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Dear ladies / gents:
I saw this article in last week's "Business in Vancouver" magazine (17 January 2017 - page 5) - by Nelson Bennett.
Wow...I guess I'm paying my taxes to a banana republic (...the province of British Columbia).
"Dear Miner: this is your provincial government - please note that we do NOT have to tell you when we are negotiating-away the land that you want to mine".
Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe would be proud.
Chill!
Treaty rights trump minerals rights: province (Updated)
This story was updated on January 18, 2017 to reflect the court's decision on an application for judicial review.
Junior exploration companies with mineral claims throughout the province have no right to know when the government is secretly negotiating interim treaties that the junior sector fears could result in de facto expropriation without consultation.
That’s what government officials are now openly admitting to the courts, according to the law firm representing a junior mining company that is seeking a judicial review of the provincial government’s decision to hand over Crown land, to which the company holds minerals rights, to a First Nation as part of an interim treaty agreement.
The BC Supreme Court is scheduled this week to begin hearing an application from China Minerals Mining Corp. (TSX-V:CMV) and Cassiar Gold Corp.
The companies argue that the B.C. government essentially expropriated their mineral claims when it secretly handed over land parcels to the Kaska Dena. The companies argue that the Kaska Dena’s own plans for a run-of-river hydroelectric project might have prevented the claims from ever being exploited.
The government disagrees, saying it was merely a transfer of land ownership from the Crown to a First Nation, which does not extinguish subsurface mineral claims.
The government is also arguing that a judicial review would be moot now and should not proceed, because it has since decided to take the land back and offer other land parcels instead, after the project the Kaska Dena wanted to develop became “unfeasible.”
The companies disagree and say an important legal question needs to be resolved with respect to treaty rights trumping mineral rights.
According to Joan Young, the McMillan LLP lawyer representing the two mining companies, the provincial government has admitted in its response to the application for judicial review that it doesn’t think it has any obligation to inform claim holders when it is negotiating a transfer of ownership in interim treaty negotiations.
“The government is now on record as having told our client – and the court in its written submissions – that it feels it owes no duty of procedural fairness and consultation to third parties holding mineral titles when entering into treaty-related agreements,” Young said. “That is an astonishing position which we have never seen stated before.”
In its response, the government maintained that there is no obligation for procedural fairness with respect to mineral claims holders: “The petitioners frame the right sought in terms analogous to the duty of consultation and accommodation owed by the Crown to First Nations, although they are not First Nations and enjoy no constitutional basis to assert procedural fairness rights.”
Young said her clients believe the judicial review should go ahead, despite the fact that the original concern over the two parcels of land may now be a moot point. There is a bigger question for the courts to address, she said.
“We’re arguing, as a legal position, that it’s not moot because some of the remedies we’ve asked [from] the courts are ones that would have ongoing application, such as a declaration that we are entitled to procedural fairness.”
The Association for Mineral Exploration BC (AME BC) is also urging the court to hear the application.
Mineral tenure holders in B.C. have no idea what the government might be negotiating behind closed doors with First Nations. The companies argue they have a right to be informed when the government is negotiating the transfer of title that might have mineral claims attached to it.
AME BC has raised concerns about mineral rights in the Cariboo, where the provincial government is negotiating the transfer of land to the Tsilhqot’in First Nation under the Nenqay Deni Accord.
That accord was developed in response to the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada Williams decision, which granted rights and title to the Tsilhqot’in over some of their traditional territory.
“The AME BC is aware of other instances of mineral tenure holders in British Columbia being impacted by agreements between the province and First Nations,” AME BC president Gavin Dirom stated in an affidavit before the court. “And the AME BC believes that judicial clarity on the relationship between third-party rights and the Crown/First Nation agreements would be important and instructive to the mineral exploration and development industry in British Columbia.”
Update: On Tuesday, July 18, 2017, the court sided with the province, deciding against hearing the case. The court agreed the matter is now a moot point.
