NEWS FROM THE FIELD : MINING

Willows No.1 solution for No.2

Regina Leader-Post – The Village of Val Marie, whose sewage lagoon is overcapacity, has been searching for innovative means to deal with the excess waste. They previously examined and dismissed using it to fertilize hay (consumers balked at cattle feeding even indirectly on waste) or Christmas trees (don’t absorb water well).

At the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association convention in February, the village discovered a solution: willows.

Bionera, an Alberta company that wants to break into the small-town Saskatchewan sewage market, made a presentation at the convention about the sewage treatment qualities of the trees.
For the past four years, Bionera has grown willows using Alberta wastewater. A company spokesman said the trees are “like a big sponge,” absorbing water and nutrients to ease the pressure on overburdened infrastructure.

The company claims to be able to plant 110,000 trees a day. They’re a hybrid variety that quickly soak up the wastewater through their fast-growing root systems. Then they pump it through their trunks until they release it out their leaves and into the atmosphere.

Bionera has only reached one Saskatchewan community so far: Coppersands. A utility company that services the mobile home park there uses willows as part of a sophisticated sewage treatment system that, it claims, could eliminate the need for a lagoon altogether.

Bionera doesn’t aim to replace lagoons, only to increase their capacity. Municipalities have to comply with government standards to ensure water quality downstream. If their lagoons can’t handle the load, they’re forced to invest in expensive projects such as evaporation ponds or treatment plants. The willows can buy them time.

Once grown, the trees can be processed into garden mulch or burned as firewood.

Potash mining raises water concerns

CBC Saskatchewan – Water usage will increasingly become an issue as Saskatchewan expands its potash mining industry, according to a University of Regina researcher.

Several mines are in the works in the province. Since 2010, six have been approved through an environmental assessment, according to the provincial government. There are another six in the works or currently under environmental review.

Yuliya Andreichuk researched water usage of the mines as her master’s thesis project for environmental engineering at the University of Regina.

Andreichuk’s estimate is that the amount of water required for the projects, if they move ahead, will be seven times what it was in 2010.

The estimated water usage for nine of the projects is nearly 90 million cubic metres of water per year, according to the Ministry of Economy.
The Water Security Agency said there is an adequate water supply from Lake Diefenbaker, which is the source of much of the water, for future and current use.
The agency said one proposed mine by Yancoal would use just 0.15 per cent of the water volume available from it annually.

“That is a drop in the bucket, and not even, of what capacity is there from Lake Diefenbaker,” said Patrick Boyle with the WSA.

While the required amount of water is available now, Andreichuk said the challenging factor for government will be the more extreme variations in precipitation expected due to global warming.
“Potash was established 60 years ago and it was not really prolonged droughts in that time, but there can be in the future,” Andreichuk said.

“This is something they have to keep in mind, especially when they’re trying to manage water for the municipalities and industries to keep everyone happy.”

The high water usage is mainly because all but one of the proposed mines would use the solution mining technique, which means they extract potash using a large amount of hot water.
The main source of Lake Diefenbaker is Alberta’s waterways and the Rocky Mountains.
“Alberta shares with us only 50 per cent of that water, so water management has to be really high priority,” Andreichuk said.

Half of Sask water unfit for animal consumption

Western Producer – Water testing through the summer of 2017 found about half of Saskatchewan water sources sampled were unacceptable for livestock to drink.
Hot temperatures and dry conditions resulted in high levels of pollutants in many locations. One extreme case of poor quality led to the deaths of more than 200 cattle in a community pasture near Shamrock.

Murray Feist, ruminant nutrition specialist at the provincial Agriculture ministry, said 555 water bodies were sampled, including dugouts, wells, water lines, sloughs and other surface water sources. Sulphate levels were high enough that officials couldn’t recommend using about half of the water sources.

Given the dry conditions last year, and lack of snow in much of the South, producers should test water sources again this year before using them for cattle.

Sixty rigs kicked off right at the start of the year

Pipeline News – With oil over US$60 in the first week of the New Year, drilling in Saskatchewan took off. By January 4, Rig Locator (riglocator.ca) listed 60 rigs working in the province. That’s the highest level since the first week of March 2017.

The highest number of active drilling rigs in Saskatchewan over the past three years was March 1, 2017, with 76 rigs for a brief period. The first 75 days of the year are traditionally Saskatchewan’s busiest when it comes to drilling, even more so ever since the flood year of 2011, when wetter surface conditions hampered summer drilling for several years afterwards.

The current spike is higher than any opening week since the downturn hit in late 2014.

The biggest impact has been Crescent Point Energy Corp. With 26 rigs on January 4, it doubled the 2 operator, Encana Corp, which had 13. Crescent Point had more than the no. 2 and no. 3 operators combined, as Cenovus Energy, in third spot, fielded 12 rigs.

