The weekend looms, so here is a roundup of the items I have saved for bogging about and that I know I will never get to unless I summarize now:
From Mining iQ on Fly-in, Fly-out camps:
Other common issues include the lure of alcohol and never ending food. The wet mess is often located right next to food facilities, is a place for socializing, where most camp events are held and with drinks at discounted prices, the financial burden of a regular drinking habit is lessened. This coupled with easy access to prepared food of which there is no limit, gives good reasoning to the shocking statistic of ¾ of employees being statistically overweight or obese.
Must be that Australian mining camps are not dry like those in Canada. How often at Ekati have I longed for alcohol and had to settle for milk. Now too much milk makes me fat faster than a small brandy. But thus it is not to be at the fly-in, fly-out camps I visit.
From an e-mail about the state of Highway 63 from Edmonton to Fort McMurray:
I worked at suncor for 21years as a heavy equipment operator and I’am pleading to all the oilsands plants to get together and see if they can get together and speed up the twinning of 63. I know its not your job because you all say you pay enough taxes and it is up to the government. But you all know if the liberals or ndp were in you would be paying more. Also the majority of people travelling up and down 63 are in the oil business or are part of the oil industry. I’am pleading to do something about it because you can. The government just announced yesterday about putting in more passing lanes you know what that means another 10 years before it gets twinned. Please help. Carman Crosson.
I have never driven the road, having always been lucky enough to fly. I have often wondered why there is no high-speed train between the two cities. I am told by others that the road is a death trap. So let us post this here in the hope that it encourages more road building and high-speed rail lines.
From Sandra Wirtz, Director of Research & Staff Blogger:
I came across your blog and given its focus, I thought you might be interested in taking a look at our new study, and perhaps sharing it with your readers. I serve as the Director of Research of the American Resources Policy Network, a panel of mining policy experts an thought leaders dedicated to promoting the exploration and development of U.S. domestic non-fuel minerals and metals. As non-fuel materials are essential not only to our commercial manufacturing base and our aspirations to transition to a green-energy economy, but also to advanced weapons systems and other military applications, they are a matter of national security. While given that, one would expect that formulating a coherent mineral strategy would be a public policy imperative, our new study called “Reviewing Risk: Critical Minerals & National Security” finds that this unfortunately is not the case. The study attempts to give a snapshot of the federal government’s approach to the United States’ mineral supply issues by reviewing recent government literature on the issue. Some of our key findings:
- The federal government has been unable to produce a commonly agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a “critical/ strategic” metal or mineral, which may be one of the underlying reasons why the U.S. runs the risk of falling behind in the global race for resources.
- Cross-referencing 46 key minerals with USGS data, we constructed a national security “risk pyramid.” Of the 46 minerals reviewed, known U.S. resources exist for 40. In other words, for 87% of the metals and minerals on our American Resources Risk Pyramid, domestic resources exist – the development of which could lessen the United States’ import dependency.
The report was released at the Strategic Minerals Conference 2012, video footage of which is available here.
I downloaded the study and read it. Fascinating stuff. A bit too lawyerly for the average I fear, but I reveled in the complexity of definition. You may too.
Apart from that it has been a week of dreary financial news for mines. But I have no intelligent comments on the slides, so best to leave you to enjoy the weekend.
