But finding the talent to run these future operations has many companies scrambling to fill the ranks.

A mining labour report listing potential job opportunities in the mineral industry in northwestern Ontario was released Feb. 15 in Thunder Bay.

The report was a collaboration between the North Superior Workforce Planning Board and the Mining Industry Human Resources Council.

The much-anticipated document was presented as part of a larger trade show showcasing career opportunities and the mining activities in the region.

“We’ve piqued a lot of interest,” said Madge Richardson, the training board’s executive director.

Richardson said more than 40 mining and supply companies were interviewed in Thunder Bay, across the northwest, and in the James Bay Ring of Fire.

The intent was to gauge what their workforce needs were over a 10-year span and what recruitment plans they have in place. The report was funded by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

“There’s so much talk, speculation and interest because of the Ring of Fire,” said Richardson, “but when you start looking at the region, it’s only a small portion of what’s really going on in mining and mineral exploration.”

All of the employers interviewed expect “significant pressure” to be felt in the region as advanced exploration work moves into production.

The report said the region’s already-tight labour market is characterized by a “very high demand” in finding workers with the right skill sets.

As developments in the Ring of Fire unfold, that demand will outstrip future supply.

Two businesses indicated that their operations were unable to fill all the positions available because of a lack of qualified labour.
A key finding was the high degree of labour mobility in the region. Because the global mining industry is so robust, employers are in a fight to attract top-flight engineers, skilled trades and experienced drillers.

The employers interviewed expect two to five new mines to open in the region over the next five years, and of the more than 300 exploration projects now underway, they said five to eight should become mines by decade’s end.

Depending on whether the economic outlook is volatile or is in full growth mode, the mining industry in the Thunder Bay district will require between 1,110 and 4,150 workers over the next 10 years.

A mid-range estimate indicates the greatest need is in the trades and labour occupations. About 2,840 people will be needed in extraction and production positions.

There will be 895 people required for “undesignated occupations” such as janitors, administration, accountants, nurses and in health care.
About 220 supervisors, coordinators and foreman need to be recruited, but the most difficult positions will be finding 150 technicians whose expertise makes them very mobile operators.

“This makes attracting and retaining them difficult and resource intensive,” the report stated.
To lessen the impact of the aging workforce, some companies have resorted to job sharing between older and younger workers, mentorship programs and some are keeping retirees around as consultants.

Companies had varying responses to their attempts to integrate Aboriginal people into their workforce. Some reported “no success while others experience significant success.”

The biggest challenge is the skills gap between what the individuals possessed and what was required for the industry.

Some companies have done their own internal training, but for smaller firms, it was beyond their means and they’re looking to the government and educators for help.

The report suggests employers should also look to attract immigrant talent from the large cities and find ways to get more women into the industry.

One possible approach to growing the local talent pool is to find more flexible and innovative ways to train new workers faster without compromising quality.

The report said industry must be more active on educational task forces, planning boards and committees, and must communicate better with educators in taking “longer planning horizons” to anticipate their future needs.
By: Ian Ross
Northern Ontario Business

www.nswpb.ca

www.mihr

Tony Makuch, President and CEO of Lake Shore Gold, commented: “We are happy that, following an assessment of our Timmins West Complex, Franco-Nevada has decided to join us as a new shareholder and to invest in the future of this Complex. Timmins West continues to demonstrate considerable potential for both near-term profitable production and longer term exploration success. The $50 million we will receive provides valuable capital to support the ongoing development of our mines and projects as we progress towards rapid production growth later this year, including the completion of our mill expansion to 3,000 tonnes per day. We have been diligent in pursuing capital alternatives that do not significantly dilute existing shareholders, and believe our arrangement with Franco-Nevada accomplishes that objective.”

David Harquail, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada, commented: “We are very pleased to acquire an interest in the currently operating Timmins West Complex, which has a significant production expansion underway and has excellent resource growth potential in the prolific Timmins Gold camp.”

