WODA Publishes Technical Guidance on Underwater Sound

The document is a follow up to the CEDA position paper on underwater sound in relation to dredging that was published in 2011. The position paper attracted great interest both from within and outside CEDA.

The WODA Technical Guidance goes beyond the position paper and has a broader international scope. It provides guidance for decision-makers, stakeholders and scientists on how to manage impacts of underwater sound from dredging and other sources. The document follows a risk-based approach.

The paper begins with some background on why underwater sound is an important issue and goes on to describe the risk-based approach. The chapters that follow cover impacts of sound on aquatic life, the measurement of sound and the presentation of knowledge on dredging-related sound sources.

Finally, it provides recommendations on managing and mitigating potential risks from dredging-related sound impacts in offshore and coastal areas, estuaries and inland waters.

The WODA Technical Guidance was produced by the WODA Expert Group on Underwater Sound (WEGUS) under the remit of the WODA Environment Commission.

Members of WEGUS are experts, scientists and practitioners with a broad range of expertise, representing knowledge institutes, government, manufacturers, ports and contractors.

Iron Planet Partners with GraysOnline for the Dispersal of Australia's Excess Mining Equipment

PLEASANTON, Calif. (June 27, 2013) – IronPlanet®, the online marketplace for buying and selling used heavy equipment, today announced it has partnered with GraysOnline, Australia's leading online retail and auction company, to facilitate sales of excess construction and mining equipment from Australia.

With international interest outpacing regional demand, at the moment, the partnership will enable Australian sellers to more easily find buyers for their excess inventory.

"Although the mining sector in Australia has slowed, there are still pockets of global demand," said Matt Bousky, Vice President of Global Mining, IronPlanet. "Through this partnership, GraysOnline/IronPlanet will offer sellers a worldwide marketplace to reach buyers both in Australia and around the world."

Since pioneering online equipment auctions over a decade ago, IronPlanet has built an audience of nearly 1 million members and has sold over $3 billion of used equipment to online buyers representing nearly every country on the planet. Its weekly auctions offer a selection of construction, mining and agriculture equipment as well as cranes and trucks.

IronPlanet buyers can bid on items conveniently from their home, office or on the road using their PC, tablet or mobile phone. IronPlanet also offers guaranteed inspection reports backed by exclusive IronClad Assurance®, allowing buyers to bid with a high degree of confidence.  Dedicated, hands-on customer care agents help buyers through the process from start to finish.

"In the current environment, accessing a global buyer base is essential to help our sellers move mobile mining and earthmoving machinery out of Australia and revenue into the hands of owners," said Adam Scharer, Director of Industrial for GraysOnline. "Traveling around the country we saw, first hand, the increased amounts of machinery "parked-up" in yards. We realized that we needed a better solution than a traditional auction or tender campaign to help our clients sell their equipment.  We're thrilled to complement our national marketing expertise with a strong global partner. The strategic alliance allows companies to sell their assets into the strongest markets internationally."

About IronPlanet

IronPlanet is a leading online marketplace for used heavy equipment. Our sellers achieve more profitable sales through low transaction costs and better price realization through a global audience of buyers. Our guaranteed inspection reports and exclusive IronClad Assurance enable buyers to bid with a high degree of confidence. IronPlanet is backed by Accel Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Caterpillar, Komatsu and Volvo.

About GraysOnline
GraysOnline is Australia's leading commercial and industrial auction company, offering a huge range of consumer, industrial and commercial goods, direct from manufacturers and distributors. With a heritage spanning nearly 100 years, GraysOnline have been pioneers in creating the most efficient way for buyers and sellers to connect – from their traditional auction heritage to the first online auctions in 2000. Today GraysOnline employs more than 350 people throughout Australia & New Zealand in a network of state-of-the-art warehouses, distribution centres and offices, a customer service centre, and are experts across key industrial assets categories. GraysOnline sell more than 120,000 items every month to both consumers and businesses.

 For more information, visit www.centrifugalslurrypump.com.

