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Timmins Unhappy With Canadian Hall of Fame Gold Discoverers Exclusions – by Gregory Reynolds

This column was originally published in the Late Summer, 2010 issue of Highgrader Magazine which is committed to serve the interests of northerners by bringing the issues, concerns and culture of the north to the world through the writings and art of award-winning journalists as well as talented freelance artists, writers and photographers.

Timmins Owes its Very Existence to Six Men Not Three!

Timmins city clerk Jack Watson says with a note of bitterness in his voice:
“We submitted all six and were upset with the decision. We appealed but lost.”

The community that calls itself The City With a Heart of Gold has every right to the motto because literally the ground beneath it, the heart of Mother Earth, has arteries of gold.

There has been gold production in Timmins continuously since 1910 and it will continue for  many more decades. There is no reason for a thriving modern city to be located in the middle of nowhere; there is no port to support international trade, no junction of railways, no meeting of highways that is a destination point.

Yet, Timmins is in the midst of a four-year celebration of 100 years of history and achievements.

No achievement was greater than the exploits of these six men: Sandy McIntyre, Hans Buttner, Harry Preston, John (Jack) Wilson, Benny Hollinger and Alex Gillies.

They discovered in 1909 the gold deposits that became the Big Three producers in Canadian mining history, the Dome (1910-still in production), the Hollinger (1910-1968) and the McIntyre (1912-1988).

Yet earlier this year the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inducted just three of the six into its illustrious membership. Wilson and Harry Preston found the gold outcrop that was to become the Dome or as its workers fondly called it, The Big Dome. Only Wilson made into the Hall.

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China Overseas Investment Fair Speech – by Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese – November 3, 2010

China’s urbanisation rate is still only 45 per cent, with 50,000 new skyscrapers – we believe – needed by 2025. This urbanisation of the rural population is the largest peacetime mass migration in the history of the world. But we should not forget that we have India, Brazil and many other countries following this development pathway. While growth in China may eventually moderate, other countries will take up the slack. Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese – November 3, 2010

Global Resources Distribution: Strategic Options for Resources Investment

Speaker: Tom Albanese, Chief Executive Officer

Introduction

Thank you for your welcome. I am very happy to be back in China my eighth visit this year, and it is an honour to speak here today.

I would like to take the opportunity to talk about future developments and supply challenges for major global industrial commodities and China’s role within this. In addition, I plan to cover the important role technology and innovation will play in the future of the mining and minerals sector.

Global demand for minerals

Let me now give an overview of global minerals demand and how that affects both our business and the industry. Since the industrial revolution, production and urbanisation has spread progressively around the world. The global consumption of minerals has grown in support of this economic transformation.

Over the last hundred years, we’ve seen average annual growth in global minerals demand of something like 3.5 per cent – roughly equivalent to a doubling of demand every 20 years. In particular, demand growth has risen dramatically for aluminium.

This trend suggests that over the next 20 years we expect to see an extra 3 billion people with incomes reaching $15,000. In contrast, it took 200 years for the first billion people to reach this goal.  Substantial quantities of minerals will be needed to achieve such a transformation in living standards.

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Ontario Government News Release: Investment, Chromite Top Agenda For Premier In Hong Kong – November 3, 2010

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

McGuinty Meets with Chairman Li Ka-shing and CEO Eric Huang

Leaders from Hong Kong’s business community met Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and ministers Sandra Pupatello and Michael Chan to discuss investment opportunities in Ontario.

Premier McGuinty spoke at a reception hosted by the Canada-Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce. Guests included leaders in mining and financial services. McGuinty credited Ontario’s strong financial services sector for helping it weather the global recession better than most other economies. He also talked about the government’s plans to develop the Ring of Fire, an area in Northern Ontario that contains one of the world’s largest chromite deposits.

Guests also included representatives from Hong Kong universities who came to learn about Ontario’s plans to boost international enrolment in postsecondary institutions by 50 per cent over the next five years.

Earlier, Premier McGuinty met with Li Ka-shing, Chairman of Cheung Kong Limited and Hutchison Whampoa. The Premier and Mr. Li discussed Ontario as a growing North American location for new investment and trade. McGuinty also met with Eric Huang, CEO of CITIC Merchant Bank.

