for Cliffs – Peter Koven (National Post-March 10, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. This article was originally published in the Financial Post on March 10, 2011. pkoven@nationalpost.com

Bill Boor knows he is in a tricky situation with the Ring of Fire, and that whatever decision he announces in the coming months will upset a lot of people.

“It’s a byproduct of what I think has been a pretty transparent approach that we’ve taken here,” the president of ferroalloys at Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. said in an interview at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference.

“You can be very transparent and try to work in good faith to come to the right answer, or you can keep your cards close to your chest, don’t get people excited and just slam an answer down, which I think is less likely to be optimal.”

Cliffs is leading development of the Ring of Fire, an ultra-rich source of chromite and other metals located in a very remote corner of the James Bay Lowlands in Northern Ontario. The provincial government views it as crucial for economic development in the North, where it is expected to become the next major Canadian mining camp.

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Peat: solution for power-plant mercury pollution (June 25, 2006) – Stan Sudol

This column was originally published in the June 25, 2006 issue of Northern Life.

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Due to pollution concerns, the recent announcement to keep coal-power plants open was not easy for the provincial Liberals, but Ontario is facing power shortages. They had no choice. It was a tough but pragmatic and responsible decision.

The government still plans to replace coal-fired generation as soon as possible without compromising electricity production. Unfortunately, one of the biggest drawbacks is mercury contamination.

Before the GTA’s Lakeview plant closed last year, Ontario’s five coal-fired stations produced about 527 kilograms of mercury which was almost one-third of all mercury emissions in the province.

The McGuinty government has been severely criticized for backing out of its commitment to the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to reduce toxic mercury discharges by 50 percent – now an unattainable goal. However, there is a solution for mercury pollution. Peat fuel – a biomass energy source-is abundant in Northern Ontario.

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Energy Lessons for Ontario from Finland (March 26, 2006) – by Stan Sudol

This column was originally published in the March 26, 2006 issue of Northern Life.

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

The Ontario government is committed to closing the province’s four coal-fired generating plants by 2009 due to pollution concerns. This will eliminate 6,500 megawatts of power generating capacity, about 20 percent of production. These four power stations cost billions of tax dollars to build, and with regular maintenance, could continue running for decades. As a consequence, Ontario taxpayers will have to needlessly spend billions more to construct new gas-fired generating plants – powered with a very expensive source of energy that is in short supply.

We are entering uncertain times in a new globalized economy where reasonably priced energy is a key factor for investment decisions. Ontario’s manufacturing might is being put at risk with policies that don’t accommodate sensible and sustainable development of local energy sources.

Concerns about high sulphur and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants are being cost effectively addressed around the world. Many jurisdictions significantly reduce these pollutants by co-firing coal with a variety of locally-derived biomass fuels.

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Energy lessons for Ontario from the Irish Celtic Tiger (March 3, 2006) – by Stan Sudol

This column was originally published in the March 3, 2006 issue of Northern Life.

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively on mining issues. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Ireland, well known as the “Celtic Tiger,” has become an industrial showcase for economists around the world. In the early 1970s, one of the most backward regions of Europe began a series of policy initiatives that transformed the country into a knowledge-based economy with a standard of
living higher than the United Kingdom and Canada.

One Irish initiative that could apply to Ontario was an energy policy committed to using indigenous fuel to help offset expensive imports of oil. That local energy source was peat fuel, and surprisingly the largest accessible deposits in the world are in Ontario.

Peat fuel has been a source of heat in Ireland for centuries. Its use for electricity started in the 1950s and supplied just under 40 percent of total power generation by the mid-1960s. Currently, peat fuel supplies about 12 percent of the country’s power needs. Last year, two new peat-fired power plants were opened at a cost of $570 million (US).

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OMA member profile: CAMIRO – research for mining’s future

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.
 

Ontario Mining Association member the Canadian Mining Industry Research Organization (CAMIRO) has been leading a scientific approach to improving sector workplaces for decades.  Sudbury-based CAMIRO, which officially started in 1996, has actually been operating since 1975 under various banners as an industry collaborative research broker. 

The industry-based, not-for-profit organization with a membership of mining companies and those with an interest in the mining sector has three divisions – exploration, mining and metallurgical processing.  CAMIRO strives to have multiple members sponsor specific research initiatives with the results broadly shared.  Many OMA members are involved in CAMIRO.  The collaborative nature of how CAMIRO operates facilitates government funding assistance without appearing to favour any specific company.

