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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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Mining Scholarships Support the Industry’s Future Workforce

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 mining sector provides hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to university and college students studying in related programs to support tomorrow’s industry.  There are numerous sources of these scholarships but for students willing to do their homework, there is a range of financial assistance available.  

For young people looking for future careers in mining engineering, geology and mine technology areas, a good place to start looking is the Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Foundation (CMMF), which was founded in 1972.  It has information on scholarships and bursaries offered by the national Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, CIM Branches and CMMF worth more than $220,000 annually.

“The mining industry wants you – do you want a scholarship.  The CMMF promotes mining as an enviable career choice and offers scholarships to encourage students to apply for studies in fields related to mining,” said Deborah Smith-Sauve, Manager of  CMMF.  “To maintain its leadership in the mining world, Canada requires he best educated workforce possible to develop new technologies and apply them in the most effective manner.”

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Consultation Integral to Ontario Mining Act Changes – Michael Gravelle

Michael Gravelle is the Ontario Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry www.mndmf.gov.on.ca

To remain at the forefront in a highly competitive global marketplace, we need to be open — open to change and open for discussion. Ontario’s Mining Act Modernization is an example of our government’s willingness to do both.

The Mining Act is introducing effective changes that will help keep our mining industry competitive and responsive. These changes will help strengthen our mining industry, while respecting aboriginal and treaty rights, as well as the rights of individual property owners.

Over the past year, we have been discussing with you how to adopt those changes into government regulations. I cannot emphasize enough how important those discussions have been. Ongoing open dialogue is vital to the process of developing effective regulations. That’s why we have made that a priority.

We spent nine months meeting with over 500 members of industry, aboriginal communities, non-governmental organizations, municipal representatives and private land owners.

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Sudbury’s Mining Suppliers ‘Well Placed’ to Benefit From Ring of Fire – by 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.

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

The executive director of the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) said he’s cautiously optimistic about the opportunities his members may have through high-grade nickel-copper and chromite deposits in the James Bay region known as the “Ring of Fire.”

Dick DeStefano was among those who attended a speech by Wes Hanson, Noront Resources’ president and CEO at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Copper Cliff Nov. 26.

Hanson outlined the junior mining company’s preliminary plans for a massive underground mine and milling complex beneath the swamps of the James Bay Lowlands.

McFauld’s Lake and the James Bay region is a breadbasket of chromite, nickel, copper, gold, platinum and palladium. Noront is the largest landholder with 120,000 hectares, including its flagship Eagle’s Nest deposit, located 300 kilometres west of DeBeers Canada’s Victor diamond mine.

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Ontario’s Resilient Northwest Banks on Education, Public Sector and Ring of Fire Mining Developments – by Livio Di Matteo

Livio Di Matteo is a Professor of Economics at Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University where he has taught since 1990.  His research has explored the sustainability of provincial government health spending, historical wealth and asset holding and economic performance and institutions in Northwestern Ontario and the central North American economic region. He writes and comments on public policy and his articles have appeared in the National Post, Toronto Star, the Winnipeg Free Press and Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal. Mr. Di Matteo has started an Economics Blog at http://ldimatte.shawwebspace.ca/

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

According to the Stockholm Resilience Center (www.stockholmresilience.org), the concept of resilience refers to the capacity of a social-ecological system to withstand perturbations from various types of shock and to then renew itself afterwards.  In other words, if a system is resilient, it can deal with change.  The forest crisis in Northwestern Ontario was a major economic shock to the region’s economy that resulted in massive employment losses and yet if one looks at the region’s economy and especially its major center – Thunder Bay – one cannot help but notice the resilience of the economy. 

Thunder Bay, which has seen three of its four pulp mills close and numerous sawmill job losses over the period 2003-2009, has witnessed increases in many indicators of economic activity suggesting that the economy has been able to adapt to the shock of the forest sector loss.

The relatively resilient economy in Northwest Ontario is being driven by three broad forces: the continued transition towards a knowledge based economy in the region, the expenditure on public sector infrastructure and the growth and development of the mining sector in the region.  The knowledge economy in Northwestern Ontario is being spearheaded by the development of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), the Northwestern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) and the research work of the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute (TBRRI). 

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Rio Tinto News Release: Rio Tinto Announces New Global Centre for Underground Mine Construction in [Sudbury] Canada

26 November 2010

Rio Tinto has announced a key strategic partnership in Canada, teaming with world leading researchers to create the Rio Tinto Centre for Underground Mine Construction.

The new Centre will be based at the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) in Sudbury, Ontario, and will focus on innovative rapid mine construction and ground control for mining at depth.