Royalty Arrangement

Under terms of the royalty agreement, the Company will receive US$35 million for a 2.25% NSR royalty on production from the Company’s Timmins West Complex. The Timmins West Complex includes the Company’s Timmins and Thunder Creek deposits (collectively the Timmins West Mine), the 144 property, the Thorne property (Gold River Trend) as well as a number of wholly owned and joint venture claims on the west side of Timmins, Ontario.

Equity Investment

Lake Shore Gold will issue and sell to Franco-Nevada 10,050,591 common shares of the Company for C$15 million on a private placement basis. The price of C$1.49 per share represents a 5% premium to the volume weighted average trading price for Lake Shore Gold’s common shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange for the 10 trading days immediately preceding the announcement of the Agreement.

The Agreement is subject to standard conditions, including the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange for the share issuance, with closing anticipated prior to the end of February, 2012.

BMO Capital Markets has acted as financial advisor to Lake Shore Gold in connection with the Agreement with Franco-Nevada.

About Lake Shore Gold
Lake Shore Gold is a rapidly growing mining company with a vision to become a mid-tier gold producer through the successful exploration, development and operation of its properties in and around the century-old Timmins Gold Camp. The Company is in commercial production at the Timmins Mine, has commenced pre-production development at the adjacent Thunder Creek deposit, and is advancing an underground advanced exploration program at its Bell Creek Mine. Mine production is delivered to the Company’s wholly owned mill (located on the Bell Creek Property east of Timmins) which is operational at a capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day and is currently being expanded to 3,000 tonnes per day with completion targeted for late 2012. The Company continues to invest aggressively in exploration at its multiple properties in and around the Timmins Camp. The Company’s common shares trade on the TSX and NYSE Amex under the symbol LSG.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Lake Shore Gold Corp.
Tony Makuch
President & CEO
(416) 703-6298
info@lsgold.com

Lake Shore Gold Corp.
Mark Utting
Vice-President, Investor Relations
(416) 703-6298
info@lsgold.com
www.lsgold.com

Source: Lake Shore Gold Corp.

That’s the way Anthony Campbell, the former head of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat of the Privy Council Office, put it to me the other day. We were talking about Beijing’s designs on Canada’s energy resources, Beijing’s adroit cunning in enfeebling Canadian foreign policy, and how Canadians have been rendered unable to cope with the drama as it unfolds.

The Chinese Year of the Dragon began inauspiciously with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Industry Minister Joe Oliver riffing on a clever talking-points stratagem dreamed up by neophyte Conservative war-room hangabouts. It featured American billionaire socialists infiltrating into Canada to ambuscade the construction of Canada’s last-hope economic lifeline, to China.

Most Canadians had probably never even heard of the Enbridge project, which is a plan to build a huge bitumen tube from Alberta’s oilsands to saltwater on the northern British Columbia coast. Still, whatever Ottawa was shouting about, it seemed to contain enough resemblance to a kernel of truth. So it worked for a while.

But what Harper and Oliver inadvertently opened up was a nasty and troubling question that nobody in Ottawa is particularly happy to hear people asking. Just what legally constitutes a foreign activity in Canada that is detrimental to this country’s national security interests these days, anyway?

As it turns out, Canada is practically incapable of answering that question with any enforceable coherence. When it comes to the recent and rapid-succession manoeuvres that have given Chinese state-owned entities the spigot key at critical flow points in Canada’s oil and gas industry, mysteries abound. But it is now clear that slowly but surely, Canada’s regulatory defences have been almost completely hollowed out.

A mere political millisecond ago, Canada was in an uproar over the Beijing-owned China Minmetals’ $4.7-billion bid to take over the Canadian mining giant Noranda. Beijing backed off in 2005, but the scare was enough to convince Ottawa that it needed to get around to closing the troubling Investment Canada Act loopholes that could easily allow foreign-government entities to easily take over Canadian economic assets unless someone was playing really close attention. But the loopholes weren’t closed, and the problem has only got worse.