It’s been a tumultuous few months for those drilling for Crescent Point, as the company drew down most of its drilling program in November for several weeks. It put a number back to work in mid-December, getting a hole or two done with each Christmas.

Rig Locator’s map showed a bit of a change in strategy, as the company had four rigs working in the Viewfield Bakken area in something of a halo pattern, all about 11 to 15 kilometres from Stoughton. There has been a particular change of emphasis in the Torquay area. The company has nine drilling rigs working in an area southwest of Torquay, from Highway 350 to 13 kilometres west, and from the US border to 10 kilometres north.

Crescent Point had indicated a $100 million addition to its capital program to, in part, target the Lodgepole formation in this general region.

In southwest Saskatchewan, there are nearly double as many active rigs as usual.

Sask ranks second most attractive for mining

Mining.com – Canada is the world’s most attractive region for mining investment, based on the combined rankings of all its provinces and territories, the latest annual global survey of mining executives released Thursday by the Fraser Institute shows.

While the country overtook Australia as regional destination number one, many of its provinces and territories did not fare well this year in the policy think-tank’s annual survey.

Saskatchewan, which together with Manitoba topped last year’s ranking, fell down to second place in the ranking, leaving old-time favourite Finland leading the list of most attractive jurisdictions, with Nevada in third place.

Manitoba simply disappeared from the top 10, while British Columbia and Alberta continue to receive low marks from investors for regulatory uncertainty and concerns about disputed land claims.

“Capital is fluid and one province’s loss can be another province’s gain because mining investors will flock to jurisdictions that have attractive policies,” says Kenneth Green, senior director of the Fraser Institute’s energy and natural resource studies.

“Sound regulatory regimes are an absolute must for policymakers who want to attract increasingly precious commodity investments,” he notes.

Mineral exploration continues decline

CBC Saskatchewan – Saskatchewan may be viewed as the most attractive place in the world for mineral exploration companies to spend their money, but you wouldn’t know it by just looking at the latest estimates on spending in the province.

Spending on mineral exploration and deposit appraisal declined for the second year in a row, according to new statistics from Natural Resources Canada.

In 2017, companies spent $181 million looking for Saskatchewan’s next uranium mine or other commodity.

That’s down 21 per cent from last year and represents the second-biggest year-over-year drop — behind only Nunavut — among provinces or territories where the dollar value of activity took a dive last year.

Mineral exploration spending in Saskatchewan was $257 million in 2015, $229 million in 2016 and $181 million in 2017.

The decline is partly the result of Saskatchewan and the rest of Canada losing business to other continents such as South America, Africa, Australia and even some Scandinavian countries, says Pam Schwann, P.Geo., the president of the Regina-based Saskatchewan Mining Association.
“You cannot get a mine developed in Canada in under 10 years with the current regulatory system,” said Schwann.

“For the high-risk activity that exploration is, and for sinking hundreds of millions of dollars before you really get any production and any return out of it, companies are really looking hard at other jurisdictions that are more competitive and will offer a better return and a quicker return on the dollar.

Schwann says one thing that would help the province’s numbers trend upward again — besides a lift in uranium and potash prices — is if companies diversified their spending beyond those staple commodities. Gold and rare earth deposits in the western part of the province bear digging up too, said Schwann.

One worrying change is the fact that mineral exploration companies were not exempt from the Saskatchewan government’s PST expansion last spring.

They did not have to pay PST on drilling costs before, said Schwann.

“That will make up anywhere between 30 and 50 per cent of your typical exploration program,” she said.

Flin Flon finds funds

The Reminder – Mine exploration around Flin Flon is about to get a boost, courtesy of the federal and Saskatchewan governments.

A joint venture between the two sides will provide a total of $2 million in funding for aerial exploration and incentives for junior mining companies.

Under the program, Saskatchewan’s provincial government will spend $1 million on a geophysical survey of the area around Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach. A budget proposal for other parts of the project is in the planning stages.

The surveying will be done jointly by the Geological Survey of Manitoba and the Geological Survey of Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Work on the project was expected to begin before early March.

Along with the aerial survey, both the provincial and federal governments will begin an incentive program for junior mining companies carrying out exploration in northern Saskatchewan.
“The strategy will include both a geoscience component and an incentive program targeted at junior companies who are exploring for base metals, precious metals and diamonds in a specified region of high mineral potential,” read a statement from a spokesperson from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Economy.

More geoscience-based work in the area is scheduled to take place this summer. Multiple mining companies currently operating in northern Saskatchewan, including Rockcliff Metals and Foran Mining, could stand to benefit from the program.

The point of the funding is to help promote the mineral-rich North to junior mining companies in hopes that a large-scale deposit could be found.

According to a provincial government media statement, “The focus of the strategy is to help realize Saskatchewan’s full potential for base metals, precious metals and diamonds, while maintaining existing strengths in other mineral commodities.”