Ladies / gents:
I hope everyone had themselves a good Christmas, and I wish everyone a great New Years.
This article was in the Vancouver Sun today (Wednesday, 28 Dec 2016) - page A6. It is quite interesting - basically, that technology may allow for harder-to-develop deposits to become feasible.
* * * * *
"Mining looks for its disruptive ace in the hole" - by Derrick Penner
Innovations in mining could one day lead to mines without giant holes in the ground.
It sounds simplistic, but innovations in mining — from the development of sensor-driven autonomous mining machines to advances in the microbiology of minerals — promise viable alternatives for miners to operate on a smaller scale.
“If you look at (mining) on a global basis, the ability for us to fund or develop these big-scale mines I think is very questionable already,” said Kip Jeffrey, head of the Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter in the U.K.
Jeffrey was in Vancouver earlier this fall to help spark that conversation with a presentation for an audience of about 160 mining executives, consultants and academics in the sector and the topic is gaining resonance here.
“It’s a question of time, but there’s no doubt in my mind we will find ways to mine differently in British Columbia,” said Scott Dunbar, head of the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering at the University of B.C.
B.C. is endowed with “incredible mineral wealth that could be exploited,” Dunbar said. But miners face challenges in finding new, often low-grade deposits, absorbing the enormous costs to build large mines and then public push back over the impact of such big projects.
Kip Jeffrey, head of the Camborne School of Mining at the University of Exeter.
“Then there’s the staggering amounts of waste you produce,” Dunbar said. “Any one of those things could stop you dead in your tracks.”
B.C. has 15 operating mines, including large projects such as Centerra Gold’s $1.3-billion Mount Milligan mine northwest of Prince George and Imperial Metals Corp.’s $643-million Red Chris mine in B.C.’s remote northwest.
Among projects under development, however, is Seabridge Gold Inc.’s Kerr, Sulphurets and Mitchell (KSM) gold and copper mine in the remote northwest, which is working its way through permitting that comes with a forbidding $5.3 billion estimated price tag.
In 2015, Seabridge CEO Rudy Fronk told Postmedia News that the project requires a major partner to step in and the list of global companies with deep enough pockets to take it on was short. The development also faces considerable opposition from conservation groups in Alaska downstream from the KSM site.
Other B.C. projects have fallen to environmental concerns, such as Taseko Mines Ltd.’s promisingly rich New Prosperity proposal for a $1 billion open pit gold and copper mine southwest of Williams Lake, which was twice rejected in a federal environmental review.
Globally, Jeffrey said a substantial majority of mining projects that are being built are going over budget.
“The choice then becomes do you never develop the deposit, or do you say, ‘well, we will look at this more rightsized mine for that particular location,” Jeffrey said.
Tools for building that “rightsized” mine, Jeffrey said, could include autonomous mining machines that with advanced sensors that can independently burrow underground and dig out minerals, Jeffrey said.
These can be built smaller than traditional mining equipment, Jeffrey added, because they don’t have to accommodate human operators, Jeffrey said, and would be capable of zeroing in on narrow veins of minerals rather than carving out huge areas of additional waste rock in between them.
Not digging up so much waste, putting a smaller amount of ore through a processing plant and building a smaller processing plant in the first place, all shrink the size of a mine.
“(And) those perhaps biggest-impact things that you see at a mine, I wouldn’t say disappear entirely, but they’re dramatically reduced,” Jeffrey said.
Using biochemistry, injecting microbe-containing fluids capable of dissolving minerals underground that can be pumped back to surface — referred to as in situ extraction — is another innovation showing promise as a means for miners to avoid having to dig up massive amounts of rock.
Instead of excavating a pit, miners would drill into rock and pump fluids underground with microbes capable of dissolving minerals, which are pumped back to surface to recover the ore.
Dunbar, at UBC, is collaborating with biochemists to develop a biological method to draw dissolved metals out of mine waste water.