Premier McGuinty also honoured Canadian soldiers at Sai Wan War Cemetery, resting place for soldiers who died in the defence of Hong Kong during the Second World War. McGuinty laid a wreath to honour the over 550 Canadian soldiers who died, 22 of whom were from Ontario.

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[Ontario Mining] Losing Ground – Karen Mazurkewich (Originally published in Financial Post Magazine, April 2010 issue)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. article was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine’s April, 2010 issue.

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

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who stated in a February news conference that “we are not going to succeed in Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground,” has changed his tune. “There is a tremendous amount of excitement over the economic potential of the Ring of Fire,” says Michael Gravelle, Ontario’s Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry.

In Bygone Days, Good Bush Gear And Decent Maps Were A Mining Firm’s Greatest Assets. Today, Regulation And Bureaucracy Rule The Industry. Is Canada Paying The Price?

Don McKinnon, a grizzled prospector from Timmins, Ont., sports a whopping gold nugget on his finger — proof of his prodigious finds. The 80-year-old owns a stake in the nearby Hemlo gold mine and is still very much a player in the Canadian mining industry. He remembers when the staking was hard and the regulations were easy. To get a leg up on the competition, the hoary miner wasn’t above “dirty tricks” like buying up all the mine ministry maps in town. McKinnon still displays the 40 pairs of snowshoes he bought in the winter of ’79 to thwart competing prospectors during the Hemlo staking rush, and tells tales of being stalked by polar bears in the Far North.

But ask him his thoughts on the industry today, and he simply growls: “it’s tougher.” These days, McKinnon leaves the finer points of the mining business to his 27-year-old son, Gordon, president of Canadian Orebodies Inc., which has large claims in the James Bay Lowlands. The younger McKinnon doesn’t spend nights in the bush with a pick-axe. To be a player, junior miners need ample knowledge of stock market and the ability to negotiate impact benefit agreements with First Nations. In Gordon’s case, the list also includes overseeing an survey on caribou migratory patterns — a project he funded as part of an exploration deal in northern Ontario.

While his father still relies on his massive collection of topographical maps, Gordon eagerly awaits Ontario’s new regulations that permit online mapping. It’s staking made simple, but at a price: more bureaucracy. He processes more paper in a week than his father did in a year. “Before, the government saw a new mine as a new revenue stream; now they put us through hoops,” says the younger McKinnon.

Mining was the early economic engine of this nation, and swaths of Bay Street’s wealth can be traced back to prior generations of wheeler-dealers.

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Double-talk Dalton McGuinty [About Ontario Mining]- by Toronto Sun Columnist Christina Blizzard (Originally Published March 09, 2010)

Christina Blizzard is the Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Sun, the city’s daily tabloid newspaper.

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

“In a highly competitive, knowledge-based global economy, we are not going succeed in
Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground.” – Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Feb/11/2010

Premier Dalton McGuinty just pulled off the fastest head spin since Linda Blair grossed us all out in The Exorcist.

One minute the premier thought mining was a dying industry. The next, it’s alive and saving the economy.

In a news conference Feb. 11, McGuinty had this to say: “In a highly competitive, knowledge-based global economy, we are not going succeed in Ontario by pulling stuff out of the ground.

“Our natural resource sector is very important to us but we know that future growth will come on the basis of the development of our imaginations in innovative capacities.”

By Monday’s throne speech, McGuinty had put his imagination to good use — and changed his mind.

His message was mining will save the beleaguered northern economy.

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Ontario Shines as Canada’s Diamond Capital

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 is home to more diamond projects than any other jurisdiction in Canada.  While Ontario has one producing diamond operation, De Beers Canada’s Victor Mine near Attawapiskat, it is home to 131, or 24% of all diamond projects in the country.  There are more than 533 active diamond projects in Canada ranging from grassroots exploration to advanced development to producing mines.

Following Ontario, the Northwest Territories hosts 111 diamond projects, or 20% of the Canadian total, and Nunavut hosts 100 diamond projects, or 19% of the national total. Quebec is home to 84 diamond projects, or 16% of the total.  Following in order of diamond activity are Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon Territory.

