Republic of Mining

Once-Mighty Canadian Mining Losing Ground to Global Competitors – by Danielle Bochove (Boomberg News – March 14, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Canada is in danger of losing its global dominance in mining, despite recent government initiatives to improve competitiveness, according to a report from an industry association.

The report, by the Mining Association of Canada, comes as debate about the hollowing out of the country’s mining sector grows. Mega-mergers by Canada’s two largest gold companies, Barrick Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc., stand to erode its global influence.

The Barrick tie-up, with Channel Islands-based Randgold Resources Ltd., has already resulted in job cuts and further decentralization away from Canada, a trend that will likely increase under Barrick’s newly inked joint-venture in Nevada with Newmont Mining Corp.

PDAC Interview: PM Justin Trudeau speaks on Canadian mining innovation, aboriginal engagement (Northern Miner – March 14, 2019)

March 14, 2019

Northern Miner

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a visit to the annual convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) in Toronto on March 5, 2019, for a sit-in interview conducted by outgoing PDAC president Glenn Mullan.

Below is a full transcript of the 20-minute interview, edited for clarity. Topics that Trudeau and Mullan discussed included technological innovation, sustainable mining practices, federal regulatory changes and reconciliation efforts with Canada’s First Nations.

Glenn Mullan: We’re so much looking forward to the fireside chat without a fire. And we have a couple of topics that we thought would be agreeable for discussion, including Canada’s competitiveness, indigenous affairs and some of the regulatory things that we’re working on in collaboration with your government in particular.

How the outlook for Canada’s miners may hinge on Volkswagen’s $66-billion gamble on electric vehicles – by Scott Barlow (Globe and Mail – March 14, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Global mining giant Glencore PLC estimates that the production of an electric vehicle will require 84 kilograms of copper, 30 kilograms of nickel and eight kilograms of cobalt. Demand for battery powered cars then is not only of interest to oil patch investors concerned about future demand, but also potential investors in Canada’s base-metal miners.

We will find out a lot about future demand for electric vehicles in 2019 as global auto companies attempt to eat into Tesla Inc.’s leading market share.

Consumer excitement about Tesla cars is expected to wane significantly. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, in a report Tuesday, noted that the Tesla brand is losing its “aura of exclusivity” because of recent price cuts. “We see TSLA hitting an air pocket in demand that is coming earlier than we expected,” he said. Mr. Jonas also cut his stock price target for Tesla to US$260 from US$283.

Investors blast ‘terrible’ $12-million retirement deal for departing Goldcorp chair Ian Telfer – by Danielle Bochove and Anders Melin (Financial Post/Bloomberg News – March 14, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

Telfer’s package to jump threefold if merger with Newmont goes through

A lucrative retirement package for the chairman of Goldcorp Inc. is raising the hackles of investors ahead of a key vote on the company’s planned merger with Newmont Mining Corp.

Ian Telfer’s retirement allowance will rise to roughly US$12 million from US$4.5 million if the miners merge, according to a regulatory filing from Vancouver-based Goldcorp, once the world’s largest gold miner by market value. Initially, the plan was for Telfer, 72, to join Newmont’s board as deputy chairman. On Tuesday, Goldcorp announced he wouldn’t accept the new job.

A group of investors tracking the merger welcomed the decision, but in an emailed statement said the two mining companies “have still failed to justify how the threefold increase in the payment to Mr. Telfer is in the best interests of their respective shareholders.”

Column: New controversy engulfs London Metal Exchange’s warehouses – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – March 13, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://uk.reuters.com/

Long load-out queues earlier this decade generated media scandal, a flurry of legal action and intense regulatory scrutiny of the exchange. The ensuing raft of reforms to its storage network appeared to have laid the issue to rest.

Not so. At the end of February, there was a 229-day queue to get aluminium out of warehouses in Malaysia’s Port Klang. That’s business days, not calendar.

