Republic of Mining

Brucejack turns heads at mining convention – by Quinn Bender (Terrance Standard – December 14, 2017)

December 14, 2017

https://www.terracestandard.com/

Northwest projects awarded for excellence

The Northwest is strongly represented this year as the Association for Mineral Exploration awards those who have made a significant contribution to the industry in 2017.

The awards ceremony will be held Jan. 24 during the AME’s annual Roundup Conference, under a theme of a “new generation of discovery”. Diane Nicolson, chair of the AME board of directors, said in a press release the recipients each have set the stage for future success in the mining industry.

“These individuals and teams, through their efforts in exploration, development and outreach are representative of that theme, having made or facilitated the discovery and creation of new mines which will bring benefits to communities throughout British Columbia and Canada. The Awards Gala at Roundup is an opportunity for us all to acknowledge and celebrate their accomplishments.”

Community leaders from Mexico protest in Canada against Almaden’s operations – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – December 13, 2017)

December 14, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

A protest action took place in Vancouver the same day Almaden Minerals announced the completion of a social impact assessment for its Ixtaca project, located in Mexico’s Ixtacamaxtitlán municipality in the eastern-central Puebla state.

The evaluation of Almaden’s gold-silver project was carried out by GMI Consulting and, according to a press release issued by the miner, it concluded that Almaden had consulted widely with the focus area communities, that the Ixtaca project was well understood, and that the SIA itself was successful in providing people with an opportunity to express their views on the impacts of the mine.

As this media statement was published, four community leaders from the Ixtacamaxtitlán Municipality led a rally near the company’s headquarters in Vancouver. Ignacia Serrano, Alejandro Marreros, Francisca Zamora, and Ignacio Carmona, accompanied by the Latin American not-for-profit organization PODER, protested against what they call “irregular operations” by Almaden Minerals in Mexico.

Canada to create overseas mining watchdog early in 2018 – by Nicole Mordant (Reuters U.S. – December 12, 2017)

December 14, 2017

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Ottawa plans early next year to create an independent office to oversee Canadian mining, oil and gas companies’ activities abroad, a government spokesman said on Tuesday, a move that environmental and human rights groups have long demanded.

The office would have both an “advisory and robust investigative mandate,” a spokesman for Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in an email.

The move would fulfill a 2015 campaign promise by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party to appoint an extractive industries’ watchdog.

This Electric Truck Will Probably Beat Tesla’s to Market (Bloomberg News – December 13, 2017)

December 14, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

On the evening of Nov. 16, Elon Musk unveiled the latest prop in his Tony Stark cosplay. Tesla Inc.’s all-electric semi rig met all the classic Musk product launch criteria: It looked stunning, had unprecedented performance numbers, included features straight out of science fiction, and would arrive at some unknown date at a too-good-to-be-true price from a still-to-be-built assembly line.

Ten miles from the cramped Los Angeles airport hangar where thousands of Muskovites were swooning, a 25-year-old named Dakota Semler watched the performance on his phone, tossed a piece of sushi into his mouth, and shrugged. Semler, you see, has an all-electric semi of his own, a matte-black curvaceous truck known for now as the ET1.

It’s the first vehicle from his startup, Thor Trucks, which hopes to grab a tiny slice of the 940,000-unit-a-year market for semis and go after short-haul trucks, delivery vans, and work vehicles.

[The Hilarious Adventures Continue] Excerpt from ‘Miner Altercations’ – by Jon Ardeman

December 13, 2017

To order a copy of “Miner Altercations” which would make an excellent Christmas gift for any Geologist/ Mining/Explorationist: http://amzn.to/2Ap0Zo3

Since graduating Jon Ardeman’s geological career has been in many guises; in exploration, mining, consultancy, conservation and research. He has worked as a National Park guide, a nature warden looking after tadpoles and orchids, as a researcher digging up cow shed floors looking for Ordovician brachiopods and preparing dinosaur bones for a museum display. Enthused by these experiences, Jon sought further adventures, and headed to Africa where he worked as a geologist on various mines for more than a decade.

He returned to university and after a few years of academic research and consultancy, Jon went back to mining and precious metal exploration. His travels have taken him from the Arctic to the Equator, from North America and Siberia, to Europe, Australia, Asia and back to Africa.

During this time, Jon wrote several “mystery and imagination” short stories for magazines and competitions, but his inspiration for a first novel ‘Miner Indiscretions’ came from get-togethers with fellow prospectors and miners; with the story embellished by imagination, cold beer, a hint of the supernatural and – of course – dreams of African gold! The author is married with several children and now resides in Hertfordshire, England.

