Republic of Mining

Safe-haven gold aims to reinvent itself as a ‘climate risk mitigation’ asset with ‘net zero’ emissions – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

The industry is repositioning itself as an asset investors would be eager to add to their portfolio to lower the overall emissions of their investments

This September, Newmont Goldcorp summoned a host of local and provincial dignitaries to Chapleau, Ontario, where it christened its Borden gold project, ‘the mine of the future.’

In an industry where a 40-ton diesel truck is considered modest-sized, the company wanted to build Borden into Canada’s first all-electric underground gold mine, a plan that has taken years — since the company was called Goldcorp — and cost hundreds of millions of dollars as executives criss-crossed the world in search of things like an electric haul truck.

“We call it our $300-million pilot project,” Brent Bergeron told the Financial Post in 2018, who at the time headed up Goldcorp’s Corporate Affairs and Sustainability.

Election has done little to ease anxiety in Canada’s business community – by Heather Scoffield (Toronto Star – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.thestar.com/

Financial markets may have shrugged off Canada’s election results on Tuesday in spite of dire warnings from Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer that a Liberal victory would surely mean out-of-control deficits and irresponsible new taxes.

But Justin Trudeau should not for a moment take the markets’ nonchalance as an endorsement of his plans for economic management. The business community is anything but nonchalant, and the East-West schism that the electoral results are already exacerbating only makes matters more uncertain.

It’s true that some traditional critics of big deficits — which, under the new government, will continue — seem largely unperturbed. Both the Bank of Montreal and Scotiabank saw little economic damage from the Liberals’ fiscal plans.

With no voice in the oilpatch, Liberals face challenge engaging ‘angry and scared’ western provinces – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

‘We’re into our fifth year of a downturn and people are angry. Not just angry but scared’

CALGARY — The Liberals’ total rout in Alberta and Saskatchewan and the unceremonious unseating of Natural Resources Minster Amarjeet Sohi has posed another headache for the re-elected ruling party — finding a minister who can engage with the country’s biggest oil and gas producing provinces.

The Liberals lost their seats in Calgary, Edmonton and Regina during Monday’s federal election, resulting in a Liberal minority government without representation in the country’s two largest oil and gas producing provinces.

A minority government, potentially aided by parties hostile to the oilpatch, has already cast a gloom over downtown Calgary. The mood was further darkened after Husky Energy Inc. announced Tuesday it was laying off an undisclosed number of employees, adding to Alberta’s high unemployment rate, which stands at 6.6 per cent — a full point above the national average.

Paved with promises (Part Two): The North’s infrastructure deficit impacts sovereignty, the economy and quality of life – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – October 7, 2019)

October 23, 2019

http://resourceclips.com/

Canada would gain a deep-water arctic port, Nunavut would get its first road out of the territory and mineral-rich regions would open up if two mega-proposals come to fruition.

Recent funding announcements to study the Northwest Territories’ Slave Geological Province Corridor and Nunavut’s Grays Bay Road and Port projects could lead to a unified all-season route from a highway running northeast out of Yellowknife to stretch north through the Lac de Gras diamond fields, past the Slave and Izok base and precious metals regions, and on to Arctic Ocean shipping.

In mid-August, as federal and NWT elections neared, representatives from both levels of government announced a $40-million study into a possible 413-kilometre all-season route linking the NWT’s Highway #4 with a proposed Nunavut road. The project would also extend the NWT electrical grid to the Slave region, which straddles both sides of the NWT-Nunavut border.

Paved with promises (Part One): The North’s infrastructure needs get some attention from campaigning politicians – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – October 7, 2019)

October 23, 2019

http://resourceclips.com/

Could this be the time when decision-makers finally get serious about Northern infrastructure? With one territorial election just concluded and a deficit-budget-friendly incumbent federal party campaigning for re-election, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut might have reason to expect definitive action demonstrated by men, women and machinery at work. But while some projects show real progress, much of Canada’s Northern potential remains bogged down in talk and studies.

That’s despite some $700 million allocated to the North in Ottawa’s pre-election budget and months of Liberal spending promises since then. Not all that money was intended for infrastructure, however, and even some of the projects labelled that way turn out to be social or cultural programs.