The total number of companies exploring for diamonds in Canada is 252 and 180 of those companies are listed on stock exchanges.  There are four operating diamond mines in Canada – Diavik, Ekati and Snap Lake in the Northwest Territories and Victor in Ontario.

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Will Ring Of Fire Ever Burn? – by Terence Corcoran, Financial Post Editor (April/2010)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. Terence Corcoran’s editorial opinion was originally published in the Financial Post Magazine’s April, 2010 issue.

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

Canada’s mining history is full of characters. But a modern award for promotional ingenuity goes to Richard Nemis, the veteran prospecting whiz who came up with “Ring of Fire” as the name for the latest Ontario mining rush. (Terence Corcoran – April, 2010)

Through the summer of 1967, while my hometown, Montreal, hosted Expo ’67, I was elsewhere. Most of the time I was 4,200 feet underground working as an “apprentice miner” at the famed Kerr Addison gold mine in Northern Ontario. Even at that time, the Kerr Addison, while a legendary gold producer, was considered a has-been. Located in Virginiatown, about 50 kilometres east of the great gold centre at Kirkland Lake, the Kerr Addison was a hard-rock stope operation. We would board the cage at ground level for the long and rickety descent, then take a battery-powered ore mover through black tunnels to our stopes where, lit only by our head lamps, we drilled and blasted grey-green rock faces. The next shift we’d return to muck the rock away and drag in heavy six-foot timbers to build supports and prevent cave-ins. Then we’d drill and blast again.

I wasn’t much of miner, but I could lift and move stuff around, which is what apprentice miners do. The first gold was mined at Kerr Addison in 1913, and over its spectacular life it produced 11 million ounces. Since the first gold rush in 1906, the Kirkland Lake gold mining area — of which Kerr Addison was part — produced almost 37-million ounces of gold, worth more than $37 billion at today’s prices.

Will Ontario, or any part of Canada, ever see such mining-sector productivity and wealth creation again? The test will be the Ring of Fire.

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Ontario’s Mining Sector Booms in a Slow-Growing Provincial Economy

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.

New mines and mine expansions are reinforcing the mineral sector’s role in the foundation of Ontario’s economy.  Ontario’s economy is going through the pains of transformation as it moves from a manufacturing base to a service and knowledge base.  However, as when there was an earlier shift from agriculture to manufacturing, mining was there to cushion the adjustment and help society adapt.

Currently, mining companies are proceeding with major growth plans in many parts of the province.  If we look back two years and forward about three, an incomplete list will show that mining is investing more than $8.5 billion in capital expenditures – this is in addition to operating expenditures and exploration activities.  We are not sure other private sectors of the economy can match this level of recent activity on the capital spending front.

De Beers Canada made capital expenditures of $1 billion to bring the Victor Mine, near Attawapiskat, Ontario’s first diamond mine, into production in 2008.  The Victor Mine is expected to have a positive impact on Ontario’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $6.7 billion and a $4.2 billion GDP contribution to the economy of Northern Ontario.  Xstrata Nickel invested $927 million to bring its Nickel Rim South mine in Sudbury into operation in 2009.

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Northern Miner Editorial: New Zealand in Mourning – by John Cumming

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. Editor John Cumming MSc (Geol) is one of the country’s most well respected mining journalists. jcumming@northernminer.com This editorial is reproduced with permission of The Northern Miner and is from the November 29- December 5, 2010 issue.

Tragedy has descended on the normally idyllic West Coast region of New Zealand’s South Island, where an underground explosion has killed 29 miners at the Pike River coking coal mine, located halfway between Greymouth and Reefton.

The first of two explosions happened on Nov. 19 at 3:50 pm local time. It trapped 29 miners underground at least 2.5 km from the portal, but still allowed two dazed men working in a different area from the others to escape to surface.

There was no contact from the trapped miners after 4:15 pm that day, and the blast had disabled the mine’s electrical-power and ventilation systems.

Surface crews soon started drilling a 15-cm-wide hole that intercepted the mine workings 150 metres below surface several days later, and allowed for a sampling of the air quality, which was very poor.