After the China Minmetals scare, Industry Canada set up a Competition Policy Review panel that was supposed to come up with the means to cope with the national-security implications of foreign-government takeovers, but that key task was taken back from the panel in October, 2007. Two months later, Industry Canada quietly disclosed that the “national security” questions arising from takeovers by foreign government entities would be looked at through the same regulatory binoculars that Ottawa uses to examine investments in Canadian companies by private foreign firms.
Then, against the advice of intelligence experts and even some of the Conservative government’s closest friends, the federal cabinet approved regulations under the Act that deliberately avoided a definition of the term “national security.” Expert advice had called for the national-security implications to be spelled out in “concrete, objective, and transparent criteria.” Cabinet said no.

Instead, the September 2009 regulations granted whichever minister happened to be in charge of the industry and investment portfolio the discretion to decide for himself whether a “national security” threat was present in a bag of foreign money, on a bag by bag and case by case basis. Even private investment dealers have been flummoxed by it all. Cabinet pledges to clarify things have also gone by the wayside.

The upshot was that Canada’s foreign investment criteria ended up failing to explain what “national security” means, or to make regulatory distinction between ordinary private investors like, say, upstart roughnecks from Utah, and, say, entities like Sinopec, a secretive Chinese state-owned enterprise that answers to the Communist Party Central Committee in Beijing.

by Terry Glavin (Ottawa Citizen – February 4 2012)

Last year, the global population reached seven billion.

More than half of us now live in urban centres and experts estimate that figure will climb to 70% by 2050. China is witnessing the largest rural to urban migration in the history of mankind in its stampede to industrialize and modernize. China also has become the world’s second largest economy and currently needs to build the equivalent of two cities the size of Toronto and Sydney, Australia, every year to accommodate this rapid growth. India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and other developing countries are following in its footsteps but at a less frenzied pace.

According to a recent study by McKinsey & Company, “up to three billion more middle-class consumers will emerge in the next 20 years compared with 1.8 billion today, driving up demand for a range of different resources.”

Notwithstanding the current depressed prices of some metals, most analysts feel that the current mining commodity super-cycle will last for decades. It is estimated that over the next 25 years, we will need to dig out of the ground as many minerals as consumed since the beginning of time.

Prior to 2001, years of low commodity prices led to massive underinvestment in mining projects around the world.

During the dot.com boom/bust between 1995-2000, mining was often considered a sunset industry according many in the Toronto media. This negative and dismissive attitude toward the mining sector influenced politicians who did not understand the strategic value of mineral resources.

Combined with lower grade deposits that are much harder to find and usually located in more politically risky countries, skilled labour shortages, resource nationalism, increasing capital costs and more rigorous but appropriate environmental regulations, is it any wonder that political and military planners are now frequently talking about mineral shortages and its impact on industrial production.

Sudbury is the richest mining district in North America and among the top three hardrock mining regions in the world. Only South Africa’s Witwatersrand gold region and the country’s legendary Bushveld platinum complex can match the concentration and innovation of underground mining in the Sudbury Basin.

This mining knowledge makes Sudbury the luckiest city in North America.

The region is even more fortunate than Fort McMurray the booming oil sands capital of Alberta because Sudbury has four vibrant and innovative clusters of mining expertise.

Clusters are geographic concentrations of related companies in a specific field. They compete with each other resulting in global innovation and the jobs of the future. Internationally known Harvard professor Michael Porter has travelled around the world and advised many nations about the benefits of industrial clusters.

California’s Silicon Valley — south of San Francisco — is the most famous high-technology cluster in the world. Houston, Texas has established itself as the leading cluster of oil and gas industries, services, research and educational institutes related to that sector. Sudbury has established itself as one of the world’s primary centres of the underground mining innovation and excellence.

Our first cluster is the numerous polymetallic mines that have been producing nickel, copper, PGMs and many others metals for almost 130 years. The Ministry of Northern Development and Mines estimates that roughly $170 million was spent on exploration in the Sudbury Basin last year. A similar amount was spent throughout the entire province ten years ago. Many experts feel we will still be mining in Sudbury for at least another hundred years.

