Mining Industry in British Columbia and Yukon with a Special Report on Vancouver: a Center for Exploration Excellence
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Mining Industry in British Columbia and Yukon with a special report on Vancouver: A Center for Exploration Excellence TABLE OF CONTENTS From Sea to Sea A brief introduction to Canada British Columbia: The reemergence of a mining giant Yukon: An unexplored golden nugget Vancouver: A center for exploration excellence Mineral by mineral analysis: Where Vancouver companies are operating Precious metals: The tangible currency Base metals: The foundations for growth Strategic and critical metals: From aeroplanes to armaments Rare earth elements: Pronunciation not a prerequisite Potash: This report was researched and prepared by Global Business Reports (www.gbreports.com) for The Green Revolution starts underground Engineering & Mining Journal. Coal and diamonds: Editorial researched and written by: The bipolar carbon Alisdair Jones ([email protected]) Barnaby Fletcher ([email protected]) Service Sector Katie Bromley ([email protected]) Oliver Cushing ([email protected]) A Competitive Cluster Photos on this page with courtesy of: Hunter Dickinson Inc (main), Barkerville Gold Mines Corporate Social Responsibility: (top), Merit Consultants (middle) and Teck Resources The critical element Limited (bottom) 292 E&MJ • JULY-AUGUST 2011 www.e-mj.com MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND YUKON From Sea to Sea A brief introduction to Canada It is commonly accepted that the name and Europe attempts to prevent yet more ‘Canada’ derives from Laurentian, a Native countries defaulting on loans, Engineering American language from the Iroquoian fam- and Mining Journal and Global Business ily of languages, spoken in parts of what is Reports return to a country in which the now Quebec and Ontario. Jaques Cartier, sheer scale and diversity of mining activi- a Brittany-born explorer sent to Canada in ties mean that we can no longer attempt to 1534 by King Francois I of France, mistook cover it in a single editorial. the Laurentian word ‘kana-ta’, meaning ‘set- This special report on the mineral sec- tlement’, as the local name for the region. It tor in British Columbia and Yukon, with a is easy to see how the Latinized form of this special focus on Vancouver’s role as an in- word led to the modern name of ‘Canada’. ternational center of exploration excellence, Incidentally, the purpose of his first voyage will form the starting point for a series of re- was to ‘discover certain islands and lands ports that will explore the opportunities and where it is said that a great quantity of gold challenges present in Canada as it rebounds and other precious things are to be found’. from recession. Alternative theories regarding the ety- British Columbia and Yukon, despite a mology of Canada’s name, however, do ex- the world’s exploration budget, leading Jon multitude of differences in everything from ist. In 1698, the similarity of the name to Baird, managing director of CAMESE (Cana- their political structure to their geographic the Spanish ‘aca nada’ (or the Portuguese dian Association of Mining Equipment and and geologic trends, both exemplify the ‘cá nada’), meaning ‘here, nothing’, led a Services for Export) to tell this publication aspects that make the Canadian industry Franciscan missionary most famous for that ‘Canada is the world’s miner’. The to- so exciting. Yukon, with a land area over bringing Niagara Falls to the attention of tal value of Canada’s mineral production in three and a half times the size of England Europe to suggest that Canada was origi- 2006 was over C$34 billion. and a population of a mere 34,246, is an nally a sarcastic and derisive name. Span- Since our report in September 2006, unrivalled expanse of emptiness. However, ish explorers, explained Father Louis Hen- the world has suffered what was widely the discovery of vast quantities of gold in nepin, had explored Canada, found no gold considered to be the worst economic crisis the past few years, arguably sparked by the or other ‘precious things’, and assumed since the Great Depression of 1929. Almost work of prospector Shawn Ryan, has had that the country was barren. If this is the exactly two years after our report was pub- geologists and prospectors rushing to the true etymology, then today’s Canadians are lished, Lehman Brothers filed for bankrupt- region. Subsequently, the territory is now having the last laugh. cy protection, the first major casualty (or perceived as one of the most promising ex- In our last report on the Canadian mining cause) of fundamental market weaknesses ploration prospects in the world. industry, published in September 2006, we that led to recession. The mining industry, British Columbia meanwhile has an as- wrote about a country enjoying a ninth con- as readers of this publication will well know, tonishing diversity of natural wealth, pro- secutive year of budget surplus and a very bore a disproportionate amount of the pain. ducing