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Ring of Fire Junior Probe Mines Takes the High—and Hard—Ground – by Michael Schwartz

This Corporate Profile Advertorial about Probe Mines originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of the Ontario Prospector magazine which is produced by the Ontario Prospectors Association and published by Naylor (Canada) Inc.

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

The End of a Joint Venture and 875 Claims Around McFauld’s Lake Make for Exciting Times

No fewer than 875 claims covering around 14,000 hectares mean that Probe Mines controls one of the larger land packages in the McFauld’s Lake greenstone belt stratigraphy. Probe operates four projects in the McFauld’s Lake area: Victory, which is the largest, Tamarack, McFauld’s West and Black Creek. Each offers a unique setting and unique potential within the Ring of Fire.

Probe Mines is confident in its success to date. Its major presence has led to interests in a full range of metals: chromite, nickel, copper, Platinum Group Metals (PGM), base metal Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS), gold and vanadium. Tamarack and Black Creek have demonstrated their potential with the discovery of Cu-rich VMS mineralization and chromite respectively.

In addition to the chromite discovery on Black Creek, considerable untested potential remains on its other properties. They are exactly what Probe Mines CEO David Palmer describes as “grass-roots projects where no major discovery has been made but where the company feels there is still substantial potential for further exploration.”

Probe’s projects lie in sparsely vegetated and subdued topography over a 100 km belt in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario. Very little is known about the geology of the McFauld’s Lake area and most of what is known has come from the company’s own exploration.

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Managing the Mining Cycle Through Long-term Workforce Planning – by Lindsay Forcellini

Lindsay Forcellini is the Marketing & Communications Coordinator at Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR)

Rapid economic change is a reality that makes strategic long-term workforce planning a challenge. In mining, workforce plans tend to focus on short-term operational objectives, rather than long-term strategic human resources management. In order to help manage the impact that economic cycles have on industry employment and meet future HR needs, an industry based, longer-term workforce strategy would be a significant asset.

Following a number of regional HR Forums across Canada, MiHR’s stakeholders have clearly expressed a need for timely, reliable, and relevant labour market information and resources for workforce planning to help mitigate the consequence of rapid and significant changes in the supply of skilled workers.

Broadly speaking, MiHR recommends a two-pronged approach in planning for the forecasted labour shortage. First, employers can continue their efforts to make the most of all available sources of talent. Strategies for this approach include creating a culture of inclusion in the workforce and increasing the representation of women, new Canadians and Aboriginal peoples. Second, the industry can increase productivity through investments in workforce training and development, combined with emphasis on innovation and support for technology advances.

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Deloitte Mining Publication: Tracking the Trends 2009 – The Top 10 Global Mining Issues (December/2008)

For a more detailed discussion of each of the top ten issues that Deloitte’s global network of mining professionals believe will influence the mining sector most in the coming year, read the full report. Tracking the Trends 2009

December/2008 – The financial crisis that came to define the latter half of 2008 brought the turmoil of unprecedented uncertainty to both the private and public sectors. Resource companies in particular were especially impacted, reliant as they are on buoyant commodity prices, which after a series of record highs in the earlier half of the year have since plummeted to fresh lows. As 2009 drew near, the one question on everyone’s mind surely was, “What’s next for the mining industry?”

“Mining companies believed in a super-cycle, but like all cycles, it came to an end,” says Glenn Ives, leader of Deloitte’s North American   Mining  practice. “While companies could not foresee the liquidity crisis that caused commodity price declines, those that react most quickly will be positioned to win in the next cycle.”

Tracking the trends 2009 is a report that identifies the ten most pressing global challenges facing the mining industry today and offers thoughts and strategic advice toward addressing them. From volatile markets and operating cost pressures to regulatory compliance and carbon permitting, the report is intended to help executives chart their companies’ courses over the coming months.

