Mining and Exploration

Mining has been a fundamental part of Ontario’s economic fabric for centuries and is now seen as an integral component of its future. Ontario’s native population is widely credited with being the first to tap into the province’s mineral wealth, while major discoveries and mine development in the 20th century helped to underpin Ontario's rise to the status of Canada's most populous and wealthiest province, and supported Canada's development as an industrialised and globally competitive nation.

There’s a sense of purpose at Canadian junior Potash Ridge – and the tone is set by its President and CEO Guy Bentinck a Chartered Accountant who has devoted the 20 years he has spent in the mining sector to finding smart ways of securing finance. He is not a man whose head can be turned by specious arguments: every step in the development of a project has to be considered, and realistic contingency planning built in.

Base listed on the ASX in October, 2008, with a portfolio of Australian iron ore projects. Carstens and his team, recognising that these assets would not produce any company-makers, “set sail round the world looking for the right opportunity we could build the company around”. In July, 2010, Base acquired its 100 per cent interest in the Kwale minerals sands project in Kenya.

Howden Africa was established in Johannesburg in 1952, to supply fans for the mining and power generation industries, just under a century after the Scottish engineer and inventor James Howden set up the parent company in Glasgow. Howden was an innovator par excellence, but his most successful invention was a forced draught system that dramatically improved the performance of steam boilers.

The market has a lot to answer for, and so do investors in search of a quick buck. Where gold mining is concerned, it is a well-known fact that as the price on the international metal exchanges fluctuates the viability of higher cost mines comes into question. There are properties all over the world that have been put into mothballs either because all the high grade material has been taken or because they can’t any longer sustain a decent margin.

“We are delighted to be celebrating twenty years of contribution to Africa’s economy and the success of an industry,” said Jonathan Moore, Managing Director of Mining Indaba LLC. “We have the global mining community, investors and our partners in Africa to thank for this success.”

For the cool price of $83 million, well-known New York diamond cutter Isaac Wolf purchased the diamond known as the Pink Star.

Measuring 2.69 centimetres by 2.06 centimetres and set on a ring, the diamond, now renamed the Pink Dream by its new owner, was mined by De Beers in 1999, in an unspecified African country. The winning bid, which includes the cost of auctioneer Sotheby’s commission, far surpasses the $46.2m paid for the Graff Pink diamond three years ago, which was half the size of the Pink Star.