Gold Fields urges take up of new World Gold Council cost standards

The entire global gold-mining industry should consider the adoption of the World Gold Council’s (WGC’s) newly released gold-mining cost standards, Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland urged on Thursday.

Hours after WGC director Terry Heymann told Mining Weekly Online from London that the new metrics had been developed to help provide greater transparency and consistency, Holland expressed the hope that the entire industry would adopt the one cost standard, to allow all stakeholders to have a uniform approach to evaluating the industry.

Holland has been calling for cost-reporting reform for the past five years.

“It’s really good to see the council adopt something similar to what we have been looking at,” said Holland.

WGC on Thursday released two new methods of calculating and reporting gold-mining costs to improve clarity and provide greater investor understanding of the complete costs associated with the mining of gold.

The first method is an extension of the existing “cash cost” metrics and incorporates costs that are related to sustaining production, which the council refers to as the “all-in sustaining cost”.

The second method takes into account additional costs and reflects the varying costs of producing gold over the life cycle of a mine, which the WGC dubs the “all-in cost”.

“I hope they all take it up and I would strongly urge them to consider it,” Holland commented to Mining Weekly Online.

The “all-in sustaining” metric now includes sustaining capital and sustaining exploration as well as noncash employment costs, share-incentive-scheme costs and reclamation costs.

“They’ve got everything in there now,” he added.

The different “all-in cost” metric includes all the other capital expenditure, which includes factors like growth, life extension and reclamation.

“The ‘all-in’ is the one stakeholders should be thinking about because that has no interpretation gaps,” Holland said.

Up to now, the industry has been content to have a half-baked cost story because “cash costs” did not tell the real cost story.

It only showed the operating cost without including capital expenditure and exploration and accurately telling what it costs to produce an ounce of gold.

The industry often spoke loosely about its low cash costs and the money it was making at the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation level, which failed to give investors the true cost picture.

Romarco receives EIS schedule for S Carolina project

TSX-listed project developer Romarco Minerals late on Wednesday said it had received from the US Army Corps of Engineers a schedule for completing the environmental impact statement (EIS) required for the federal 404 wetlands permit for the Haile gold mine project, in Kershaw, South Carolina, after having encountered successive delays to move forward with the process from 2011.

The company said the schedule included a timeline for the remaining critical milestones for the EIS process, including publication the draft EIS and final EIS.

"The Corps' schedule provides clarity for our planning and will allow all stakeholders to closely follow the remainder of the EIS process step-by-step and monitor the progress being made on the permitting front.

“We are solely focusing on permitting and diligently managing our cash to ensure we are funded through to final permits,” Romarco president and CEO Diane Garrett said.

Romarco also said the Corps had indicated that the draft alternatives analysis, which was described as "the heart of the EIS" under the National Environmental Policy Act, was in the final review stage and would be published in August – ahead of publishing the draft EIS in March 2014.

After filing of the alternatives analysis, a public meeting would be held in Kershaw, on August 20, where the public would have the opportunity to discuss the alternatives analysis with the Corps.

The draft EIS public hearing is expected to take place in April 2014, after which the final EIS would be published in July 2014.

The 404 wetlands permit was the only federal permit Romarco required for the Haile project, and the Corps was the only federal agency regulating 404 permits.

The company had filed applications for its state mine operating permit, national pollution discharge elimination system permit, 401 water quality certification, air quality permit, and dam safety permit for the proposed tailing storage facility, for which the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) was the regulatory agency responsible for processing and issuing.

Romarco said that it was informed that once the draft EIS was publicly filed, SCDHEC could then start holding public meetings and process the state permits.

The company expected its cash balance to be about $40-million at June 30.

All exploration-drilling on the project was suspended during the second quarter, and the company had implemented other cash conservation measures to reduce its average net quarterly cash spend to between $6-million to $7-million over the next 18 months, to ensure a positive cash balance at the end of 2014.

Romarco had hoped to break ground on the Haile project at the end of 2011, but was halted when the Corps decided to request an EIS process, rather than the simpler environmental assessment Romarco was hoping for.

