Republic of Mining

The population bombers keep on bombing — and 50 years on they keep getting it wrong – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – January 3, 2018)

January 3, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Half a century after publication of The Population Bomb, the world is healthier, better fed, less poor, better entertained and generally living fuller lives

It’s 2018, and the end is near — again. From the new Matt Damon movie Downsizing to the latest alarmist petitions from bands of scientists, the world is said to be careening toward destruction.

“We’re screwed,” says Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne, whose Downsizing explores the science-fiction idea that the world could maybe be saved if the technology existed to shrink individual humans down to the size of Ken and Barbie dolls, at which point consumption of dwindling earthly resources would be reduced to a fraction of current levels.

If you’re not keen on taking science lessons from Hollywood directors who admit they have no idea of how to avoid the alleged looming catastrophe, there’s the latest doomsterism from the Alliance of World Scientists. It has lots of ideas, all bad.

Battery Makers’ Great Hope for Cheap Lithium Faces Talent Crunch – by Jonathan Gilbert (Bloomberg News – December 28, 2017)

January 3, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

In the global rush to supply the electric-car revolution, lithium hot spot Argentina is grappling with a shortage of talent. Battery makers are depending on the South American nation’s high-altitude salt flats as a key new supply of the metal, with vast deposits and an investor-friendly government luring prospectors and developers.

Under President Mauricio Macri, Argentina has ambitions to become a lithium superpower, supplying as much as 45 percent of the market, up from about 16 percent now.

Projects have faced unpredictable weather and financing struggles. But perhaps the biggest barrier to development is a dearth of skilled workers.

Gianni Kovacevic sees even greater price potential for the conductive commodity – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – December 29, 2017)

January 3, 2018

http://resourceclips.com/

Evangelist he may be, but Gianni Kovacevic’s hardly a voice crying in the wilderness. His favourite metal displayed stellar performance last year, reaching more peaks than valleys as it climbed from about $2.50 to nearly $3.30 a pound.

But Kovacevic believes copper has a long way to go yet. That will be a function of necessity as the metal shows “the strongest demand growth of any of the major commodities.” Especially persuasive in his optimism, Kovacevic brings his message to the 2018 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference on January 21 and 22.

As a researcher, commentator and investor who’s also the CEO/chairperson of CopperBank Resources CSE:CBK, co-founder of CO2 Master Solutions Partnership and author of My Electrician Drives a Porsche, he brings new approaches that link topics of energy demand, commodity supply and environmental stewardship.

Ontario mining prospectors can soon stake claims online (CBC News Sudbury – December 29, 2017)

January 3, 2018

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Ontario prospectors are getting ready for big changes to the industry. Starting in 2018, they won’t have to venture deep into the bush to stake their claims.

They’ll soon be able to do that with just a few clicks over the internet. The adoption of technology will make it easier for everyone, says Garry Clark the executive director of Ontario Prospectors Association.

“You won’t have to go into the field to acquire the ground.” “If there’s a piece of ground you’re interested in, in Red Lake — and you’re in Sudbury — you can acquire it just by going on the computer and selecting the area and paying a fee for the land you pick,” Clark says. Currently, prospectors have to stake 4-by-4 wooden posts on the corners of their land, plus inscribe their names, the date and time, and the co-ordinates of the property.

Document lists all mines that used McIntyre Powder – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – December 29, 2017)

January 3, 2018

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – The McIntyre Powder Project has obtained a document that outlines all the mines in Ontario where aluminum dust was used in an ill-fated attempt to protect workers from developing a lung condition known as silicosis.

At the time, the mines were unaware of the potential toxic effects of having their workers inhale aluminum dust particles.

At least a dozen mines from Timmins and the immediate surrounding area are listed in that document, which Janice Martell, of McIntyre Powder Project, said was obtained through a Freedom of Information request to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure Depends on a Better Mine Permitting Process – by Tom Madison (Rockland Times – December 20, 2017)

January 3, 2018

http://www.rocklandtimes.com/

Tom Madison is executive director of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy.

America’s infrastructure is in crisis. Earlier this year, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) graded the health of our nation’s infrastructure with a D+. The ASCE report card calls for more than $4.5 trillion in investment over the next decade to address the challenges facing our roads, bridges, airports, railways, ports, pipelines, levees, dams, energy grid, and other systems that underpin our economy and quality of life.