Rio Tinto is investing C$10 million over five years in the centre, completing a suite of five global long term Rio Tinto research centres around the world.

The work with CEMI will assist Rio Tinto’s development of new excavation systems through The Mine of the Future™ programme, focusing on significantly improving the construction and operation of underground mines.

As part of this programme, Rio Tinto will conduct a full scale performance verification trial in 2012 at Northparkes’ copper and gold mine in New South Wales, Australia, as the first of three new underground excavation systems.

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Industrial Parks in Greater Sudbury – What is Happening? – Dick DeSefano (October 3, 2010)

Dick DeStefano is the Executive Director of Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA). destefan@isys.ca

Summary: SAMSSA looks at the supply of industrial land in the face of complaqints that the City is not “Business Friendly.” Information suppled by the Greater Sudbury Development Corproation suggests the city is not supporting industrial development well.

Since its inception in 2003, SAMSSA has advocated for upgrading infrastructure and services in present and future industrial parks for its members. Recently, a number of complaints were forwarded to the SAMSSA office after an article in the Sudbury Star highlighted one company’s complaint about having to pay for what it believes are fundamental services (sewer, water and paved roads) covered by their signifance commercial taxes.

This article and subsequent SAMSSA News Updates to members triggered a number of requests for our office to investigate what was happening especially in the potential for upgraded roads, water and sewer on both Fielding Road and Elisabella Street.

The Greater Sudbury Development Corporation (GSDC) were very helpful and provided an ongoing study that is looking into these issues.

It is not uncommon in election year to hear that a another study will look at this problem. However, past experience has proven that once a new Council is elected, this study will lose out to other projects because of costs or lack of commitment. There are more votes won by paving high traffic roads than supporting the millions of dollars needed in an industrial park upgrade.

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Northern Miner Editorial – BHP Blows US$800M on Failed Transactions – 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 22-28, 2010 issue.

BHP Billiton formally withdrew its hostile, US$40-billion cash offer for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan on Monday after the Canadian government had rejected it two weeks earlier on the grounds that it did not provide a “net benefit” to Canadians, heeding the loud protestations of Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and a groundswell of opposition in the province.

Of paramount concern to the provincial government was BHP Billiton’s indifference to the long-established Canpotex export-sales cartel, and the company’s willingness to drive down potash prices as it maximized mine output.

The federal government had left open for BHP a 30-day window to improve its bid, but that was just a formality, as BHP had already made many substantive concessions relating to increased taxes, vows to maintain employment levels, and commitments to remain in Canpotex for five years, and to centre its potash business in Saskatchewan.

Clearly, BHP Billiton execs spent too much time with their noses in their spreadsheets and were unable to grasp the enduring strength of Prairie populism in Canada. And BHP paid a full price for its lesson, tallying US$350 million in transaction costs for the failed bid, of which US$250 million will be recognized in the half year ending Dec. 31.

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Analysis of Vale’s $10 Billion Canadian Investment – Liezel Hill (Mining Weekly North American Deputy Editor)

Mining Weekly is South Africa’s premier source of weekly news on mining developments in Africa’s most important industry. Mining Weekly provides in-depth coverage of mining projects and the personalities reshaping the mining industry. In order to advance Mining Weekly’s objective of positioning itself as a leading global provider of mining news, a full-time correspondent is based …

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Northern Miner Editorial: Bill C-300’s Defeat

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. This editorial is reproduced with permission of The Northern Miner and is from the November 8-14, 2010 issue.

The last week of October was a satisfying one for Canadian miners, with Canada’s parliament voting to defeat the anti-mining Bill C-300 by an unsettlingly close 140-to-134 margin.

As Canadian miners are well aware, Bill C-300 was a private member’s bill sponsored by backbench Liberal Member of Parliament John McKay, representing Toronto’s suburban Scarborough riding.

Superficially innocuous, Bill C-300, had it become law, would have given the federal ministers of foreign affairs and international trade new responsibility to hold Canadian resource companies accountable for their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in developing countries by submitting annual reports to the House of Commons and Senate for review.

The ministries could then sanction delinquent companies by keeping money from lending arms such as the Export Development Canada and the Canada Pension Plan.

However, the bill was so naively constructed that, as law, it would have led to a flood of frivolous, obstructionist and defamatory complaints coming in from all corners of the world from anti-capitalist agitators, shakedown artists and covert foreign mining competitors.

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Northern Miner Editorial – Political Power Play Over PotashCorp

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. This editorial is reproduced with permission of The Northern Miner and is from the November 1-7, 2010 issue.

BHP Billiton’s $40-billion hostile bid for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan entered a critical period in late October, as the broadly free market-friendly Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and his government set aside years of “Saskatchewan-is-open-for-business” talk and came out strongly against the deal.