Over the past three years, the company had spent more than $4.5-million on environmental studies. In February, the company said it would undertake further hydrology testing to supplement existing data previously submitted in the permit application.

The company said it had modified its mine layout to reduce direct impacts on wetlands by 25% and impacts on streams by 32%. Detailed project engineering was about 76% complete at December 31.

The Haile project was expected to cost $275-million to construct, and production would average 155 000 oz/y in the first five years, at average cash costs during the same period of $379/oz.

The Haile project has a National Instrument 43-101-compliant proven and probable gold reserve estimate of 30.5-million tonnes grading 2.06 g/t for two-million ounces of gold, and a resource estimate for 71.2-million tons grading 1.77 g/t, containing about four-million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated categories, and an additional 20.1-million tons grading 1.24 g/t containing about 800 000 oz of gold in the inferred category.

INFOGRAPHIC: future mining success calls for improved comminution

CEEC International Ltd (Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution) released an infographic on Wednesday, which demonstrates opportunities for miners to improve earnings through more efficient comminution: the crushing and grinding of solid minerals.

Comminution accounts for the largest chunk of mine site energy consumption and represents a minimum of 10% of site production costs.

Have a look:

Proven ore processing alternatives such as smart blasting, mineral pre-concentration, novel flowsheets and new grinding technologies are just a few of the different strategies which can be deployed to improve throughout and cost effectiveness in the most costly step of mineral processing.

Innovation in mineral processing is well developed, but less widely implemented. Reports from the recent SME 2013 support the need to more advanced processing technologies to maximize recovery rates, and improve productivity. CEEC was established in 2011 to support knowledge sharing and change in an area of high energy consumption for the mineral industry.  CEEC is a not-for-profit company funded by grants from the mineral industry, whose mission is to accelerate knowledge and technology transfer in the field of energy-efficient comminution.

“This infographic is designed to catch the attention of time-poor managers, to raise their awareness of the potential benefits of alternative mine to mill processing strategies. Greater knowledge of these options will empower more informed query and enable key performance measures which reflect the potential gains. This is the first in a series of infographics CEEC plans to develop.” Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, CEEC Chair and Gekko Systems CEO.

Ian Gordon: Who killed the gold price?

The gold price may have taken a tumble, but Ian Gordon, chairman and founder of the Longwave Group in British Columbia, is watching for a recovery. As bullishness in gold reaches some of its lowest levels, Gordon, in this interview with The Gold Report, says he believes that is indicative of a turn and he discusses where he has invested his money to ride the upswing.

The Gold Report: On April 15, the gold price plunged about 9%—the biggest one-day loss ever for the yellow metal. Many gold investors got "murdered" that day. Has your personal investigation revealed any suspects?

Ian Gordon: I suspect it was akin to what happened in 1999. The then-governor of the Bank of England, Edward George, supposedly said that "any further rise in the gold price would take down one or more trading houses." He said the rising price of gold was curtailed through the work of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. It appears that a bullion bank was caught offside on the short side and they had to take the price of gold down quite dramatically to allow it to cover.

I think something similar happened in April. I think it was manipulated to the downside. Goldman, Sachs & Co. encouraged its clients to short sell gold two days before this occurred.

TGR: Could it have just been an error?

IG: I always suspect the worst. There's so much manipulation in all the markets as I see it.

TGR: That one-day drop caught even long-time gold investors off guard and shook their confidence. Is being a precious metals investor at this point simply about having the resolve to stay the course, or should even the ardent investors make adjustments to their gold portfolios?

IG: I'm extremely bullish on gold. Bullishness in gold, according to the website Market Vane, is at 40%, the lowest it has been since 2001. Bullishness in the stock market is at 70%, which is almost the highest it has been since Market Vane began tracking it. I see a reversal occurring here, for the gold price to the upside and the stock market to the downside.

TGR: There's no way to sugar coat the disappointing performance of gold and silver in 2013. But has the current global economic backdrop provided some new and compelling reasons to own gold and precious metal equities?

