To be bold; to dream; to create the perfect conference. 

Nobody will do that, for perfection is not the goal of conferences.

So I dream of the perfect conference on tailings and mine waste.

No papers submitted by random authors.  Only invited papers.  Here are some, I would solicit:

[Read more →]

Here is a link to an interesting site I have not hitherto seen.   Found it while searching for blog comments on Ecuador’s new mining law.  Sadly my Spanish is no where good enough to read the law, but then if you are investing in mines in South American, no doubt you are fluent in that language, so able to read the law.  The site is inca kola news.

A warning for travellers working for mining companies:  don’t do important work on your computer in the plane.  Yesterday I sat for three hours on a plane from Denver to DC.  One row up and across the aisle was a middle-aged man and his computer screen in full, loud view.  All the flight he worked on his computer putting together a risk assessment evaluation for a new mine. 

His categories included: political risk; regulatory risk; financial risk; construction risk; stakeholder risk; ore reserve risk; shaft operation risk.  For each he filled in little boxes of dense text and assigned a number.  Every so often he would change mode and bring up a chart that plotted a bar presumably with a height proportional to the risk. 

Seems construction and ore body risks were the biggest risk factors at this mine–at least at first.  As the flight proceeded he kept massaging the regulatory risk, each time making the bar jump up a little until finally as they announced our final descent into the nation’s capital he packed up in satisfaction: the regulatory risk was now highest. 

I wonder if it constitutes insider information, to now go and sell shares in that company where obviously they have a low grade ore-body and a questionable construction program but are going to blame any short-falls on the regulators? 

The Alberta Court of Appeal recently overthrew a ruling by a lower court (the Queen’s Bench) that John Chiasson was the victim of discrimination when he was terminated by Kellogg Brown & Root - basically denied a job at Syncrude, for smoking cannabis.  

I have previously described the facts of this case and decried the silly ruling by the lower court.   Another detailed evaluation of the most recent finding by the appeal court is at this link.  

[Read more →]