The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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A decade after more than C$6 billion in shareholders' value evaporated and six years after a court trial began, what has been described as the world's largest mining scandal has entered its final legal proceedings. By early September final arguments in the trial of former Bre-X Minerals chief geologist John Felderhof are expected to wrap up before the Ontario Superior Court. Felderhof faces eight criminal charges, accused by the Ontario Securities Commission of illegal insider trading and issuing press releases that misled...
British Columbia is reveling in a mining boom without parallel in more than three decades, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Powered by higher metals and coal prices, reflecting the strong demand for commodities, and an increase in the number of producing mines, the province posted an increase of C$790 million or 29 percent in net revenues to C$3.5 billion in 2004, generating total net earnings of C$871 million - the highest annual earnings since the accounting firm started its annual survey in 1968. Net income...
The hunt for diamonds is undergoing a reawakening in Manitoba, four years after the first wave of explorers failed to locate kimberlite. The province's far north has attracted interest from De Beers Canada, which has collected exploration licenses for almost 5 million acres, giving the gem giant the largest rights holding in the province. But the world's most famous diamond company doesn't have things to itself. Stornoway Diamond has picked up two sites in northeastern Manitoba, while a partnership of BHP Billiton and Nustar...
Exploration spending on Yukon mines is forecast to double this year from 2004 to about C$40 million, according to an exploration and development survey by the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines. The greatest push is coming from healthy commodity prices, which have given a lift to investment in mining companies, said chamber President Scott Casselman. In addition, he credited the Yukon government with "working very hard" to encourage a mining revival, especially by eliminating regulatory obstacles. He placed Yukon...
The road has been cleared for Canada's latest diamond mine, with South African gem giant De Beers giving its final go-ahead for the C$636 million Snap Lake project. In the planning and development stages for several years, the mine is scheduled to start production in 2007, targeting about 1.5 million carats a year once it achieves peak output. It will be De Beers' first diamond mine outside of Africa and the third in the Northwest Territories, joining Diavik and Ekati. But Tahera Diamond will actually be the third to come on...
Coal is king again in Canada as producers scramble to increase their output to take advantage of new clean-coal technologies and to meet surging demand in Asia. Natural Resources Minister John Efford believes coal will be at the forefront of a mining boom in 2005, accompanied by the opening of uranium, diamond and nickel mines. He has promised coal miners that the Canadian government's implementation plan for the Kyoto Protocol, announced April 13, will strike a balance between fuelling the economy and protecting the...
The multi-billion dollar plans for northern gas pipelines could generate some profitable spin-offs in the mining sector. The Arctic lines will create a heavy demand for molybdenum, which enables high-value steel alloys to withstand extreme temperatures and pressures. Now fetching US$30 per pound, up tenfold from two years ago, the metal could soar to US$60 given that there is no easy substitute, said Jim David, president of Leeward Capital. That prospect could also signal a revival of the molybdenum sector, which experienced...
John Felderhof is unyielding in his belief that the Busang mining lease in Indonesia - the core of history's biggest mining fraud - holds a "substantial gold resource." Emerging from his home in the Cayman Islands, the Dutch-born geologist is attending Ontario Securities Commission hearings in Toronto into eight charges against him - four of insider trading involving the sale of C$84 million in shares of Bre-X Minerals before it collapsed in 1997 and four of issuing false press releases. "Basically I'm here to clear my name...
Max Baucus, the five-term Democratic U.S. senator from Montana, has found another issue to reinforce his reputation as the biggest American burr under British Columbia's saddle. Already well known for his advocacy of bans on U.S. imports of beef and softwood lumber, he has added coal to the list. He says the British Columbia government, operating in the "dead of night," issued approval for coal exploration in the southeast corner of the province by Cline Mining Corp. The permit allows Cline to spend about C$1.8 million on 51...
The Northwest Territories government has been forced to resume its search for a buyer to take over its troubled diamond cutting and polishing plant. Hopes that the Lev Leviev Group of Cos. would take over the operation collapsed earlier in February when the Israeli-based conglomerate was unable to strike a deal with the Diavik and Ekati mines to supply rough diamonds. The challenge of establishing a cost-effective, competitive diamond cutting factory in Yellowknife, where labor costs are much higher than in Russia or Africa,...
An easing of China's overheated economy and a rapid rise in costs could sap some of the vigor from the mining industry, says Canaccord Capital's global metals and mining analyst Gary Lampard. In an early-February research report he said that rather than being at the "start of a long-lasting commodity boom driven by China," the industry is "facing the tail end of a strong cyclical recovery." Lampard said the 11 global firms he studied are investing US$24 billion over three years until 2006 on expansion projects, a 23 percent...
Diamonds and energy are generating some spinoff benefits in the Northwest Territories, fueling house prices and creating some fertile ground for union organizers. The Canadian Real Estate Association has credited the industry with stimulating a 21 percent hike in house prices last year to C$246,716, making the far-flung Northwest Territories Canada's second hottest market behind British Columbia's average C$289,107. A fired-up economy that is currently drawing most of its momentum from the diamond sector has led to a housing...
A new North American gold powerhouse is in the making following the merger of Goldcorp and Wheaten River Minerals, two mid-size Canadian producers, whose combined entity now ranks No. 5 on the continent. With the champagne still flowing and the ink still drying on the deal, Ian Telfer, president and chief executive officer of the new Goldcorp, wasted no time talking about expansion. He said Goldcorp's objective will be to double production and attain what he views as the benchmark 2 million ounce mark sometime in 2005. He...