IG: There are compelling reasons to be bullish on gold particularly, simply because there is a real worldwide crisis in fiat money. The unfolding crisis is similar to the 1930s, when the whole monetary system collapsed. We're envisioning something quite similar to that collapse is now occurring.

We can see that there's this huge move to gold, not only by countries like China and Russia and even the small "-stan" countries, but major investors are also taking up the physical metal because they can see this crisis unfolding.

TGR: Most of what I'm reading says that there just aren't a lot of bids in the market right now for precious metals. Investment demand has waned, with gold falling consistently lower since its high in 2011.

IG: Investment demand is huge. The output of American Eagle gold bullion coins by the U.S. Mint is at record highs. Demand by the small investors for gold and silver is at unprecedented levels. The amount of gold that's being imported through Hong Kong into China is at a record level.

TGR: Yet, at the same time, India, which is the world's biggest gold consumer, increased the royalty from 6% to 8% on gold imports.

IG: It has, but India is notorious for gold smuggling. Most people are going to look for a way to go around those taxes. I suspect that there will be the same amount of gold imported into India through Dubai, but most of it won't be declared.

TGR: You say you're seeing strong demand for the physical metal, but investors have been getting out of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and equities in mass numbers.

IG: With regards to the gold ETFs, I suspect that many investors are cashing in their paper claims to take possession of the physical. Yes, gold stocks, particularly the juniors, have been slaughtered, But once bullishness returns to gold, bullishness will return to gold equities. When you get this overly bearishness in markets, it's usually indicative of a turn. I'm confident that we're going to see a turn to the upside. I also believe that the turn in the stock market to the downside is about to begin.

TGR: I get the sense that there's a prevailing sentiment that we haven't hit a bottom yet in the mining equity space and that there's another leg down before we see a move to the upside. Do you see that as well?

IG: That is always a possibility and it can't be ruled out, but the precious metals' fundamentals are as compelling today as they have ever been.

TGR: Could it be seasonality due to the summer?

IG: I don't think so and anyway I am a long-term investor and I am essentially not concerned by short-term price machinations. As I have said, the most compelling reason to own gold is the crippling debt crisis, which has brought about the probability of a catastrophic end to fiat currencies.

TGR: Sean Boyd, the chief executive of Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM:TSX; AEM:NYSE), recently told Bloomberg that gold could reach about $1,800/ounce ($1,800/oz) within a year. What's your medium-term outlook for gold and silver?

"When you get this overly bearishness in markets, it's usually indicative of a turn. I'm confident that we're going to see a turn to the upside."

IG: The market is going to have to go through a consolidation that could last for weeks. However, I'm much more bullish on gold than I am on silver because gold has traditionally been recognized as money sine qua non. Industrial demand is going to drop quite precipitously as the world goes into the depression stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it is likely that silver will take on the role of poor man's gold.

My belief is we're going to see a decoupling between the paper markets and the physical markets. The demand for physical is going to grow dramatically. It's going to make the paper markets irrelevant.

I'm not sure if it's going to be a year as Sean says, but it's going to be extremely strong and the move will be very dramatic once it starts. The old highs of $1,900/oz will be surpassed by a long shot over the medium to long term.

TGR: Do you think silver will fall below the $20/oz level in the next six months to a year?

IG: We're as oversold as we were in 2008, although the price isn't as low as it was then. I see a consolidation in the price, but I don't forecast much lower prices occurring in either of the precious metals. Once this consolidation is over, I see a resumption of the bull market.

TGR: Amid the moribund news cycle for gold and silver, there have been some feel-good stories in the equities space.

IG: True. A company like Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM:NYSE) is a really good story because it has a 4% dividend. It's trading at a low book value.

Agnico-Eagle is well managed. It's been moving into the junior space in anticipation of a move up in the market. Agnico-Eagle has recently acquired interests in five junior mining companies because management is bullish on gold and the company can invest in promising junior companies at very cheap prices that have good potential to grow their assets.

