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Old King Coal: WV’s coal industry struggles for stability during continued decline – by Charles Young (WVNews.com – December 1, 2019)

https://www.wvnews.com/

CHARLESTON — Anyone who grew up in the Mountain State or has spent any amount of time visiting can probably sing the West Virginia Coal Association’s ubiquitous jingle, “Coal is West Virginia,” from memory.

The succinct song has played over the airwaves for years, reminding all those who hear it of the hundreds of years of coal mining history in West Virginia and the important economic role the industry has played throughout the state’s growth and development.

While the song still can be heard daily on radio and television stations around the state, its message and meaning have started to ring less true as the coal industry struggles to maintain stability and much of the state’s attention remains focused on the oil and gas industry.

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Codelco Seeks $8 Billion Project Savings as Chile Funds Tighten – by James Attwood and Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – November 29, 2019)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Chile’s biggest civil unrest in a generation is heaping the pressure on new Codelco boss Octavio Araneda to squeeze more money out of aging copper deposits.

Before the wave of protests and riots began six weeks ago, Araneda was already facing the difficult task of having to invest billions just to keep production from plunging and costs rising at a time of thin margins in the global copper business.

Now, as the government faces a long list of spending demands to appease protesters, the challenge is more daunting: Codelco will be leaned on to help fund a bigger welfare system and can expect a much more tightfisted response from the state to its spending needs.

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RANKED: Top 10 copper mining projects in the world – by Frik Els (Mining.com – November 29, 2019)

https://www.mining.com/

According to the US Geological Survey to date, roughly 700 million tonnes tons of copper have been produced around the world. This would fit into a cube measuring about 430 meters on a side and at today’s price would be worth more than $4 trillion. Around 21 million tonnes of copper is mined each year.

The USGS estimates identified deposits contain an estimated 2.1 billion tonnes of copper with porphyry deposits accounting for 1.8 billion tonnes. That brings the total amount of discovered copper to 2.8 billion tonnes. This would fit into a cube measuring 680 meters on a side.

Of the identified copper that has yet to be taken out of the ground, about 65% is found in just five countries: Chile, Australia, Peru, Mexico, and the United States.

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Three premiers plan to fight climate change by investing in small nuclear reactors (Canadian Press – November 30, 2019)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

TORONTO — TORONTO – Three of Canada’s premiers will announce Sunday a plan to fight climate change by working together on small nuclear reactors, a company that’s developing the technology said Saturday.

New Brunswick-based ARC Nuclear Canada said in a news release that its president will attend a signing ceremony Sunday between the provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan to work in collaboration on the modular reactors “in an effort to mitigate the effects of climate change.”

The Ontario government said Premier Doug Ford will meet with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs for an announcement at a hotel near Pearson International Airport on Sunday afternoon.

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Tin prices face pressure from rising output, says ITA – by Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – November 29, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Rising refined tin output will cut the global market deficit next year and weigh on prices as new Chinese smelters ramp up and Indonesia also expands production, the International Tin Association said on Friday. Benchmark tin prices have already been the worst performer on the London Metal Exchange this year, sliding 16%.

“The average price has declined quite significantly from last year and we would expect next year to also be quite a difficult year for tin,” James Willoughby, manager of market intelligence for the association, told a seminar in London.

Refined output is expected to increase by 5.8% to 352,000 tonnes next year while demand rises by only 0.4% to 353,900 tonnes, according to ITA forecasts. That means the global deficit is forecast to fall to 1,900 tonnes in 2020 from 20,000 tonnes this year.

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West Africa risks in focus for Canadian miners after deadly attack on Semafo – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – December 2, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Sean Roosen knows West Africa well. From the late 1980s until the early 2000s, he worked for various gold exploration and development outfits, including spells in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Life was pretty rough. He lived through coups, brushed up against militias, experienced employee kidnappings and had his equipment stolen on multiple occasions.

“These things are all being incubated in abject poverty, in places where there’s no embedded reporter from CNN – or as I call it, life without 911,″ said Mr. Roosen, chief executive of Montreal-based Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. “I’ve spent a lot of time in places like that. Nobody’s coming, nobody cares and there’s no expectation of justice.”

