Manitoba Mining Information

Platinum futures extended their record-breaking run Friday, bid higher on persistent worries about supply disruptions in South Africa.Platinum for April delivery soared as high as $2,079.90 an ounce, beating the previous record set on Thursday. The contract finished up $57.80 at $2,063.70 an ounce.

“This is far from a bubble as speculative longs remain quite low and far away from higher levels expected at a market top,” said Mark O’Byrne, executive director at Gold & Silver Investments Ltd. In addition to declining supplies out of South Africa, “there are many other fundamental supply and demand issues to suggest that platinum will go a lot higher in the coming months,” he said in a note.

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Base Metals

Nickel cooper and zinc are the primary base metals mined in Manitoba. Thompson, Flyn Flon, Lynn Lake and Snow lake are important base metal mining areas in Manitoba. The province has a history of prosperous mining from large base metal deposits.

At Thompson and Flyn Flon, mining operations continue on these large deposits with new discoveries continuing to be made. Recent hikes in Nickel and Copper prices has created a lot of interest and new exploration activity focussed on re-evaluation of deposits that were not economically viable at depressed metal prices.

Manitoba’s proven potential to host world-class nickel-sulphide deposits has attracted a number of junior companies which are now aggressively conducting exploration and feasibility work known undeveloped deposits and former producers.

Gold Production

The following overview of Gold extraction, ore grades and production levels was adopted from the Wikipedia page for gold. Links are included to reference materials and additional information pages.

Economic gold extraction can be achieved from ore grades as little as 0.5 g/1000 kg (0.5 parts per million, ppm) on average in large easily mined deposits. Typical ore grades in open-pit mines are 1–5 g/1000 kg (1–5 ppm), ore grades in underground or hard rock mines are usually at least 3 g/1000 kg (3 ppm) on average. Since ore grades of 30 g/1000 kg (30 ppm) are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, in most gold mines the gold is invisible.

Since the 1880s, South Africa has been the source for a large proportion of the world’s gold supply, with about 50% of all gold ever produced having come from South Africa. Production in 1970 accounted for 79% of the world supply, producing about 1,000 tonnes. However by 2007 production was just 272 tonnes. This sharp decline was due to the increasing difficulty of extraction, changing economic factors affecting the industry, and tightened safety auditing. In 2007 China (with 276 tonnes) overtook South Africa as the world’s largest gold producer, the first time since 1905 that South Africa has not been the largest.

Goldsheetlinks.com reports preliminary data on recent gold production as

2006

1. South Africa: 275mt (11.0%)
2. United States: 260mt (10.5%)
3. Australia: 251mt (10.2%)
4. China: 240mt (9.7%)
5. Peru: 203mt (8.2%)
6. Indonesia: 167mt (6.8%) (2005)
7. Russia: 152.6mt (6.2%)
8. Canada: 104mt (4.2%)
9. Papau New Guinea 66.7mt (2.7%) (2005)
10. Ghana 63.1mt (2.6%) (2005)
Other: 699mt

TOTAL: 2469mt

2007

1. China: 276mt
2. South Africa: 272mt
3. United States: 255mt (estimated)
4. Australia: 251mt (est)
5. Indonesia: 171mt (est)
6. Peru: 167mt
7. Russia: 4.9mt (est)
8. Canada: 93mt
9. Papau New Guinea: n/a
10. Ghana: n/a
Other: n/a

TOTAL: 2444mt