TGR: Does Newmont have the cash flow to maintain a 4% dividend?

IG: Yes, I think it does. Investors are buying these companies at or close to a price low. When the gold price increases, Newmont's profitability will increase and it should be able to raise the dividend quite dramatically. The same thing happened in the 1930s. Even though the gold price was fixed at $20.67/oz, the dividends that companies like Homestake and Dome Mines were paying out were enormous—10% dividends were being paid out, particularly after Roosevelt raised the price from $20.67 to $35/oz.

TGR: Is there any good news among the juniors?

IG: In the junior sphere, you can buy some companies for nearly $10/oz of gold in the ground.

One of the juniors that I've consistently talked about is Temex Resources Corp. (TME:TSX.V; TQ1:FSE), which has about 4 million ounces (4 Moz) of gold in the ground in Ontario, Canada.

TGR: What is Temex's cash position?

IG: The company has about $7 million ($7M) in cash. It did a financing prior to this horror story that we've gone through in the past year. I talked to the CEO, Ian Campbell, who said that Temex has sufficient cash to last another two years, even with the drilling that is ongoing.

TGR: Are you more bullish on the Whitney or the Juby project?

IG: I guess I'm more bullish on Juby, even though it's a lower grade project. Temex only owns 60% of the Whitney property; Goldcorp Inc. (G:TSX; GG:NYSE) owns 40%.

"The demand for physical commodities is going to grow dramatically. It's going to make the paper markets irrelevant."

The chances are that there's about 3 Moz at Juby. The gold definitely runs beyond where the company has drilled and I believe that overall Juby could turn into a major deposit. I am not belittling the Whitney property because that too could be a very large deposit, but Temex only owns 60% of Whitney.

Another old favorite is Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (BGM:TSX.V). The company's trading has been halted by the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) as it answers some questions about its NI 43-101. . It has just published a new NI 43-101 resource of 4.98 Moz and a potential resource of 9–27 Moz. These are very good numbers. It will be interesting to see what value investors put to these numbers. I believe that there is significant potential for the company to grow this discovery quite substantially.

TGR: Are there any other gold equities that you're fond of at these low prices?

IG: I own about 10% of Alliance Mining Corp. (ALM:TSX.V). The company has a little bit of a cash problem, but it has some fantastic projects in the largest gold-silver producing area in Arizona. It also purchased some properties in Mexico that are almost contiguous to the Orisyvo mine. The company is well managed and has good relationships with the mining fraternity in Arizona. It's a good story with some very prospective properties.

TGR: What about some other companies?

IG: I own Freegold Ventures Ltd. (FVL:TSX) in Alaska, which has about 5 Moz and growing. It's close to the Kinross Gold Corp. (K:TSX; KGC:NYSE) Fort Knox mine. I like the management of Freegold. Investors should be looking at it simply because of the growth in the ground gold assets that the company owns, its proximity to the Fort Knox mine and a dedicated management team.

I'm extremely bullish on Terraco Gold Corp. (TEN:TSX.V). The company is one of the best managed juniors out there. Todd Hilditch, the CEO, does a fantastic job in acquiring royalties on the Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX:NYSE)/Midway Gold Corp. (MDW:TSX.V; MDW:NYSE.MKT) Spring Valley property in Nevada. These royalties have been estimated to have a value of about $70M. Barrick doesn't have to tell us how much gold is being discovered there, but people are quoting it at 6 Moz and I think that it is based on that number that the value of the Terraco royalty has been estimated.

TGR: What about Terraco's Moonlight project?

IG: It's contiguous to the Barrick/Midway project. There's a good chance that the gold being discovered on the Barrick/Midway project is going to run onto the Terraco property.

TGR: Terraco is worth about $18M right now. Why wouldn't Barrick just buy Terraco versus obtaining the royalty?

IG: Some of these companies, like Agnico, are prepared to do that, but a lot of these seniors have made so many blunders that they're too frightened to do anything. Take, for example, Pascua Lama, the Barrick property on the border of Argentina and Chile. See how mismanaged that appears to have been, the capital expenditure that has already gone into it, and the bickering between the Chilean government and the company and great properties?