The first advantage of the technique is to reduce the environmental impact of discharging mine waste water into the environment. However, it also recovers some of the valuable minerals left behind.
Dunbar said that while researchers need to learn more about how the “mineral microbiome works,” the hope is that they’ll be able to use the techniques in mining itself.
Smaller-scale innovations also give miners an opportunity to look at old mines in new, less capital-intensive ways, Jeffrey said.
Vancouver-based Strongbow Exploration Inc., is contemplating some of those innovations in its project to revive a tin mine at the southwest tip of Cornwall in the U.K.
Called South Crofty, the underground mine was last shuttered in 1998 and Strongbow CEO Richard Williams said finding ways to minimize activity at the surfaces is paramount in their planning since the mine site is in the middle of Camborne, a town of 25,000 people.
Williams said existing underground shafts in an area that has been mined for hundreds of years gives Strongbow an advantage because they can be used to store waste rock instead of building a tailings facility at surface.
He said the company is also exploring the use of new technologies for sorting rock to separate tin-containing rock from waste rock underground, which will reduce the amount of ore that they need to haul to the surface.
That saves energy, both in moving ore to the surface and processing it, Williams said.
“Anything that reduces environmental impact, anything that reduces power consumption, anything that improves working conditions, you have to look at,” Williams said.
“It’s your responsibility as a company, not just to your employees, but the whole community.”
Adopting such techniques, however, has challenges, Jeffrey said, when mines being built now cost billions of dollars. Miners can’t afford to take big risks while paying back that amount of capital.
“That’s where conservatism, if it exists, is,” Jeffrey said.
For the moment, the mining industry is working to automate segments of traditional mining, with driverless haul trucks and autonomous equipment used in open-pit mining such as the rock drills and excavators.
However, Vancouver companies such as Integra Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc. are among those looking to push the boundaries of innovation.
The companies, last week, launched a contest under the title Disrupt Mining in which it is inviting applications to showcase ideas with “the potential to revolutionize the future of mining.” The prize is up to a $1 million investment from the partners and a chance to do a proof-of-concept test at one of their mines.
“The mining industry is overdue for radical, disruptive innovation,” said Goldcorp senior vice-president Todd White.
In the longer term, Jeffrey estimated sensor-driven robotic machines could be used to selectively mine within the next decade.
“Two years ago I might have said this was in the realm of science fiction and somewhat fanciful,” Jeffrey said. “I can’t say that now because some of those things are actually happening.”
Ladies/gents:
Here are some good articles from the Vancouver Sun on Saturday, 18 September 2015, that I thought you'd find interesting:
1) Port of Stewart - it looks like someone has faith that a lot more traffic will be passing through the port.
2) Coal Deposit: I was quite intrigued to know that there is a massive anthracite (i.e. not "metallurgical") coal deposit fairly close to the Schaft Creek property.
(Maybe it is no coincidence that these 2 articles appear on the same day? ...it looks like the coal company will be using the Port of Stewart for a lot of its transportation requirements. I know of another Company that hopes to do the same!)
Chill!
Iceman
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Stewart+port+terminal+owner+takes+million+gamble+that+business+will+follow/11372104/story.html?__lsa=83e7-5cab
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Australian+firm+high+hopes+coal+deposit/11375467/story.html?__lsa=83e7-5cab
Ladies / gents:
(I would normally post this in the "off topic" forum, but this article directly relates to Copper Fox).
...wish I had better news...
Ice
From "Business in Vancouver" (online). By Nelson Bennett - 05 June 2015
PwC outlook paints grim picture for mining, exploration
Things are not looking good for multi-billion mine projects like...
Things are not looking good for multi-billion mine projects like the KSM in B.C., according to a new mining global outlook from PwC.
Smaller, leaner projects, may stand more of a chance of getting financed in a new era of prolonged low commodity prices and activist shareholders, according to PwC’s 2015 mining outlook, The Gloves Are Off.
As the title suggests, mining companies will have to fight to survive and they are going to have to get used to operating or building new mines at current commodity prices, rather than pin their hopes on a major rally.