Some of that metal is at the centre of a dispute between the warehouse operator, ISTIM, and trading powerhouse Glencore, which has lodged a complaint with the LME. The argument turns on the minutiae of the exchange’s labyrinthine warehouse rules but the underlying problem remains the same as ever.

Northern Dynasty raises $10 million to develop Alaska Pebble project – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 13, 2019)

March 14, 2019

http://www.mining.com/

Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX:NDM) has entered into a bought deal financing with Cantor Fitzgerald Canada to raise $10 million that will allow the miner to further advance its Pebble copper-gold-silver project in Alaska.

The deal prices the company’s shares at 64 Canadian cents, a 13.5% discount to the stock’s price before the financing was announced.

The Canadian miner has also granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to acquire up to an additional 2.34 million-plus shares, which could raise another $1.5 million.

Brazil government kickstarts efforts to mine indigenous reserves: official – by Jake Spring (Reuters U.S. – March 13, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s government wants to enact rules that allow mining in indigenous reserves which occupy 13 percent of the country’s territory and hopes it can get Congress to reconsider a decades-old proposal to do so, a Mines and Energy Ministry official told Reuters.

Mining Secretary Alexandre Vidigal de Oliveira was asked to clarify comments made last week by Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque, who said while visiting the United States and Canada that Brazil would seek to open indigenous reserves to mining.

Albuquerque’s remarks sparked an angry response from indigenous advocates, who said it was disrespectful after the country had just suffered it’s largest-ever mining disaster that killed hundreds in January.

NEWS RELEASE: New Report Shows Urgent Need for Additional Government Support to Enhance Competitiveness of Canada’s Mining Industry

March 14, 2019

OTTAWA, March 14, 2019 /CNW/ – Today, the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) released its annual Facts & Figures report, a document focused on providing a comprehensive overview of current trends in Canada’s mining sector.

While Canada has long been the dominant global mining nation—in mineral production, mining finance, mining services and supplies, and sustainability and safety, this year’s data shows that our competitiveness continues to erode. Canada is losing out on its ability to seize new opportunities for growth and it is essential that the federal and provincial governments take action to reverse this trend.

“Over the past decade, Canada’s leadership in mining has been deteriorating year over year, with no sign of any significant turnaround, and support from governments is absolutely critical to improving this position,” said Pierre Gratton, President and CEO of MAC.

Talk about ‘collusion’: How foreign-backed anti-oil activists infiltrated Canada’s government – by Gwyn Morgan (Financial Post – March 14, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

Piece by meticulously researched piece, Vivian Krause has spent almost 10 years exposing this story

Canadians watching Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election might be tempted to find comfort in their certainty that such foreign interference could never happen here.

Except it already has. And while the Russian government at least denies interfering in American political affairs, the perpetrators who meddled in Canadian elections have publicly trumpeted their success in devising and executing their plan aimed at helping elect who they wanted.

This story has all the elements of a fiction novel. Unfortunately it’s real. Piece by meticulously researched piece, B.C.-based independent researcher Vivian Krause spent almost 10 years exposing the story. Every detail has been corroborated, including with American and Canadian tax records, together with documents and statements from the perpetrators themselves.

‘A never-ending cycle unless you break it’: Snotty Nose Rez Kids push against racism – by David Friend (Canadian Press/City News – March 12, 2019)

March 14, 2019

https://toronto.citynews.ca/

TORONTO — Snotty Nose Rez Kids rappers Darren Metz and Quinton Nyce weren’t equipped as children to analyze the vicious Indigenous stereotypes and racist caricatures flashing on their TV screens.

Like many kids of the late 1990s, they were raised on a steady diet of Disney classics while living in Kitamaat Village on Haisla Nation in northwest B.C. Some of those animated movies sent clear negative messages about their identities that echoed throughout the community.