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Deloitte News Release: Miners Urged to Take “Stronger for Longer” Approach to Business Planning (December/2009)

For a more detailed discussion of each of the top ten issues that Deloitte’s global network of mining professionals believe will influence the mining sector most in the coming year, read the full report. Tracking the Trends 2010

Deloitte report recommends cautious expansion and forward-looking approach 

Toronto, December 15, 2009 — Volatility seems a mild word to apply to what has been happening in the mining sector over the past year. Deloitte today released a new report showing that, given the continued uncertainties facing the mining sector, the winners will be the companies that learn to manage volatility more effectively by adopting an integrated, forward-looking approach that defines responses to a range of anticipated futures.

“In an industry as notoriously cyclical as mining, more than ever before, organizations must have sufficiently flexible strategies to weather both market upswings and downswings,” says Glenn Ives, North American Mining Leader, Deloitte. “Achieving this flexibility requires advance planning for various potential risks and scenarios. Without this approach, many companies are bound to experience project delays, talent shortages, and spiraling costs as demand recovers — which could ultimately result in an endless series of boom and bust cycles.”

According to a new Deloitte report, Tracking the Trends 2010: A look at 10 of the top issues mining companies will face, mining industry activity has often been disproportionately influenced by short-term outlooks. When commodity prices were hitting record highs two years ago, optimism was expressed with almost giddy expansion as companies rushed to develop and build even marginal, and often technically complex, assets. The result was a precipitous increase in costs for raw materials, energy, equipment, supplies, and labour. When commodity prices subsequently dropped in the wake of the downturn, saddled with committed capital expenses at suddenly uneconomical prices, mining companies turned cost containment into a mantra and began cutting across the board, shedding non-core, and in some cases, high-quality assets, halting production, scaling back workforces, and putting deals on hold.

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News Release: Deloitte Report Unveils Ten of the Top Trends and Challenges Mining Companies Will Face in 2011 (December/2010)

Obtain a copy of the report: For a more detailed discussion of each of the top ten issues that Deloitte’s global network of mining professionals believe will influence the mining sector most in the coming year, read the full report. Tracking the Trends 2011

Toronto, December 1, 2010—As emerging economies around the globe continue their rapid industrialization, demand for commodities is skyrocketing. Yet at the same time, numerous countries are taking steps to safeguard their own supply by curbing the export of natural resources and shutting down some traditional supply markets. According to a new report released by Deloitte today, this is doing more than affecting commodity prices. It is changing the way mining companies do business.

“With the combination of surging commodity prices, labour shortages, and more demand than supply, one can almost imagine that we are back in the heyday of the mining boom,” says Glenn Ives, North American Mining Leader and Chair of Deloitte Canada. “But today’s demand drivers are significantly different than they were in the past and mining companies need to change the way they pursue growth if they hope to keep pace.”

Over the past 18 months, the axis of the world has shifted according to Deloitte’s third annual global mining report, “Tracking the Trends 2011: The top 10 issues mining companies face in the coming year.” As demand grows from emerging economies, the flow of commodities is increasingly moving to non-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations. The report explains, however, that although the developing economies’ strong appetite for commodities is sending demand signals to the mining industry, these are being muffled by the difficulties of obtaining permits for new mines and finding skilled labour.

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Ring of Fire – A Mine Project That Will Transform the Far North – Ian Ross

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business  provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North. This article was published in the December, 2010 issue.

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

Two years ago, the Ring of Fire was a hot high-grade chromite discovery resigned to the back pages of the business section.

It had a quirky name inspired by the crescent shape of the mining claims laid down in the swamps of the James Bay lowlands and a Noront Resource’s mining executive’s affinity for all things Johnny Cash.

Then along came a deep-pocketed miner called Cliffs Natural Resources. The Ohio-based international iron ore and coal company has a keen interest in breaking into the stainless steel business and has blue sky ambitions for Ontario’s Far North.

The socio-economic impact for the region, especially for impoverished First Nation
people, will be simply transformational for generations to come.

What has been found, in the muskeg is the stuff of top-secret, high-level boardroom discussions and plenty of chatter in the communities that stand to benefit from a potential $2-billion mine, processing and railroad project.

The mineral potential at McFaulds Lake has been compared to the groundbreaking discoveries of nickel, copper and gold in the early 1900s that opened up the North and forever changed Ontario’s economy.

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