NEVADA: BARRICK, NEWMONT AGREE TO ‘HISTORIC’ JOINT VENTURE / 3 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM
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Ontario Minister Rickford pledges to cut red tape, slams C-69
Newcrest to buy 70% of Red Chris for US$807M BC COPPER-GOLD
| Hopes technical expertise will transform Imperial Metals’ operation
PDAC 2019
| Gov’t details new working group, internship program changes BY ALISHA HIYATE Special to The Northern Miner
T
he Ontario government has put together a new mining taskforce to help it overhaul the Mining Act. Whereas the previous Liberal government also passed legislation to modernize the Mining Act, Greg Rickford, Mines Minister in the new Progressive Conservative government, says the focus is entirely different. “When they were modernizing the Mining Act, the very real fear out in the industry was that it was an exercise in ideology to put new barriers in a piece of legislation that already has been very difficult for mines to operate under,” Rickford said in an interview on the sidelines of the 2019 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in March. “This is an act to promote mining in Ontario, and we think there’s a big difference.” Rickford, Ontario’s Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Energy and Indigenous Affairs, said that his government intends to make Ontario more attractive for mining — partly through changes to the Mining Act that will be informed by a new Mining Working Group, whose first meeting was held during the conference. “I want to overhaul [the Mining Act] in a way that makes Ontario the No. 1 friendly jurisdiction for doing mining business,” Rickford said. Ontario recently fell to twentieth place from the seventh most attractive mining jurisdiction in the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of mining companies. The government used this year’s PDAC convention to draw a clear See ONTARIO / 6
Imperial Metals’ Red Chris copper-gold mine, 80 km south of Dease Lake in northwest British Columbia’s Golden Triangle region. IMPERIAL METALS
BY TRISH SAYWELL tsaywell@northernminer.com
N
ewcrest Mining (ASX: NCM) says there is potential to transform Imperial Metals’ (TSX: III) Red Chris copper-gold mine in northwestern British Columbia into a tierone operation, and is spending US$806.5 million to acquire a 70% joint-venture stake in the mine and surrounding 230 sq. km land package. “We do not do mergers and acquisitions purely to get bigger or for the sake of adding ounces,” Newcrest CEO Sandeep Biswas told analysts and investors on a conference call announcing the transaction. “We look for opportunities where we can unlock real value through the application of our strong technical capabilities and transformative way of thinking. We prefer this approach rather than financial engineering or nebulous synergy savings, which rarely deliver to their planned value.” Biswas outlined a two-stage transformation plan for the open-
“THE BIG PRIZE IS THE UNDERGROUND BLOCK CAVE — THAT’S THE REASON WE’RE THERE — AND THE EXPLORATION TENEMENTS.”
PM40069240
SANDEEP BISWAS CEO, NEWCREST MINING
pit mine that he says will deliver value and capitalize on Newcrest’s technical expertise in block caving, operations optimization and selective processing. In the first stage, Newcrest will focus on process plant optimization, including debottlenecking, recovery uplifts, process control and improving the quality of the concentrate; mine optimization by improving knowledge of the orebody, grade control, fleet management systems and mine planning; and trim costs in the supply chain. It will also start an extensional drill program. The Australian miner also said
it will optimize Imperial Metals’ open-pit mine plan and improve production and mill recoveries. The current open-pit mine has an 11-million-tonne-per-day processing plant and associated infrastructure that gives Newcrest brownfield expansion options, Biswas said. During the second stage of the transformation, Newcrest will apply its expertise in block caving, coarse ore flotation, mass sensing and sorting, as well as continue exploration at the mine and on the surrounding tenements, Biswas noted, starting with a study on See NEWCREST / 2
FIRST VANADIUM: IMPROVES CARLIN RESOURCE / 8
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