QuadraFNX’s Victoria mine, currently under construction will be one of the richest in decades. Xstrata’s Nickel Rim South mine started in 2009 and will be in operation for at least 15 years while Vale is working to bring its Totten mine — slightly delayed and over-budget — into production near the end of 2013. Vale is also spending $200 million on the Clarabell Mill complex to increase metal recovery and is investing an extraordinary $2 billion on their Copper Cliff smelter to further reduce sulphur emissions.

The Mckinsy & Company study states that the world must start “mobilizing for a resource revolution” and the “the race is on to boost resource supplies, overhaul their management, and change the game with new technologies.” Sudbury’s mining supply and services sector — our second cluster — is part of that “resource revolution” collectively using their innovative skills and technology to help keep the local miners among the most skilled, innovative and competitive globally.

There are more jobs in supply and services hardrock mining cluster — the largest in Canada and possibly North America — than in the region’s mines. The sector employs about 13,800 people with an economic value estimated at $4 billion in 2011.

Throughout Northern Ontario, the sector employs about 23,000 and produced roughly $6.5 billion of economic activity last year. Dick DeStefano deserves the credit for establishing the local industry organization — Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association (SAMSSA) — and getting a ground-breaking study done that confirmed this cluster’s economic impact.

Companies like Fuller Industrial that export their specialty pipe products to mine projects in Madagascar and Mongolia, MTI Technologies, which sell their underground equipment globally and Bestech, an engineering, automation and software development company are largely independently owned with an entrepreneurial innovative mind-set. These and many other supply and service companies are putting Sudbury on the global mining map.

Third, Sudbury supports the largest cluster of post-secondary mining education in Canada that will only grow with the recent announcement of Laurentian’s International School of Mines initiative. This is attracting enormous interest from the corporate sector as the recent $10-million donation to the University’s Engineering School by Stan Bharti, chairman and CEO of Forbes & Manhattan Inc., a leading private bank with a global focus on the resource-based sectors.

According to the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, half of the current mining workforce is eligible for retirement by 2021 and between 75,280 and 141,540 people will need to be hired by then depending on the strength of the economy. The expertise of mining graduates from Sudbury’s colleges and university will be in demand around the world.

The final cluster is the mining research that is being done at Laurentian, CEMI, Vale, Xstrata and other locations. The Laurentian geology department’s Mineral Exploration Research Centre represents the largest concentration of geoscientists conducting ore deposit-related research in North America.

The affiliated Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) focuses its research in mine process engineering, deep mining and environmental reclamation. In 2009, Rio Tinto, the third largest global miner, donated $10 million to further enhance CEMI’s research capabilities and establish a new global centre for underground mine construction.

Xstrata’s Technology Centre in Falconbridge and Vale’s expertise in underground mining research are helping establish Sudbury as Canada’s Silicon Valley of hardrock mining. We are in the biggest commodity super-cycle in the history of mankind.

From the perspective of a resource-starved world, Sudbury is lucky indeed.

Stan Sudol is a Toronto-based communications consultant and columnist who blogs at www.republicofmining.com

Blasting for open pit begins this summer. Corporate approval is all that stands in the way.

Representatives from Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines announced on Monday that it will commence development of the Hollinger Open Pit Mine Project following corporate approval to fund the project.

Construction is planned for the next 12 to 18 months at a cost of $75 million. Blasting is expected to start sometime this summer. The reasoning behind the 12 to 18 month timeframe is because the berm is the longest part of the construction. Construction of the haul road will start immediately.

The initial focus will be on equipment procurement, installation of the dewatering system, site clearing and stripping and the development of a five-kilometre haulage road between the Hollinger site and the Dome Mill.

The expected start date of production is scheduled for the second half of 2012.

“This is an announcement that’s been a long-time coming,” said Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren. “Goldcorp has worked very hard to make this happen. When you look at the site and what this will mean for a clean up of that site at the end of the day, I think it’ll be phenomenal for the city. When you look at the opportunity to create some new employment as well as ensure that the employment that is there now stays for the next eight to 10 years, I just think this is an all around great New Years gift for the community.”