But you're right. Why wouldn't someone go after a company like Terraco, which has a nice royalty?

TGR: What about companies outside the Americas?

IG: I like Orex Minerals Inc. (REX:TSX.V), which has about 1 Moz gold in Sweden. However, it has mainly silver properties in Mexico. Orex was planning to spin out the silver properties into a separate company, but it hasn't done that yet because of the market.

TGR: Detour Gold Corp. (DGC:TSX) is not too far from Temex. It poured gold this year, but hasn't reached commercial production yet. It secured a credit facility and financing. Is it on track to go commercial in the second half of this year?

IG: I love the Abitibi greenstone belt and I love Detour's project. It's huge—25 Moz. I'm sure it will get into production this year, but I don't own Detour.

I did own the company that basically found Detour, Pelangio Exploration Inc. (PX:TSX.V). Pelangio was an exceptionally good investment for my investors when I was a broker at Canaccord. I did a financing in Pelangio around 2001 at $0.11/share. When Detour took Pelangio over, it was valued at about $5/share.

TGR: Pelangio plans to produce 650,000 oz annually. Is that realistic?

IG: It never happens as smoothly as anticipated. I'm sure there will be hiccups, but eventually that kind of production rate can be achieved.

TGR: The silver producers continue to perform regardless of the commodity price performance or investor sentiment for the most part. What names are you following in that segment of the precious metals market?

IG: I'm more bullish on gold, Brian. However, I do follow a few companies that I don't have a stake in. I keep an eye on Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (FSM:NYSE; FVI:TSX; FVI:BVL; F4S:FSE) because it took over an asset of a company that I financed called Continuum Resources Ltd. I like the management of Fortuna.

I watch Endeavour Silver Corp. (EDR:TSX; EXK:NYSE; EJD:FSE) because I helped finance the company in its preproduction days when I was at Canaccord. The company is also extremely well managed. I love the growth profile that the company has achieved. It's really interesting and cheap. If you're looking for a silver play, it might be the one simply because it's so cheap. Its high is $13/share and it's at around $3.85/share, yet it's increasing production all the time.

TGR: You are often investing in financings. Do you ever buy equities in the open market?

IG: I do. For example, I bought Barkerville in the market. When it came out with its numbers last June, they were received with massive disbelief. The price of the stock didn't reflect the numbers. I went in the market and bought substantially to build my position because the price wasn't reflecting the asset.

I also bought Alliance Mining and Temex when the shares have been cheap.

TGR: How do you determine cheap?

IG: Relative to where it was formerly priced and the value I place on the company's assets. I started to buy gold and silver stocks in 2000 because they were cheap and no one wanted them. We are in the same position in the market today. We know the bullish consensus numbers for gold are at the same levels that they were in 2001. You can buy these things really cheap.

The only reason anybody wouldn't be buying them is because they don't believe that the price of gold is going to rise. I believe that the price is going to rise substantially because the chaos in the financial markets is going to be horrendous.

TGR: Thanks, Ian.

A globally renowned economic forecaster, author and speaker, Ian Gordon is founder and chairman of the Longwave Group, which comprises two companies—Longwave Analytics and Longwave Strategies. The former specializes in Gordon's ongoing study and analysis of the Longwave Principle originally expounded by Nikolai Kondratiev. With Longwave Strategies, Gordon assists select precious metal companies in financings. Educated in England, Gordon graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. After a few years serving as a platoon commander in a Scottish regiment, he moved to Canada in 1967 and entered the University of Manitoba's History Department. Taking that step has had a profound impact because, during this period, he began to study the historical trends that ultimately provided the foundation for his Longwave theory. Gordon has been publishing his Longwave Analyst website since 1998. Eric Sprott, chairman, CEO and portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management, describes Gordon as "a rare breed in the investment-adviser arena." He notes that Gordon's forecasts "have taken on a life force of their own and if you care to listen, Gordon will tell you how it will all end."