As dicey as things were back then, the on-the-ground scene in many parts of West Africa has grown much worse. With gold reserves depleting in many traditional mining jurisdictions, such as Canada and the United States, investment in West Africa has skyrocketed.

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Guyana hopes oil will bring wealth – not corruption and crisis – by Jennapher Lunde Seefeldt (The Conversation – February 21, 2019)

https://theconversation.com/

When ExxonMobil begins oil production in Guyana next year, mining crude from its seven new deepwater wells, life may change dramatically in this small South American country.

The mega deal is expected to increase Guyana’s gross domestic product from US$3.4 billion in 2016 to $13 billion by 2025. That’s because Guyana, one of the poorest in South America, will receive about half of all ExxonMobil’s oil revenue after the company’s exploration costs are repaid.

Nearly 40 percent of Guyana’s 800,000 people live in poverty. The oil money will provide a remarkable economic boost that could strengthen education, health care and infrastructure.

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Canadian miner Continental Gold bought by China’s Zijin Mining for $1.3-billion – by Min Zhang and Dominique Patton (Globe and Mail – December 2, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Zijin Mining Group Co Ltd, one of China’s biggest gold miners, has agreed to buy Canadian miner Continental Gold Inc for $1.33 billion, saying the purchase would increase its gold reserves and boost cash flow as well as profit.

Zijin will pay $5.50 per share in cash for Continental, a premium of about 13 per cent to the Canadian company’s closing price on Friday, as it aims to secure Continental Gold’s flagship Buriticá gold project, the Chinese company said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The Buriticá gold project has measured and indicated gold reserves of 165.47 tonnes and an inferred reserve of 187.24 tonnes, Zijin said.

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Why We (Still) Can’t Live Without Rubber – by Charles C. Mann (National Geographic – December 2015)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

As global car sales soar, the demand for tires is transforming Southeast Asia’s landscape. New plantations of rubber trees are lifting some out of poverty—but may also spark an ecological disaster.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST want to spend a few hours washing your truck. It’s a beautiful day, all of northern Thailand vibrant in the spring sun, so you drive your new Isuzu into the stream that runs through your village, Tung Nha Noi. Cows and people walk by as you stand in the water, a 21-year-old guy with a hot ride, sponging it so clean that the vehicle gleams like hope in the sun.

Not so long ago the chances that someone like Piyawot Anurakbranpot—“Chin” to his friends—would have a fancy truck at such a young age would have been close to zero. People in remote villages like Tung Nha Noi didn’t have the money. But recently families like Chin’s have become much more prosperous. The reason is visible in the hills behind him.

Ten years ago they were covered with dense tropical forest—a profuse tangle of native vegetation. Now most of the slopes have been shaved as clean as a drill instructor’s chin and replanted with a single species: Hevea brasiliensis, the Pará rubber tree. Night after night, Chin’s family and tens of thousands of others in Southeast Asia go into plantations and tap their rubber trees, maple-syrup style.

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Excerpt from Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise – by Charlotte Gray (November 30, 2019)

A terrific Christmas gift! To order a copy of Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise: https://bit.ly/2lHTbYt 

Charlotte Gray is one of Canada’s best-known writers of non-fiction, specializing in history and biography, and her books have been nominated for or won most major non-fiction literary prizes. Murdered Midas is her eleventh book, and her second study of a great gold rush. In 2010, she published Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in the Klondike which was the basis for both a PBS documentary and a Discovery Channel mini-series. She lives in Ottawa and is an adjunct research professor at Carleton University and a Member of the Order of Canada.

Excerpt from Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise 

Had Harry Oakes once again arrived too late for a big strike? In Toronto in the spring of 1911, the thirty-six-year-old stared at the geological charts and topographical maps in Ontario’s Department of Mines, noting the extensive grid of prospectors’ claims superimposed on the region north of North Bay, bang in the centre of the immense expanse of Canada.

On paper, Northern Ontario looked as though government surveyors had already outlined its features and its potential. By now, the provincial bureaucrats suggested, the land had been “tamed.” Oakes traced with his stubby, stained finger the settlements strewn across the grim monotony of forest, rock, water, and muskeg swamp.