Not necessarily new money either, much of it comes out of Ottawa’s $2-billion National Trade Corridors Fund, now two years into an 11-year program that promised up to $400 million for transportation infrastructure in the three territories by 2028.

On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm – by Anton Troianovski (New York Times – October 21, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/

Residents of Norilsk long felt isolated from their country’s turbulence. Then a mining company strung a fiber-optic cable across 600 miles of tundra.

NORILSK, Russia — On a screen, the California sun beams through the palm fronds and the Walk of Fame gleams underfoot. This island of mines and smokestacks in the tundra has high-speed internet now, so Andrei Kurchukov watches videos about America.

Videos by one of his favorite YouTube personalities, Marina Mogilko, feature interviews with fellow Russian expatriates in the United States. “Los Angeles,” she tells her one million followers, is “where Russian dreams come true.” “I watch her and think, alas,” Mr. Kurchukov said. “So what we’re showing about the rotting West is false.”

Closed to foreigners, unreachable by road and shrouded in darkness for 45 days a year, Norilsk, an Arctic nickel-mining hub of 180,000, is Russia’s most isolated major city. Lacking reliable digital communication with the rest of the country — “the continent,” they call it — residents used to fly home with external hard drives full of downloaded books and movies after their trips out.

China leads the race to exploit deep sea minerals: U.N. body (Reuters U.S. – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

OSLO (Reuters) – China is likely to become the first country in the world to start mining seabed minerals if the international rules for exploitation are approved next year, the head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) said.

The quest for exploiting seabed minerals, such as polymetallic nodules containing nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese is driven by demand for smart phones and electric car batteries, and the need to diversify supply.

The ISA has already signed 30 contracts with governments, research institutions and commercial entities for exploration phase, with China holding the most, five contracts.

The Acid Sludge Streaming Out of Germany’s Coal Mines – by Laura Mallonee (Wired Magazine – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.wired.com/

Even as it works to develop greener energy sources, the country is still dependent on highly pollutive lignite mining.

Imagine a Sunny Delight factory explosion in the gloomy realm of Mordor, spilling streams of “orange drink” through the land. That’s what Tom Hegen’s photos look like. Only thing is, they weren’t shot on Mordor—it’s Germany—and that tangy-looking liquid isn’t anything you’d want for breakfast. It’s acid drainage out of coal mines.

The Jupiter-hued liquid is a consequence of mining lignite—a soft, waterlogged coal that’s bottom-shelf cheap but produces less energy and 22more C02 emissions per ton than other fossil fuels.

Excavators unearth lignite hundreds of feet below ground; exposed to air, sulphide minerals in the rocks oxidize, releasing acid and heavy metals like iron and copper that turn rain and groundwater into an ethereal sludge the EPA says may be “highly toxic.”

On The Colorado River’s Banks, A Toxic Pile Continues To Shrink – by Molly Marcello (KZMU Radio – October 21, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.kunc.org/

In a park, nestled in a red rock canyon outside Moab, Utah — a short drive from a giant pile of uranium tailings — a crowd gathered for a celebration. Elected officials and community members mingled, and enjoyed refreshments. Volunteers placed pieces of yellow cake in small paper bowls.

It was a facetious nod to the gathering’s purpose: to celebrate the removal of 10 million tons of toxic uranium tailings from the banks of the Colorado River.

“You never would have thought you would have all these people congratulating themselves in the community on moving 10 million tons,” said Sarah Fields, executive director of the nonprofit Uranium Watch. “They seem to be really dedicated to getting this done.”

Nigeria Bid to Boost Mining Gets Help From West Africa Gold Rush – by William Clowes (Bloomberg News – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Nigeria’s efforts to persuade investors that it could become a mining destination for metals is receiving a boost from a small Canadian company joining a rush for gold in West Africa. The western tip of the continent is seen as a new frontier as gold miners face a dearth of new discoveries globally.

Africa’s largest oil producer has sizeable untapped deposits of metals including iron ore, gold, zinc and lead but almost all extraction is done on a small-scale or manual basis, said Nigeria’s minister of mines and steel development, Olamilekan Adegbite.

“These are people who hardly pay any revenue to government,” Adegbite said at a conference in Abuja. Now the country could be on the cusp of getting its first industrial-scale gold mine from Thor Explorations Ltd., which is developing a project capable of producing 80,000 ounces per year in southwest Nigeria and aiming to start operations in early 2021.