Overview

The second in the MINER series of the picaresque adventures of Timothy, a young mining geologist working on the remote Yellow Snake Gold Mine in Southern Africa. After staving off the closure of the ageing Mine with the discovery of a rich new gold deposit, Timothy and the Mine’s eccentric employees look forward to returning to their devious old ways. And yet success, even in the mining industry, can bring its own challenges. Just as their luck seemed to have changed, the Yellow Snake Mine team are forced to dig deep again.

Rising Coal Exports Give Short-Term Aid to an Ailing Industry – by Clifford Krauss (New York Times – December 13, 2017)

December 13, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/

A shake-up in global coal trading has delivered some oxygen to the struggling American mining industry, driving up exports to energy-hungry countries. But the relief may not last.

United States coal sales abroad over the first three quarters of the year surpassed exports for all of 2016, according to government figures. Energy experts project an increase of 46 percent for the full year, adding more than $1 billion to coal companies’ revenues.

Those are crucial dollars for an industry trying to stabilize itself after nearly a decade of declining prices, expanding competition from natural gas and wind and solar energy, and bankruptcies. Domestic coal-fired power plants continue to close despite promises of regulatory relief by the Trump administration, making the exports all the more critical.

Antofagasta has a new project in Canada – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – December 13, 2017)

December 13, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

A subsidiary of Chile-focused copper miner Antofagasta Plc. (LON:ANTO) signed an agreement with Canada’s Evrim Resources Corp. (TSX.V:EVM) to acquire a 70% interest in the latter’s Axe property, located in south-central British Columbia.

In a press release, the companies explained that Antofagasta can acquire a 70% interest in Axe by incurring $50 million in exploration expenditures, making cash payments of $800,000, and completing a National Instrument 43-101 compliant Preliminary Economic Analysis, over a ten year period.

Axe is a 50-square-kilometre land package within the Intermontane Belt in the southern portion of the Quesnellia Terrane. This gold-copper porphyry belt, which extends from the Canada/US border to north of Kamloops, hosts Newgold’s New Afton Mine, Teck’s Highland Valley Mine and Copper Mountain’s namesake mine.

In Germany, miners and others prepare for a soft exit from hard coal – by Valerie Hamilton (U.S.A. Today – December 13, 2017)

December 13, 2017

https://www.usatoday.com/

For most people, the top of the mine shaft at the Prosper-Haniel coal mine in Bottrop, Germany, just looks like a big black hole. But Andre Niemann looked into that hole and saw the future.

Part 1: No regrets from this soon-to-be-ex-miner

Niemann leads the hydraulic engineering and water resources department at the University of Duisberg-Essen, in the heart of German coal country, western Germany’s Ruhr Valley. For more than 150 years, Germany mined millions of tons of anthracite, or hard coal, from coal mines here that at their peak employed half a million miners. But that’s history now — Germany’s government decided a decade ago to end subsidies that made German hard coal competitive with imports.

Now, the last of these mines are set to close at the end of 2018, ending an industry, a tradition and a culture. “Prosper-Haniel is really special,” Niemann says. “It’s the last mine in this region, and everyone is looking, ‘OK, what’s happening now?’”

Glencore Is the Devil on Mining’s Shoulder – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – December 12, 2017)

December 13, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The mining industry these days resembles that old cartoon about a person torn between prudence and temptation.

On one shoulder, a white-clad angel is whispering about the virtues of capital discipline, shareholder value and generous dividends. On the other sits Glencore Plc Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg, clad in red and promising to buy or build everything in sight.

The reason for that contrast was laid out clearly at the start of a Glencore investor presentation Tuesday. Uniquely among its peers, Glencore derives a substantial slice of its earnings from trading commodities, rather than producing them. When mining is weak, marketing can take up the slack, and vice versa, as this company chart shows:

Silk Road fever grips the Russian Far East and boosts economy = by Pepe Escobar (Asia Times – December 13, 2017)

December 13, 2017

http://www.atimes.com/

If you are looking for the latest breakthroughs in trans-Eurasian geoeconomics, you should keep an eye on the East – the Russian Far East. One interesting project is the new state-of-the-art $1.5 billion Bystrinsky plant. Located about 400 kilometers from the Chinese border by rail and tucked inside the Trans-Baikal region of Siberian, it is now finally open for business.

This mining and processing complex, which contains up to 343 million tonnes of ore reserves, is a joint venture between Russian and Chinese companies.

Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s leading mining group and one of the world’s largest producers of nickel and palladium, has teamed up with CIS Natural Resources Fund, established by President Vladimir Putin, and China’s Highland Fund.

Want to Make Money in Industrial Metals Next Year? Ask China How – by Aoyon Ashraf (Bloomberg News – December 12, 2017)

December 13, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Base metals have been hot this year with zinc, copper and aluminum among the leaders, climbing between 15% and 23%. But what about 2018? Where would you invest to make money in industrial metals?

China will have the answer. Its supply side discipline can make-or-break industrial metal sentiment for the next year, and will be the main focus for the market. Debates among analysts are heating up on copper and aluminum, while steel, coal and zinc are also creating buzz among the experts. Here are some takes on what analysts are expecting for 2018.

Goldman Sachs

Bank expects outlook of strong growth in Emerging Markets and “soggy” dollar to favor metals markets. Goldman is most bullish on copper and most bearish on aluminum. Copper is “clearly” at the end of a supply boom, where aluminum has rising risk of a supply response, both inside and outside China.

U.S. court upholds Grand Canyon uranium mining ban, but allows mine nearby – by Valerie Volcovici (Globe and Mail/Reuters – December 12, 2017)

December 13, 2017

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A U.S. federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower-court ruling keeping a ban on uranium mining around the Grand Canyon, but also upheld a separate decision allowing a uranium mine nearby to open.

The decisions by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, related to cases argued last December, come as Congress and the Trump administration seek to expand mineral extraction on public lands.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month proposed lifting the Obama-era mining ban on land near Grand Canyon National Park, an area of natural beauty in the western United States that also historically served a number of uranium mines.

China’s pollution push is working and that’s big news for our miners – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – December 12, 2017)

December 13, 2017

http://www.afr.com/

After crunching a wealth of big data collected from a globe of imaging satellites, unmanned aerial sensors and land-based monitors, analysts at the Swiss investment banking giant UBS have concluded that China’s pollution controls are working, are likely to persist and might even become more widespread.

Assessing the short- and longer-term market effects on minerals and metals markets of China’s determined efforts to improve air quality over 28 of its dirtiest industrial cities sits a novel new challenge for the whole of the global commodities sector.

That the Chinese government’s move to more strictly enforce measures aimed at reducing increasingly dangerous air pollution will reshape traditional annual demand cycles is widely acknowledged by Australia’s biggest miners. But there is a whole lot less agreed certainty over how the very material manufacturing output cuts might reshape actual shipment and pricing patterns.

Sulfide mining: the most fateful decision Minnesota will ever make – by C.A. Arneson (Minn Post.com – December 12, 2017)

December 13, 2017

https://www.minnpost.com/

On Nov. 28, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Superior National Forest Land Exchange Act of 2017 (HR 3115) [PDF], facilitating perpetual pollution of Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Sponsored by Rep. Rick Nolan, HR 3115 has been received in the U.S. Senate; if attached to another bill it could slide through, selling Minnesota’s birthright to the highest bidder with scarcely a whimper.

If it passes the U.S. Senate, HR 3115 would exchange lands acquired for watershed protection for use by the most water polluting industry on the planet. It would render the pending lawsuits against the PolyMet land exchange for its proposed NorthMet mine null and void, the people’s right to seek justice in the courts stolen.

Where is the outrage? Minnesotans need to speak loudly, clearly – with the ballot if necessary – declaring they will not allow their representatives to turn our lake country into a sulfide mining cesspool. Water is becoming desperately scarce worldwide. Minnesota’s clean – incredibly rare – wealth of freshwater is its future.

Brazil, South Africa collaboration to improve mining sector “natural, appropriate”, says Brazil ambassador – by Mia Breytenbach (MiningWeekly.com – December 13, 2017)

December 13, 2017

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – With the mining sector having played a significant role in the history and development of South Africa and Brazil, it is “natural and appropriate” that the two countries come together to discuss and exchange ideas about how to improve the mining sector in both countries, says Ambassador of Brazil Nedilson Jorge.

Speaking at a seminar hosted by the Embassy of Brazil in South Africa, in Johannesburg last week, where perspectives relating to the countries’ mining and legal frameworks were shared by industry stakeholders, he emphasised that the government of Brazil was committed to continuing proposing measures to encourage the growth of its mining industry.

Further, the country intends to promote technical cooperation and technical agreements with other countries and their academic institutions. South Africa is considered a priority in this regard.