Wall said the deal fails to provide a “net benefit” to the people of Saskatchewan and Canada in three key areas: jobs and investment, Canadian control of an important Canadian resource, and provincial revenues. He also voiced concern over the fate of the Canpotex potash-export marketing arrangement if BHP succeeds in its bid.

“Do we want to add PotashCorp to that list of once-proud Canadian companies that are now under foreign control?” asked Wall, who cast doubt on the ability of federal authorities to enforce restrictions should approval be granted with specific conditions.

“In the past decade, promises about maintaining jobs, corporate headquarters and future investment have all been broken,” said Wall. “We simply cannot take that risk with this valuable resource that belongs to the people of Saskatchewan.”

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Whither Ontario? Reconsidering a Narrative of Economic Demise – by Dimitry Anastakis

Dimitry Anastakis teaches in the Department of History at Trent University (Peterborough). His first book “Auto Pact: Creating a Borderless North American Auto Industry, 1960-71,” won the 2007 J.J. Talman Prize as the best book in Ontario history. Prior to Trent, Dr. Anastakis was a Senior Advisor in the Governemnt of Ontario’s Automotive Office, and a Fulbright Chair in Canadian Studies at Michigan State University.

Let us, for a moment, pity poor Ontario. 

The litany of affronts, indignities and embarrassments over the last two decades is long and inglorious:  Free trade agreements hoisted upon it; careening business cycles and a roller-coaster dollar; wrenching and radical changes in government; ever-increasing taxes and an end of cheap power; never-ending sporting failure and Olympic disappointment (twice); separatist movements in the North, city-state rumblings from Toronto; mayors who provoked blizzards of national mockery; massive power failures to ice storms to G20 fiascos. 

All have ruthlessly descended upon the province and its capital like a series of Biblical plagues, not to mention a real plague—SARS—in 2003. 

In the last two years, Ontario hit rock bottom.  To add insult to injury, in 2008 it was announced that Ontario would qualify for equalization.  Then, in the summer of 2009, the auto industry, the province’s industrial cornerstone, went bankrupt.  When the smoke cleared from the economic meltdown, the province’s deficit was $25 billion.  Once Confederation’s frugal accountant, the province is now derisively referred to as “Ontari-owe.”  Economically, it’s a basket case. 

Pity, however, is not so charitably given in some quarters.  For all its woes, there exist longstanding resentments of Ontario’s prosperity, built into the very DNA of Confederation.  For quite a few Canadians, Big Bad Ontario, which long lorded its exalted economic status, is finally being knocked from its pedestal. 

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News Release: Rio Tinto Creates A New $10 Million Mining Research Centre at CEMI in Sudbury, Canada

Sudbury, ON – On November 25th, 2010, Rio Tinto announced the establishment of the Rio Tinto Centre for Underground Mine Construction (RTC-UMC) at the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) located in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Rio Tinto will be investing $10 million dollars over five years to undertake research at the centre.

Rio Tinto is focusing on mechanized excavation including a shaft boring system (SBS) and tunnel boring systems (TBS). Rio Tinto has selected CEMI as the agent for collaborative research leadership in support of high speed construction associated with underground mine construction. For Rio Tinto, this investment reflects the company’s long term commitment to science, engineering and innovation, and is central to its approach to research partnerships. This is the fifth global long-term research centre to be established by Rio Tinto.

The Rio Tinto Centre for Underground Mine Construction at CEMI will undertake research with respect to ground and machine performance. For this purpose, prototype test sites will be instrumented to improve ground characterization techniques and to develop innovative support systems to facilitate high speed, mechanized tunnel and shaft development technologies for underground mines in highly stressed ground and at depth.

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Could Sault Ste. Marie be Site of Ring of Fire Processing? – by 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.

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

Bruce Strapp Exit interview

Sault Ste. Marie is well-positioned to get a share of the chromite processing from the James Bay lowlands, said its outgoing economic development head.

“The value that Sault Ste. Marie will bring to the Ring of Fire is we’ll have one of North America’s biggest steel plants,” said Bruce Strapp, who was preparing in October to take on his new job as executive director of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC).

While a number of communities across the North have been vocal in getting a piece of the action to process chromite ore, the Sault has been flying below the radar, but Strapp said the city is far from being out of the loop.

Strapp said with mine development in the massive McFauld’s Lake camp more than five years away, there is no reason to blow the Sault’s horn until the site selectors show up.

“Moving forward and talking to Cliffs (Natural Resources) and saying ‘We want your business’ (makes no sense when) there’s really no business to be had yet.”

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