Laughren added, “I don’t think there will be a strain on the current infrastructure of the city. I think we’re in good shape.”

Combined with Hoyle Pond and Dome underground mines, the addition of a large-tonnage ore body will complement the Porcupine operations, optimize the efficiency of the Dome Mill Complex and extend the operation’s mine life, according to Marc Lauzier, mine general manager at Goldcorp Porcupine Gold Mines.

Members of the community present for the press conference were assured that public safety should be significantly improved as the project removes hundreds of historical mine openings on the 250-acre property.

“Anyone that’s been raised around the Timmins area would know that we have subsidence issues when there’s heavy rainfall,” said Lauzier. “The fact that we can mine around those openings and backfill those openings means we can address the safety around the openings. In addition to that, it’s good news for the city when we can keep a mine open for an extra eight years.”
Goldcorp is estimating about $319 million of operating money will be spent to keep the mine operational over the next eight years. Goldcorp assured those in attendance that it will keep local suppliers. Lauzier said Goldcorp buys most of what it needs locally or through local contacts.

“The startup of the Hollinger Mine will benefit the City of Timmins and surrounding communities, both from an environmental and a socio-economic point of view,” said Lauzier. “Upon completion of the project , the property will be rehabilitated, creating numerous opportunities for the future use of this strategic parcel of land in the heart of the city. With sustained mining operations, Goldcorp will continue to employ over 600 people and several hundred contractors for many years to come.”

For the rest of this article, please go to the Timmins Daily Press website: http://www.thedailypress.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3430134

Sandi Boucher knows she has a pretty good gig.

www.tbcoc.ca

The general manager of the fledgling Thunder Bay Centre of Change gets a daily dose of inspiration from the 30 entrepreneurs under her roof.

“It’s the most positive place to work. They’re innovative and all excited about their futures and the chance of being in this building.”

The former Hillcrest High School in the city’s north end has been transformed into a for-profit business incubator for startup companies.

As soon as Boucher was handed the keys Aug. 12, prospective tenants began calling for tours and to book space in the 142,000-square-foot building.

With the official grand opening scheduled for mid-November, the building was 80 per cent occupied by the end of October.

Much of that was accomplished with limited publicity, mostly in the form of a portable sign out front.

Starting at $5 per square foot, tenants can rent a classroom as is. Aside from new paint on the walls and fibre optic wiring, there have been minimal renovations.

Prominent local developer Robert Zanette is the property owner and silent partner. Boucher, who is the public face behind the incubator, calls Zanette a “visionary” and “very action oriented” who believes in doing things differently.

They met while serving on a local committee formed to deal with the housing crisis for Aboriginals and the impoverished.

The group was searching for a building to serve as a one-stop shop with a nurse practitioner clinic, a food and clothing depot, and addiction services. The former high school was sitting empty since it was closed in 2009 by the Lakehead District School Board.

Built in 1928 as the Port Arthur Technical School, Boucher fell in love with the place as soon as she walked up the grand staircase and into the two-tiered main auditorium.

“When Robert and I came in, we had a hard time focusing on that project.”

Her wheels began turning about creating incubator space and renting out the classrooms, auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, food and nutrition room, and workshop space to entrepreneurs and for community fundraisers, concerts, speaking engagements, conferences and trade shows.

There were plenty of naysayers, but Boucher knew from her experience at PARO, a Thunder Bay women’s enterprise organization, that it could work.

“I had been introduced to this unknown economy, all these thriving little businesses run out of someone’s kitchen or living room. What if we targeted them and gave them that extra push?”

As a graduate of PARO’s Gateway Program and a member of its peer lending circle, she knew many entrepreneurs who would buy into the concept.

Among the centre’s stable of tenants are high-tech firms, photographers, a video production company, a martial arts club, a dance studio, a caterer, an accountant, a counseling service and some not-for-profits.

A condition of moving in is that tenants must mix and mingle. All must agree to attend monthly networking sessions.