METALS-Shanghai nickel rises on low stockpiles, Nornickel accident – by Mai Nguyen (Reuters U.S. – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Shanghai nickel prices rose on Wednesday, tracking gains overnight in London, buoyed by supply concerns amid falling inventories and following an accident at major nickel producer Nornickel’s mine in Siberia.

The most-traded nickel contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) rose as much as 4.8% to 132,210 yuan ($18,668.72) a tonne, after benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) climbed 2.5% in the prior session. The Shanghai contract ended up 3% at 129,970 yuan a tonne.

Nickel stocks in LME-approved warehouses MNISTX-TOTAL fell to 87,132 tonnes, hovering around their lowest since November 2011, latest data showed, while ShFE nickel inventories have picked up recently SNI-TOTAL-W.

Health and safety bigger risks to artisanal miners that conflict minerals — report – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 22, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.mining.com/

Risks related to occupational health and safety are more prevalent than human rights abuses and conflict financing among global artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM), a new study by German supply chain auditor RCS Global Group has found.

The group’s Better Mining platform, piloted as ‘Better Cobalt’ on a cobalt supply chain from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) revealed that 26% of all registered incidents in the past year were related to health and safety issues, while only 13% had to do rights abuses and minerals financing conflict.

The Berlin-based organization used mobile technology to gather data from from five separate ASM sites in DRC and Rwanda, focusing on informal and small miners digging for cobalt, copper and the so-called 3TG (gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten).

OPINION: Thunder Bay: the pain, the opportunity, and the newspaper – by Michael Atkins (Northern Ontario Business – October 1, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

This is about people, about poverty, about sharing a land and its resources, about the clash or the fusion of cultures in the North and building sustainability for our children.

Eight months ago, the Globe and Mail newspaper opened a bureau in Thunder Bay. They did so because, in December, 2018, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a civilian oversight agency, concluded that the Thunder Bay Police Service was tainted by racist attitudes towards Indigenous people. The report was called “Broken Trust.”

A few days later, Senator Murray Sinclair, the former head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, submitted a report that accused the Thunder Bay Police Services Board of willful blindness to racism.

There have been unsettling examples of racism beyond the occurrence of nine sudden-death investigations by Thunder Bay police, which have been described as problematic. One of the most graphic was the throwing of a trailer hitch from a passing pickup truck at two Indigenous women walking along a residential street. One died six weeks later.

[West Africa] Gold’s Rally Drives a Rush to One of Metal’s Final Frontiers – by Felix Njini (Bloomberg News – October 23, 2019)

October 23, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Step aside Canada, Australia and South Africa: West Africa is fast becoming the hottest ticket in gold mining.

Producers and prospectors are pouring money into the region as prices rally and the industry at the southern tip of the continent keeps shrinking. While gold miners face a dearth of new discoveries globally, large parts of West Africa have barely been explored. The deposits tend to be shallow — meaning easy access — and relatively low-cost.

At least two new projects started up this year and a further two are scheduled for 2020. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. is also expanding and modernizing its Obuasi mine in Ghana and Canada’s Iamgold Corp. is considering a new operation in Senegal. In July, Resolute Mining Ltd. agreed to buy another West Africa-focused producer.

NEWS RELEASE: The Mining Association of Canada Comments on Outcome of Federal Election (October 22, 2019)

October 23, 2019

OTTAWA, Oct. 22, 2019 /CNW/ – The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) congratulates Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau on his election victory and looks forward to working with the government to maintain and grow responsible mining development in Canada. With a minority government the mining industry looks forward to working together with all parties to ensure one of Canada’s most important resource sectors is supported.

“Our industry is responsible for over 620,000 jobs across Canada, contributes $97 billion to the country’s GDP and is a global leader in sustainable mining practices,” said Pierre Gratton, President and CEO of MAC. “It will be important to ensure our sector is a key aspect of federal government policy as providing a competitive investment climate is critical to the success of our industry and the contribution we make to the overall strength of the Canadian economy.”

The Liberal platform specifically included commitments on resource sector electrification and zero-emission vehicles, Indigenous reconciliation, and infrastructure investments, particularly in Canada’s North where tremendous opportunities for the mining sector exist.