“Peter Pan” presented Native Americans as “savages” who spoke in monosyllables, while “Pocahontas” romanticized colonialism by framing it against a love story. Metz and Nyce remember how elders rarely questioned the ways Hollywood movies taught the Indigenous youth to devalue themselves.

China becomes world’s biggest importer of rare earths: analysts – by Tom Daly (Reuters U.S. – March 13, 2019)

March 13, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING (Reuters) – China, the world’s top producer of rare earth elements, last year also emerged as the biggest importer of the group of minerals used in everything from ceramics to consumer electronics, analysts said on Wednesday.

China has for years been the world’s biggest rare earths exporter, raising shipments overseas by 4 percent year-on-year to more than 53,000 tonnes in 2018, and its emergence as the top importer as well is a sudden and surprising development.

The country imported 41,400 tonnes of rare earth oxides and oxide equivalents in 2018, up 167 percent year-on-year, as a crackdown on illegal production reduced domestic output, according to a report by consultancy Adamas Intelligence.

Sierra Leone Sees IMF Support as Crucial to Luring Investors – by Andre Janse Van Vuuren (Bloomberg News – March 13, 2019)

March 13, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Sierra Leone is counting on its program with the International Monetary Fund to attract infrastructure investments and revive an economy that’s struggling to recover from the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola.

The government of President Julius Maada Bio resumed an agreement with the Washington-based lender for a $172 million extended credit facility in December after an earlier deal with the administration of his predecessor, Ernest Bai Koroma, stalled because it didn’t meet the program’s targets.

Plagued by chronic corruption, double-digit inflation and the legacy of a civil war, economic growth probably stalled at 3.7 percent last year and has persistently failed in recent years to match expansion of as much as 21 percent prior to the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in 2014. Growth may see a slight improvement to 5.4 percent this year, according to the IMF.

Keystone XL pipeline delays may cost contractors $2.5 billion: TransCanada – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – March 13, 2019)

March 13, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY — TransCanada Corp. has asked the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to lift an injunction on its Keystone XL pipeline by the end of this week, as it approaches an internal deadline to begin construction this year on the US$8-billion project.

Without relief from the injunction, TransCanada could delay construction by one year on the 830,000-barrels-per-day pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska. The project would expand the ability of Canadian oil companies to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast refining market through the company’s existing Keystone system.

In a March 11 filing, the U.S. State Department and Calgary-based pipeline giant requested a stay of an injunction granted late last year by a federal judge in Montana, which forced the company to cease all preparatory work on the oil pipeline until the State Department finished a supplemental review of the project.

[Sault Ste. Marie] Building a knowledge-based economy:Algoma University positions itself as a catalyst for community innovation – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 13, 2019)

March 13, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Pedro Antunes gets excited thinking about the possibilities to create a more knowledge-based economy in Sault Ste. Marie. The associate biology professor at Algoma University marvels at the environmental research and science capacity both on the Queen Street campus and at two nearby government forestry labs.

“In a relatively small community, we have a huge number of people with post-secondary degrees in all areas of science and forestry,” he said. “From there it can stem into many so many areas.”

With an undergraduate population of about 1,000 students, Algoma University is still relatively young as an independent post-secondary institute, 10 years removed from its affiliation with Laurentian University in Sudbury.

OPINION: How society pays a high price for gold – by Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star – March 13, 2019)

March 13, 2019

https://www.thestar.com/

I grew up over a gold mine. That didn’t make me rich. My father worked in the mine; he didn’t own it. Even if he had, neither we nor the other families that lived on this particular mine property just outside Timmins would have been rich.

In those days, when the price of bullion was pegged at $35 U.S. an ounce, many Canadian gold mines survived only through government assistance. But living there did make me curious about the sought-after but seemingly pointless metal upon which my community relied. So when a friend mentioned that he was working on a documentary about gold. I was eager to see it.

The Shadow of Gold is an ambitious exploration of a metal that still fascinates the world. More than anything else, gold is an idea. It is desired simply because it is desired.