It was no sweetheart deal to acquire the building. Zanette made three bids to the school board to secure the property away from a southern Ontario condo developer.

The big reason is the view.

The school sits atop a ridge that comes with a million dollar view of the harbour and the Sleeping Giant peninsula.

A football field directly across High Street, owned separately by Zanette, is likely earmarked for multi-residential development.

The flat roof offers a panoramic view of the city which has Boucher bursting with ideas.

Preserving the school’s heritage for the benefit of its many alumni is paramount to Boucher, starting with the prancing colt statue over the main entrance.

One prospective tenant asked if they were ever going to get rid of that ‘old school feel?”"

“Absolutely not,” she said. “This will always be Hillcrest.”

This means the company’s “one-stop-shop” multi-disciplinary team of engineers and specialists will be responsible for a number of systems on the project. Bestech will be completing the electrical, instrumentation, mechanical, and civil/structural design, and the automation and commissioning of the 16 systems for the development of two new zones at the existing Fraser mine, including microseismic, central blasting and dewatering.

Xstrata Nickel expects its US$119-million Fraser Morgan project will unlock 6,000 tonnes of nickel and 2,000 tonnes of copper per year while extending the life of mine of the Fraser Complex by five years to 2025.

Bestech officially commenced the three-year project on Oct. 11.

“Bestech is very excited to be the lead engineering firm involved in this project,” Jo-Anne Boucher, general manager, said. “With our 100-employee workforce, we feel that we are well positioned to take on similar projects of this caliber in the near future. I am confident that our highly skilled team, our customer-focused approach and our ability to provide quality engineering services will shine throughout the development of Fraser Morgan project, further strengthening our already stellar reputation.”

by Arron Pickard

After completing what it calls an in-depth technical review, the Ministry of the Environment has approved Vale Ltd.’s application for more time — 10 years — to comply with new standards for nickel emissions that go into effect in 2016.

The approvals pertain to the Copper Cliff Smelter Complex, which is about to undergo a $2- billion retrofit to reduce sulphur dioxide, nickel and other emissions.

The ministry announced its decision Wednesday on its Environmental Registry. It said it determined it was feasible for Vale to reduce nickel emissions from 15 micrograms per cubic metre currently, averaged over 24 hours, to three micrograms per cubic metre averaged over 24 hours in 2015.

From July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016, it will maintain that standard of three micrograms per cubic metre on a 24-hour average.

From July 1, 2016, to Dec. 28, 2021, Vale will switch the way it measures nickel emissions from a daily average to an annual average, as specified in the new standard to go into effect July 1, 2016.

In that last period, Vale will implement controls that will allow emissions of one microgram per cubic metre annually, which ministry spokeswoman Kate Jordon said equals daily averaged emissions of three micrograms per cubic metre.

Jordan said Vale’s application was approved after several community consultations. The most recent was held last month in Copper Cliff.

Vale’s continual improvements to meet new standards “will benefit the local community and the environment as Vale implements its action plan to reduce nickel emissions,” said Jordan.

The ministry’s site-specific standard process facilitates reductions in air emissions over time through the implementation of best available pollution control methods, she said. Some of those control methods are being developed as deadlines unfold.

Public comment played an important role in the ministry’s approval, said Jordan, and many of the conditions included in the approval “directly reflect comments received during consultation.”

For instance, residents who attended public meetings called for increased environmental monitoring near the smelter, and a process to assess and verify the success of the company’s actions.

Conditions relating to improved public reporting and transparency are also included in the approval.

Jordan said Vale has cut nickel emissions by more than half — from 38 micrograms per cubic metre to 15 — in the last few years.

“This approval will ensure air quality continues to improve in the community,” said Jordan.

Another comprehensive technical review will be done before 2017 to determine if Vale should take more actions to reduce emissions and improve local air quality, she said.

Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson said the miner is pleased to have received this approval from the ministry.

“Through investments such as our $2-billion Clean AER (Atmospheric Emissions Reduction) Project, we are committed to continually reducing our environmental footprint and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our operations in Sudbury for decades to come.”