antimony, cadmium, copper, gold, healthy 2.9% GDP growth. The global min- Global non-ferrous exploration budgets, as iron ore, lead, molybdenum, silver, zinc, ing industry was booming, benefiting from estimated by the Metals Economics Group, thermal and metallurgical coal and 30 in- a surge in commodity prices so significant suffered their steepest decline in over two dustrial minerals. Having been the site and that it had doubled the S&P GSCI (formerly decades, falling by more than US$5 billion subject of numerous gold rushes in the 19th the Goldman Sacks Commodity Index) be- between 2008 and 2009. In Canada, the century, it has since been through the peaks tween 2000 and 2007. Copper and silver total value of mineral production fell by over and troughs so common to the industry and prices reached record highs in 2006, gold US$16 billion in the same year. is now reemerging as one of the world’s pre- was approaching its 1980s peak, and a Our return to Canada, however, is not eminent jurisdictions for conducting explo- range of other minerals, including platinum, to document the industry’s trials but its ration and mining activities. uranium and potash, had all enjoyed a few resurgence. Worldwide, global non-ferrous Finally, this report will contain a special years of consecutively rising prices. World- exploration budgets rose to US$11.2 billion feature on Vancouver, the undisputed explo- wide, non-ferrous exploration expenditure in in 2010, only slightly below its 2008 high ration capital of the world. The city, with 2006 reached US$7.5 billion according to of US$12.6 billion. In Canada, this explora- its glass skyscrapers and café culture, looks the Metals Economics Group, comfortably tion budget had fallen by over 50%. How- far removed from the on-the-ground (or surpassing the previous 1997 peak and fol- ever, although the country’s mineral wealth under-the-ground) realities of mineral explo- lowing four consecutive years of growth. and technical expertise may not have saved ration. Yet those skyscrapers house in ex- In Canada, the sector had accounted its mining sector from the economic crisis, cess of 1200 junior companies, more than for a relatively steady 4% of total GDP for it did enable it, phoenix-like, to regain its any other location in the world. Vancouver the past two decades; a figure which did leading position as mineral demand from based exploration companies, with a typical not factor in imports of ores, ore concen- emerging economies revived the global Canadian reputation for technical expertise trates and recyclables and their subsequent industry. As the American economy still and best practice, are discovering deposits processing. Canada accounted for 19% of struggles with the aftershocks of recession everywhere from Mongolia to Guyana. www.e-mj.com E&MJ • JULY-AUGUST 2011 53 MINING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND YUKON British Columbia: The reemergence of a mining giant Taseko Mines’ 75% owned Gibraltar copper-molybdenum mine, located 65 km north of Williams Lake, British Columbia. The importance of the mining harder to reach. The destruction caused by (relatively small) gold rush on the Queen industry in British Columbia the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus Charlotte Islands, off the North Coast of The motto of British Columbia, Splendor ponderosae) infestation has cleared vast British Columbia. sine Occasu (Splendor without Diminish- swathes of forest. All of this has opened Since these first finds, British Columbia ment), captures the defining feature of the the way for an increasing importance to has been home to a steady flow of discov- province; its pristine and beautiful natural be placed on the third industrial pillar, the eries. A series of gold rushes characterized wilderness. This nature provides more than mining industry. the 19th century, starting with the Fraser simply pretty pictures for tourists and un- Gold Rush in 1856, ending with the Atlin touched mountains for skiing. Natural re- The history of the mining Gold Rush of 1898 and including in-be- sources form the foundation of British Co- industry in British Columbia tween the Cariboo Gold Rush of 1861. The lumbia’s economy and have done since its Despite the initial impressions of the first 1920s saw the Britannia Mine become the earliest habitation. Spanish explorers, it was not long after the largest copper mine in the British Empire. Three industries reign supreme in the first Europeans arrived in British Columbia In the early 1960s, with open-pit produc- natural resources sector. Oil and gas, a rela- that the first signs of British Columbia’s tion methods becoming increasingly fea- tive newcomer to the province, now produc- vast mineral wealth were noticed. In 1793, sible, copper began to play a dominant role es approximately C$7 billion of petroleum a mere 19 years after José María Narváez in the province’s industry. Several huge products per year, representing roughly 4% first sighted the Burrard Peninsula, coal copper mines opened, including Highland of British Columbia’s total GDP.