If we’re serious about returning American infrastructure to its rightful place as a source of pride and leadership, we will need better, faster access to the raw materials it takes to sustain and improve our systems.

Rebuilding our aging, complex infrastructure assets and preparing them to meet growing demand will take a tremendous volume and variety of raw materials. These structures and systems are built with steel, concrete and numerous other metals. Take the nearly completed Tappan Zee Bridge replacement north of New York City, a $3.9 billion project I helped lead as executive director of the New York State Thruway Authority.

Quantum Pebble leap: First Quantum enters $1.5B deal for half of Pebble; permitting begins – – by Shane Lasley (Mining News – December 24, 2017)

January 3, 2018

http://www.petroleumnews.com/

In a framework agreement announced on Dec. 18, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. was revealed as the major mining company that will complete the Pebble Limited Partnership.

“We have made good progress in the partnering process and are very pleased to be in advanced-stage discussions with First Quantum, an industry leader in mine development and management,” Ron Thiessen, president and CEO, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., currently the sole owner of the Pebble Partnership.

While the final details of an agreement that will provide First Quantum the option to own half of the Pebble Partnership are being hammered out, the US$1.5 billion preliminary agreement announced on Monday includes a US$150 million investment by First Quantum the will involve four equal payments of US$37.5 million to fund the upcoming permitting process for Pebble.

Autonomous Cars Need Tougher Batteries, Lithium-Ion Pioneer Says – by Chisaki Watanabe (Bloomberg News – December 26, 2017)

January 3, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Battery makers must rethink their technology if predictions for a wave of self-driving vehicles pan out, according to one of the inventors of the lithium-ion battery.

In addition to focusing on making batteries more powerful to extend the driving range of single-owner cars, manufacturers will also need to develop devices that can withstand the rigors of near-constant driving and short-range trips from the shared use expected of autonomous vehicles, said Akira Yoshino, who invented a prototype of the lithium-ion battery in 1985.

“A car shared by 10 people means it will be running 10 times more,” Yoshino, an honorary fellow at Asahi Kasei Corp., the world’s biggest maker of separators used in batteries, said in an interview at the company headquarters in Tokyo. “Durability will become very important.”

Hundreds risk lives in Morocco ‘mines of death’ (Asia One – December 27, 2017)

January 3, 2018

http://www.asiaone.com/

AFP – Jerada, Morocco – They call them “the mines of death”. In the neglected northern Moroccan mining city of Jerada, hundreds of people risk their lives every day to scrape a meagre living from perilous abandoned coal pits.

Last week, two brothers died in a tunnel accident, 85 metres (90 yards) below ground, sparking days of mass protests in the impoverished city. Abderrazak Daioui, who was with the brothers, narrowly escaped the same fate. “Houcine and Jedouane were just below me,” the 22-year-old said.

“One of them dug horizontally and hit a water well. We were flooded. I hung on my rope and managed to get back up. They weren’t so lucky.” Living in a modest, unfinished house, Abderrazak works to support his wife and daughter, his six brothers and his 80-year-old father – himself a former miner.

As coal jobs fade, Appalachia taps history, culture and ecotourism veins (Japan Times – December 27, 2017)

January 3, 2018

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/

AP – PERRY COUNTY, OHIO – Two-thirds of Appalachia’s coal industry jobs have disappeared since the 1990s. Now the region is hoping tourism will help rebuild its economy by tapping into history and its rugged natural beauty.

A Shawnee, Ohio, event re-enacted a Prohibition rally outside the real-life former speakeasy. In Corbin, Kentucky, they’re constructing an elk-viewing area on a former mountaintop mine. Virginia’s Crooked Road traces country music history. Ohio’s Winding Road takes visitors back to the birth of the U.S. labor movement.

“We’d like to promote Appalachia as an exotic, interesting place, not the Godforsaken place that we usually get in the national press,” said Todd Christensen, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Foundation.

Norilsk, Stalin’s Siberian Hell, Thrives in Spite Of Hideous Legacy – by Robert G. Kaiser (Washington Post – August 29, 2001)

January 3, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Is there any stranger human habitation on Earth than this?