The charts recorded only mining camps; the cartographers had ignored the numerous Indigenous communities, although their presence showed up in the Ojibwa or Cree names of several features, such as Lake Temagami. Most of the network of links connecting mining camps consisted of rough, winding trails, but there were also newly laid railway tracks, punctuated at regular intervals by stations.

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RPT-COLUMN-High-grade iron ore outperforms as China steel margins recover – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – November 28, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Nov 28 (Reuters) – The premium Chinese steel mills are willing to pay for high-grade iron ore has widened in recent months, suggesting both a recovery in profitability and a desire to maximise output at blast furnaces.

Iron ore prices have fallen for the past two sessions, with declines on Wednesday linked to a sharp 9.9% drop in profits at China’s industrial companies, the fastest pace of contraction in eight months.

However, spot 62% iron ore for delivery to north China MT-IO-QIN62=ARG, as assessed by commodity price reporting agency Argus, is still up 10.2% from the 10-month low of $78.15 a tonne on Nov. 11, ending on Wednesday at $86.10.

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Opinion: Small modular reactors would be a worthy investment for Sask. – by Sarath Peiris (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – November 27, 2019)

https://thestarphoenix.com/

Premier Scott Moe is taking a page from his predecessor Brad Wall’s book and proposing nuclear power as part of Saskatchewan’s base load energy mix — a welcome departure from his ranting against the federal carbon tax even as his government delays action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Moe is pondering the adoption of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which can be designed to generate as little as three megawatts of electricity or as much as 300 MW — approximately the capacity of the Shand coal-fired power station — whereas a conventional reactor produces 1,000 MW to 1,600 MW.

With one-third of SaskPower’s electricity generated via three coal-fired plants that burn low-heat lignite coal — an engineer at the utility once described the fuel as “only a little better than burning dirt” — and another 40 per cent produced from burning natural gas, Saskatchewan certainly can benefit from an alternative power source that is GHG-free.

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Tired of being linked to toxic substance, the Quebec town of Asbestos is changing its name – by Amy Luft (CTV News Montreal – November 27, 2018)

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/

ASBESTOS — The Quebec town of Asbestos is tired of the negative connotation of its name – so it’s getting a new one. Town officials said in a news release Wednesday that municipal council has agreed to a name change following “several reflections and with a view to development oriented towards the future.”

Mayor Hugues Grimard said Wednesday the name carries an unfortunate connotation and it’s preventing the town from developing foreign business ties.

“If we want to go further in terms of economic development, then we don’t have the choice,” Grimard said in an interview. “The media attention of our past stays with us any time we do anything.”

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Positive spotlight shone on Thompson at Winnipeg mineral convention, says councillor (Thompson Citizen – November 27, 2019)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

News that Vale Manitoba Operations could possibly spend $1 billion over five years to deepen Thompson mines in anticipation of a growing demand for nickel as a component of batteries for electric vehicles made Thompson the talk of November’s mineral exploration conference in Winnipeg.

Gary Eyres, head of Manitoba Operations, told attendees at the Central Canada Mineral Exploration Convention about the proposed investment, first revealed to members of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce at their Nov. 13 lunch meeting.

“Once we get approved – and I really am confident we will get this approval – we are looking at nearly $8 billion in economic benefit to the region over the next 25 years,” Eyres was reported as saying in the Winnipeg Free Press. Coun. Judy Kolada, who attended the convention, told her fellow councillors at the conclusion of their Nov. 25 meeting that Thompson was in the spotlight at the convention.

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Apache man moving ‘home’ to protest copper mine in Arizona – by Felicia Fonseca (Washington Post – November 27, 2019)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Wendsler Nosie Sr. is drawn to a mountainous area in central Arizona where he and other Apaches have harvested medicinal plants, held coming-of-age ceremonies and gathered acorns for generations.

On Thursday, he’ll start a three-day journey to make a permanent home in the area known as Chi’chil Bildagoteel, or Oak Flat, in protest of a proposed copper mine made possible by a federal land exchange.

The Resolution Copper mine near Superior would be one of the largest such mines in North America, using techniques known as block-cave mining that call for digging underneath the ore body and setting off explosions to extract it.

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