Mining can return to being a sunrise business in British Columbia, the province's Energy and Mines Minister Richard Neufeld said in unveiling a broad plan to build on the industry's recent recovery after a long slump through the 1990s. He said mining has "come a long way in the past few years" and the new plan will "help to ensure that the resurgence of this historic and vital industry continues in the long term " In the 10 years after 1991 the number of operating mines in British Columbia dropped from 28 to 13 and...
Pele Mountain Resources, a junior exploration company, says it has discovered two large diamond-bearing zones in northern Ontario. Exploration at the Festival diamond project is being financed by gold producer Goldcorp, which has an option to acquire up to a 60 percent interest and is best known for its Red Lake gold mine in northern Ontario and its current bid to take over Vancouver-based Wheaten River Minerals. Goldcorp is itself a takeover target by Nevada-based Glamis Gold, which has urged Goldcorp shareholders to reject...
The finders of Newfoundland's huge Voisey's Bay nickel deposit are cashing in their royalty interest for C$180 million and 1 million shares of a new mining royalty company. Christopher Verbiski and Albert Chislett, the prospectors who uncovered the deposit in 1993, are selling their wholly owned Archean Resources to International Royalty, which filed a preliminary prospectus earlier this month. Archean holds a 2.7 percent royalty on the Voisey's Bay property, where Inco is scheduled to start operations in 2006, producing 100...
The age of claim staking - with all of its excitement, intrigue and even hand-to-hand combat - is over in British Columbia. Now you can acquire mineral rights without even leaving your office. The provincial government has joined two other Canadian provinces, Quebec and Newfoundland, in abandoning the centuries old tradition of actually driving stakes into the ground to mark out a claim and introduced the computer and an Internet connection. Currently, the smallest claim in British Columbia is about 40 acres and costs about...
Gold mining companies are reacting cautiously to the latest spikes in gold prices in valuing their assets, unsure where the U.S. dollar is headed, an annual survey by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers has concluded. Ignoring a peak of close to $460 an ounce in December, 43 international firms have settled on an average $366 an ounce for reserves and $379 an ounce for carrying values, an increase of 9 percent over a year earlier. Ten companies included in the survey declined to settle on a price for 2005, reflecting their view that...
De Beers and Inco, world powers in the diamond and nickel industries, have linked up to explore for gems and base metals on Baffin Island in Canada's Far North. The two companies signed a precedent-setting, two-year agreement Jan. 19 to share exploration data and possibly property rights. Each is entitled to a 100 percent ownership of any discovery of either's core commodity: Diamonds for De Beers and base metals for Inco. Ownership of any other type of mineral find would be shared equally. De Beers, which has one diamond min...
In a rebound year for Canadian coal, it was no surprise that Grande Cache Coal topped the performance list of companies that made initial public offerings in 2004. Bolstered by a threefold rise in the price of metallurgical coal, the Alberta-based company posted a 523 percent share gain after going public in May and reaping total proceeds of C$57.2 million. It easily outpaced the rest of the IPO field, with second place going to Blizzard Energy, an oil and gas exploration and production junior, which posted a 102 percent...
The world's largest mining hoax fades for long periods, without ever disappearing completely. Now the insider trading case against John Felderhof, former chief geologist of Bre-X Minerals, is back before the Ontario Superior Court, seven years after the scam was exposed and 31 months after it was adjourned amid deep acrimony between rival attorneys. Felderhof has been charged with unloading Bre-X shares worth C$84 million in 1996 based on information not disclosed to investors who were immersed in a share-buying frenzy,...
The name that is synonymous with diamonds wants no part of digging for the gems in the Northwest Territories. Tiffany & Co. unloaded its 14 percent holding on Aber Diamond, the co-owner of Diavik, Canada's second diamond mine. The U.S. jewelry retailer will, however, retain a sales agreement with Aber, except that a previously applied discount to open-market diamond prices has been scrapped. That leaves Aber free to sell all of its 40 percent share of Diavik diamonds at full market prices. Tiffany is expected to raise about...
Canada's burgeoning diamond industry is not likely to get an extra lift from tax changes. A spokesman for the Canadian government dumped some cold water on hopes contained in a proposed national diamond strategy prepared by the governments of the Northwest Territories and Quebec on behalf of all provinces and territories, suggesting key tax reforms are a long-shot. The recommendations, made in late September, called for: - Eliminating the excise tax on jewelry, which jewelers argue makes Canadian diamonds more expensive...
Inco, the world's second largest nickel producer, is now in pursuit of a 50 percent increase in output by 2009. The Toronto-based company has ended a two-year hiatus by resuming work on its US$1.9 billion Goro project in New Caledonia and is six months ahead of schedule with its Voisey's Bay project in Canada's Labrador region. It confirmed Oct. 19 that the C$3 billion Voisey's Bay undertaking will start production by late 2005, instead of closer to mid-2006. The Goro project is now chasing a September 2007 start-up after hea...
Aboriginal groups in a remote corner of north-central British Columbia are resolutely opposed to plans by Vancouver-based Northgate Minerals to expand the Kemess gold and copper mine. Northgate took over Kemess four years ago after the previous owner went bankrupt and now wants to open up a new pit about three miles from the existing operation. It estimates the project would extend Kemess' operating life from 2009 to 2010, saving 400 jobs and pumping about C$150 million a year into the British Columbia economy. But the...