In Norilsk, 200 miles above the Arctic Circle, the sun does not rise for three months a year, the winter temperatures remain under 30 degrees below zero, and the air is, literally, the dirtiest on the globe. Yet there is a full-blown city of 230,000 here, whose citizens are fierce local patriots with a romantic sense of their own uniqueness.

They live in a place created by zeks, political prisoners who populated Joseph Stalin’s gulag — perhaps 100,000, or even 200,000 died in its building; the exact number is lost or buried in still-sealed archives. They were inmates in an unimaginable chamber of horrors, a community of prison camps designed to create nickel and copper industries, and to kill people. It succeeded impressively on both counts.

Modern Norilsk is populated by descendants of those prisoners, among many others, and the city remembers its horrific past. This is unusual in Russia, where forgetting is easier. On the busy streets of Norilsk in August, with pretty women on parade and children chasing each other on bikes and in-line skates, that past seems so remote as to be unreachable.

Legendary Timmins Dome underground operations ended Dec. 31: ‘It’s just amazing what this mine has done for the community’ – by Maija Hoggett (Northern Ontario Business – January 2, 2017)

January 2, 2018

Legendary Dome Mine Timmins Ontario (Wiki Photo)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The final day of 2017 marked the end of an era at a Timmins mine. More than 100 years after the Dome underground mine started, work permanently ceased on Dec. 31.

Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines (PGM) announced the closure, which directly affects about 140 people, in August. To mark the end of the historic operation, mine general manager Marc Lauzier said each crew enjoyed cake, a photographer took keepsake photos for interested crew members, and the workers received a memento to bring home.

“I couldn’t be prouder of our crews; they’ve done a phenomenal job, they’ve kept their heads up right until the end, and the morale is actually better than it could be,” Lauzier said.

A New Commodities Boom Doesn’t Mean Ecological Doom – by Mac Margolis (Bloomberg News – January 2, 2018)

January 2, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s renewed appetite for natural riches once again tests Latin America.

Demand is surging again for oil, minerals and grains – the basic goods to which Latin America`s fortunes have long been tethered. After a year of graft scandals and political whiplash, you can just about hear the sighs of collective relief. Or is that just a giant sucking sound?

Since the voyages of discovery, raw materials and farm goods have been Latin America’s blessing and its trap, filling official coffers but too often despoiling the environment and condemning economies to boom and bust.

Through last decade’s swoon, hopes ran high that China’s demand would help clients climb the value chain and become developed nations. Yet Latin America still relies on grains, minerals and raw energy for half its export revenues, the same share as three decades ago.

Bankers hope for gold in mining M&As in 2018 – by Niall McGhee (Globe and Mail – January 1, 2018)

January 2, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

After years of “Will they or won’t they?” talk, 2018 may finally be the year of consolidation among Canada’s intermediate gold companies.

Mergers and acquisitions in the mining industry ticked higher in 2017 compared with the year before. But deal-making activity is still a long way below the boom years.

The value of announced M&A with any involvement from a Canadian mining company was $10.7-billion (U.S.) in 2017, up about one-third from 2016, according to Thomson Reuters data. In 2011, the last big year for the industry, mining M&A exceeded $40-billion, and in 2007, a staggering $98-billion worth of deals were done – highlighted by megadeals such as Rio Tinto’s takeover of Montreal’s Alcan Inc.

IN TOO DEEP: The 100-year capitalist experiment that keeps Appalachia poor, sick, and stuck on coal – by Gwynn Guilford (Quartz Media – December 30, 2017)

January 2, 2018

https://qz.com/

The first time Nick Mullins entered Deep Mine 26, a coal mine in southwestern Virginia, the irony hit him hard. Once, his ancestors had owned the coal-seamed cavern that he was now descending into, his trainee miner hard-hat secure.

His people had settled the Clintwood and George’s Fork area, along the Appalachian edge of southern Virginia, in the early 17th century. Around the turn of the 1900s, smooth-talking land agents from back east swept through the area, coaxing mountain people into selling the rights to the ground beneath them for cheap.

One of Mullins’ ancestors received 12 rifles and 13 hogs—one apiece for each of his children, plus a hog for himself—in exchange for the rights to land that has since produced billions of dollars worth of coal. “I probably ended up mining a lot of that coal,” says Mullins, a broad-shouldered, bearded 38-year-old with an easy smile.