“We reach into the industry’s needs and figure out what we should be working on to benefit everyone,” said Charles Graham, Managing Director of CAMIRO’s Mining Division.  “CAMIRO carries out the administrative functions of research – we act as brokers to get funding before we spend it on research projects and we farm out specific aspects of the project to the most likely to succeed whether universities, independent researchers, mining companies or government.”

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The [Ontario] Ring of Fire – by Peter Gorrie (ONnature Magazine: Fall 2010)

Ontario Nature is a charitable organization representing more than 30,000 members and supporters and 140 member groups across Ontario. Their goal is to protect wild species and wild spaces through conservation, education and public engagement. This article is from their magazine On Nature. A more thorough explanation of Ontario Nature’s mission and goals is listed at the end of this posting.

Peter Gorrie is a Toronto-based freelance writer specializing in environmental and energy issues, and the environment columnist for The Toronto Star.

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

The Ring of Fire – by Peter Gorrie

Buried treasure – copper, nickel, diamonds, chromite – lies beneath northern Ontario’s vast boreal landscape, prompting a frenzy of unchecked mining activity despite the provincial government’s two-year-old promise to safeguard half the boreal region and promote sustainable development in the other half. Will the Ring of Fire become Ontario’s tar sands?

Standing beside the metal-clad head frame of a former gold mine in the middle of the broad northern Ontario landscape near Aroland First Nation, Andrew Megan Sr. tells me a story that, he says, took place some 70 years earlier.

His father and uncle, working their trapline, found a rock flecked with gold. The men showed the rock to a non-native prospector and, when asked, showed him where they had come upon it. In return, he gave each a pouch of tobacco.

Months passed – how many is unclear – but one day as Megan, his father, uncle and relatives sat in their bush camp, they heard a mechanical roar. They scattered as a bulldozer crashed through the trees and brush. The next year, work began on a mine that continued, off and on, until 1984. Prospectors had been exploring and staking the area for more than a decade, but the rock found by Megan’s father and uncle pinpointed a potentially rich vein of gold that spurred development of the site. Over the next four decades, a series of companies, including Osulake Mines and Consolidated Louanna, attempted to determine the extent and value of the ore body and start operations, but the mine didn’t produce any gold for sale until near the end of its life.

Megan, now 72 and a respected elder, recounts the story to make a point he considers crucial.

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Liberals committed to developing northern Ontario – by Rick Bartolucci

Rick Bartolucci is the MPP for Sudbury and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. 

The famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith said, “Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.” It’s a quality held by those who want you to forget the results of the NDP and the Harris/Hudak Conservatives during their respective years of governing Ontario.

I often say that in order to appreciate how far we’ve come, we need to remember where we’ve been. I recall what Sudbury endured during those years. I also know that the Ontario Liberals sprung into action once elected in 2003, determined to focus on our region. 

We have a strong northern caucus with three northern cabinet ministers who passionately advocate for northern communities on a daily basis. That commitment was recently evidenced as we launched the Northern Growth Plan and set aside $5 million to create a Northern Policy Institute to ensure northerners have a greater say in policy decisions affecting our region. 

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Commentary on Mining Watch: Ring of Fire Report – by Stan Sudol

  

Map Courtsey KWG

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant who writes extensively about the mining industry. stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

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

“In the next 25 years, demand for metals could meet or exceed what we have used
since the beginning of the industrial revolution. By way of illustration, China needs to
build three cities larger than Sydney or Toronto every year until 2030 to accommodate
rural to urban growth. This equates to the largest migration of population from rural to
urban living in the history of mankind.” (John McGagh, Rio Tinto – Head of Innovation)

Mining Watch Reputation 

Mining Watch was established in 1999 in response to the actions of Canadian exploration companies operating in Latin America and other jurisdictions in the developing world.

As stated on their website, “MiningWatch Canada … 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.”

In contrast to many in the mining sector I find a few of Mining Watch’s criticism’s legitimate and they have worked cooperatively with the industry in Ontario. In 2008, Mining Watch in conjunction with the Ontario Mining Association supported the amendment of the Ontario Mining Act that enabled companies to voluntarly rehabilitation mine sites even thought they had no legal requirments to do so. 

Recently, Mining Watch has issued a report titled, “Economic analysis of the Ring of Fire chromite mining play”. It was written by former Sudbury resident and well-known social activist Joan Kuyek. While the report covers a wide range of topics, I would like to focus on some important issues that have been downplayed or omitted, primarily the current state of mining, geo-politics and a history of enormous wealth creation from the mineral sector due to government infrastructure support. 

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