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Coal union invites Democratic 2020 hopefuls, at least half say ‘Yes’ – by Valerie Volcovici (Reuters U.S. – July 9, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the main U.S. mine workers’ union has invited all of the Democratic presidential candidates to visit its “turf” to demonstrate that the party still represents the working class.

The invitation could heap pressure on the nearly two dozen Democrats vying for the White House to explain how their plans to combat climate change – most of which call for an end to fossil fuels use – will impact mining jobs.

“If Democrats are to win back the vote of so many who have deserted the party in the last several elections, it is exactly these kinds of voters who you need to persuade,” United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said on Monday in a letter to the candidates that asked them to speak to miners on their “turf.”

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OPINION: Mining industry needs investment or metal shortages are inevitable – by Julian Kettle (Woood Mackenzie – July 3, 2019)

https://www.woodmac.com/

Julian Kettle is Vice Chairman, Metals & Mining at Wood Mackenzie.

The time is right for the mining industry to invest in new projects. The fundamentals are clear: we forecast supply gaps across a number of key commodities by 2028.

Investors are understandably concerned that the mining industry will repeat the sins of the past. Meanwhile, macro-economic uncertainty is putting the brakes on project development, and the industry must contend with a widening range of above-ground risks.

But our view is that strong fundamentals mean that investors willing to step up will be rewarded.

Where are the most critical supply gaps?

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COLUMN-India gold tax hikes add unexpected headwind to price rally – byClyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – July 9, 2019)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, July 9 (Reuters) – Gold’s recent rally to a six-year high is suddenly looking a little more fragile after India, the world’s number two buyer, unexpectedly hiked import duties.

The increase in the duty to 12.5% from 10% on July 5 caught gold traders and jewellery manufacturers off guard as some had been expecting the government to lower the tax instead.

The Indian government wants to reduce its fiscal deficit as well as the trade deficit, and since gold is the second biggest import by value behind crude oil and fuels, it is an obvious target for increased taxation.

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That Giant Asteroid of Gold Won’t Make Us Richer – by Noah Smith (Bloomberg News – July 8, 2019)

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Rejoice, people of Earth! News outlets are reporting that NASA is planning to visit an asteroid made of gold and other precious metals!

At current prices, the minerals contained in asteroid 16 Psyche are said to be worth $700 quintillion — enough to give everyone on the planet $93 billion. We’re all going to be richer than Jeff Bezos! OK, now for the bad news: This isn’t going to happen. Yes, 16 Psyche and other asteroids will probably be mined for their metals.

But once those metals start hitting the market in large quantities, they’re unlikely to be precious for much longer. As any introductory economics student knows, price is a function of relative scarcity — flood the market with gold, and it will go from being a rarity to being a common decoration. Supply goes up, price goes down.

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OPINION: Why Murray Edwards keeps investing in Alberta’s oil sands – by Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – July 9, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In one of the great contrarian investments of our time, billionaires such as Murray Edwards and Li Ka-Shing are pouring money into Alberta’s oil sands.

While foreign energy companies were selling their oil-sands holdings and investors were purging domestic energy stocks from their portfolios, Mr. Edwards’s Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) and Li family-controlled Husky Energy Inc. have increased their stakes in the region.

As part of a massive shift in ownership that has seen more than $37-billion of oil-sands assets change hands, CNRL dropped $16.5-billion to acquire properties from Devon Energy Corp. and Shell Canada Ltd., while Husky spent US$435-million on a heavy oil refinery last summer. Both companies are expected to keep investing.

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Still trust London with your gold? Poland latest to repatriate its bullion from the Bank of England (RT.com – July 9, 2019)

https://www.rt.com/

Poland is repatriating gold from overseas, after it more than doubled its bullion holdings in the past year. Central banks all over the world have been stocking up on gold in recent years, shifting away from the US dollar.

The National Bank of Poland (NBP) has bought 100 tons of the precious metal since the beginning of this year, nearly four times more than it added to its reserves in 2018.

Now Warsaw wants to bring a significant part the precious metal back home, repatriating it from the Bank of England. The NBP wants to transfer at least 100 tons and store the repatriated bullion in its vaults. The Polish central bank noted that the repatriation comes on account of central banks’ need to diversify the storage of their gold reserves “to limit geopolitical risk,” which, it says, could result “in losing access to or restriction of the availability of gold resources held abroad.”

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Federal and tribal coalitions challenge Canadian mining – by Liz Weber (High Country News – July 8, 2019)

https://www.hcn.org

‘It’s about British Columbia being a really bad actor as an upstream neighbor that pollutes our water.’

The headwaters of the Stikine River begin in northern British Columbia and flow southwest in a long arching comma. The river carves through the landscape, unconcerned with international or tribal boundaries before crossing into the United States where it empties into the Eastern Passage near Wrangell, Alaska.

Yet the Stikine River is among America’s most endangered rivers, threatened by British Columbia’s upstream mining practices, according to American Rivers, a river basin advocacy group.

The river’s problems represent the decades-long struggle to put international regulations on the contaminants flowing downstream from B.C.’s open-pit hard rock and coal mines. Now, two separate coalitions of U.S. senators and tribal leaders are joining forces to once again demand action.

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Billionaire coal baron Christopher Cline dies in helicopter crash – by Lynn Doan (Bloomberg/Niagara Falls Review – July 5, 2019)

https://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/

Christopher Cline, the billionaire coal tycoon best known for reviving the mining industry in Illinois and making a fortune doing it, died in a helicopter crash Thursday.

Cline died in an accident off the coast of the Bahamas that also killed six other people, Brian Glasser, an attorney who represented Cline, said by telephone. He was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri-based coal miner Foresight Energy, a joint venture with Robert Murray’s Murray Energy Corp.