“People aren’t talking anymore about this downturn in commodity prices being temporary,” said John Gravelle, PwC’s global mining leader.
“People looking at current commodities prices are saying, ‘We’re going to have to make our projects work under current prices.’”
And that means only the leanest projects are likely to be financed.
“It’s going to be hard to raise money for multi-billion dollar projects,” Gravelle said. “Good projects will ultimately go forward, but they really have to be on the right side of the cost curve.”
Although projects like the $5.3 billion KSM mine that Seabridge Gold Inc. (TSX:SEA) is trying to develop could be built if the company succeeds in finding a major player as a partner, even the big mining companies are feeling the bit in their mouths, as unhappy shareholders try to rein them in.
“In today’s market, if you’re looking at a big project to get financed, one of the issues you have is the big companies still haven’t won back the confidence of their shareholders,” Gravelle said. “The shareholders don’t want them to go out doing these massive acquisitions and massive capital expenditures.”
PwC’s report is grim. It examined the world’s top 40 mining companies, which lost $156 billion in 2014 – 16% of their combined market value.
Copper is the largest revenue generator among the top 40 miners examined. At current copper prices, many miners are showing little appetite for starting new projects, the PwC report states. Copper is the second most important commodity mined in B.C.
Most of the price decline in mining was in growth-related commodities – iron, metallurgical coal, copper and other metals and alloys used in building things. The main reason: China’s not building nearly as many things as it used to.
China accounts for 40% to 50% of global commodity demand, the report states, and the double-digit growth that drove an unprecedented mining supercycle is a thing of the past.
That cycle drove new mines to be built, and some of the ones now in operation have had to increase production to make up for lower prices, adding to the glut of key commodities like iron and met coal. In 2014, iron ore, coal, and copper prices fell 50%, 26% and 11%, respectively.
Although some majors have cut production, others are pushing forward with expansions, in attempt to boost profits through sheer volume. And that could push higher cost producers out of the market, PwC warns.
B.C. has already witnessed that with Walter Energy Inc. (TSX: WLT) shutting down its more marginal met coal mines in B.C.
Of the top 40 companies examined for the 2015 mining outlook, seven are Canadian. Three are B.C. companies: Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G), Teck Resources Ltd. (TSX.B:TCK), and First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (TSX:FM). Only Teck has mines in B.C.
“With few exceptions, the commodity price outlook remains dim,” the Pwc report states.
The one good thing about low commodity prices is oil, which affects currency values. Lower crude prices and a stronger U.S. dollar have lowered operating costs for Canadian miners. Miners with high labour costs in Canada or Australia have also seen lower costs as a result of the high U.S. dollar.
If there is any good news for shareholders, it’s that companies that have been promising to get spending down managed to do so in 2014.
“People have been talking about reducing capital expenditures for a few years now,” Gravelle said. “This is the first year they actually went down.”
One of the areas suffering the most from that retrenchment is exploration. The top 40 companies decreased exploration spending by 53% in 2014, spending $4.9 billion, compared with $6.3 billion in 2013 and $12 billion in 2012.
Ladies / gents:
Here's an interesting article from this past Saturday's Vancouver Sun (page F4) by Rob McLeod.
So I guess that, after we screw up the earth's climate for our children and grandchildren, we can take some solace in knowing we've made it easier to find certain previously-ice-covered mineral deposits...sigh...
Chill! ("literally")
Ice
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Opinion+Retreating+reveals+riches/11002765/story.html
Ladies / gents:
...here's another good article by Nelson Bennett from last week's "Busienss in Vancouver" magazine (17 March 2015 - page 26).
...interesting to see numerous the "ups and downs" in Red Chris' development.
I certainly hope that WE don't take 60 years to start producing! (...althought it's sure FELT like that the past couple of years!)
Iceman
http://www.biv.com/article/2015/3/bcs-red-chris-mine-six-decades-making/