Cline, who died a day shy of his 61st birthday, was born into coal. His grandfather dug up the rock with a pickaxe, and he himself started working the mines at 22. Ten years later, he founded the Cline Group to extract coal from beneath the hollows and rolling hills of Appalachia. He created Foresight to expand into Illinois in 2006. At its peak, the company was valued at more than $2.6 billion.

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Roof collapse at coal mine – by Michael Tutton (Canadian Press/Global News – July 8, 2019)

https://globalnews.ca/

Nova Scotia’s Labour Department said Monday that inspectors have been sent to the mine to look at the extent of the rock fall that occurred over the weekend, when no workers were in the area.

Scott Nauss, the province’s senior director of inspection compliance, says there were no injuries in the incident, which comes after a series of roof collapses last year in working areas of the Donkin mine.

Kameron Coal’s operations in Cape Breton were suspended for just under a month in late December before the company was allowed to partially resume activities in one portion of the mine while it prepared a revised roof support plan.

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Sculptor helps gold mining town celebrate 100 years – by Marc Montgomery (Radio Canada International – July 8, 2019)

Radio Canada International

Northern Ontario’s history is tied to that of mining. It was back in 1919 that a rush for silver in the north led instead to a discovery of gold and a another sort of rush.

This led to the development of several mines and creation of the township of Teck, eventually renamed Kirkland Lake in 1972. Renowned bronze sculptor Tyler Fauvelle has created a lifesized recreation of a period prospector which has been placed near the Toburn mine, the first of several which once flourished, and are now gone.

“Although the artwork is a tribute to all of the Kirkland Lake Gold Camp prospectors, I did include some features representing some of Kirkland Lake’s legendary prospectors. I hope visitors will enjoy looking for those symbols, and learning about the local history behind them,” says Fauvelle.

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Top 10 Canadian miners by market cap – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – July 9, 2019)

Northern Miner

The Northern Miner presents the top-10 Canada-headquartered mining companies by market capitalization, as of July 2019.

1. Nutrien

Market capitalization: $41.8 billion

Nutrien (TSX: NTR; NYSE: NTR) is the world’s largest provider of crop inputs and services, and produces and distributes over 26 million tonnes of potash, nitrogen and phosphate products each year. In 2018, the company sold 13 million tonnes of potash, 10 million tonnes of nitrogen, and 4 million tonnes of phosphate.

It was formed in a 2018 merger between Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, the world’s largest potash producer, second-largest phosphate producer and third-largest nitrogen producer, and Agrium, a retail supplier of agricultural products and service.

In February, Nutrien approved the purchase of up to 5% of its outstanding common shares over a one-year period through a normal course issuer bid, noting that the company’s “strong balance sheet and cash flow provide a significant opportunity to enhance shareholder value.”

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Clean water or mining pollution for the nation’s favorite wilderness? – by Mike Dombeck (The Hill – July 8, 2019)

https://thehill.com/

When you picture wilderness, the first thing that comes to mind may be the shoreline of a clean, unpolluted lake. Which is reasonable given the protections we provide to national wilderness areas.

But that is likely to change if the Trump administration and Twin Metals Minnesota have their way. Twin Metals is a mining firm owned by Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta.

The aggressive push by the Trump administration to force approval of a sulfide-ore copper and nickel mine in northern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest will almost certainly pollute the waters of the nation’s third largest National Forest and vast Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The administration recently announced renewal of two mining leases for Twin Metals.

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NEWS RELEASE: Mining Innovation: CEMI, Sudbury, Ontario and CEDC, Thunder Bay, Ontario sign memorandum of understanding to co-develop capacity of the mining innovation ecosystem (July 8, 2019)

In an effort to help strengthen collaboration across Ontario and leverage resources within the mining innovation ecosystem, the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) and the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC) are pleased to announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

The Doug Murray, CEO of CEDC said that “Mining and further mining innovations are important aspects for the continued growth of the Northwestern Ontario Economy and thus appreciate CEMI’s support to make this happen.” and his words aligned with CEMI’s President Douglas Morrison who said “CEMI has always undertaken to help promote mining activity in the north-west of Ontario, and this is another way to recognize our collaborative relationship.”

The purpose of this MOU is to promote a collaborative strategic approach to all aspects of mining, through mining research, technology development and the commercialization of mining innovation.

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Alberta to probe funding of anti-pipeline environmental groups with $2.5-million inquiry – by Justin Giovannetti (Globe and Mail – July 5, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Alberta is launching a public inquiry into the foreign funding of environmentalists, tackling a long-standing grievance among Canada’s conservative politicians that money from abroad has paid for a campaign to effectively block resource development.

Premier Jason Kenney, who announced the $2.5-million inquiry on Thursday, argued foreign groups and billionaires have been funding Canadian organizations for years to spread misleading information as part of a widespread and co-ordinated campaign against pipelines and Alberta’s energy sector. A number of the groups named by the Premier dismissed his claim as a fabrication.

“For more than a decade, Alberta has been the target of a well-funded, political propaganda campaign to defame our energy industry and to landlock our resources,” Mr. Kenney told reporters in Calgary, flanked by his justice and energy ministers.

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Platinum Giants Bolster Positions Before Wage Talks Begin – by Felix Njini (Bloomberg/Yahoo – July 8, 2019)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — When the world’s biggest platinum miners sit down to hammer out a wage deal with one of South Africa’s most militant labor unions this week, they’ll hold two potentially winning cards in reserve: the cash and metal stockpiles to endure a strike.

Those buffers may prove crucial as Anglo American Platinum Ltd., Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. and Sibanye Gold Ltd. meet with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union on successive days from July 9.

While the producers will be conscious that AMCU led the country’s longest ever platinum mining strike in 2014, none can meet its demand for a pay increase of as much as 48% without undermining their businesses.

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