According to the conference hosts, miners’ concerns are mounting as uncertainty rises on all fronts:

• Are the heady days of the commodity boom ending?
• Which way will the global economy tip—and what does it mean for mining?
• Are the stakes getting higher as resource nationalization gathers momentum?

These, and many other questions will be discussed by industry experts at this year’s Summit. For more information, click here.

Also, if you haven’t had a chance to visit www.miningfacts.org led by Alana Wilson, senior research analyst with the Fraser Institute’s Global Centre for Mining Studies yet, you’re missing out.

MiningFacts.org offers “timely research and articles that examine the economic, environmental, and social impacts of mining in Canada and around the world” – written for a general audience.

The post Fraser Institute to host third Mining Business Risks Summit in November appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Ms. Wilson has a MSc. in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and a BSc. Agroecology in Food and Resource Economics from the University of British Columbia.

To learn more about Ms. Wilson’s work and our other panelists, visit our experts page. And be sure to bookmark MiningFacts.org, which strives to bring balance into the increasingly polarized debate on mining in Canada and around the world.

The post Fraser Institute Scholar joins American Resources Expert Panel appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Kennecott has long been extracting ore containing rhenium and molybdenum out of another mine, but as part of the new project, it will now be able to produce the two metals as “a final product instead of shipping raw concentrates to other companies for final processing.” While providing a boon to the local economy, the project should also constitute an important step towards reducing U.S. reliance on foreign rhenium imports, a welcome development at a time when our import dependency for the scarce and highly critical metal rests at 86 percent.

Opportunities to harness our own resource potential are plentiful given the vastness of mineral riches beneath U.S. soil. Some domestic jurisdictions, like Utah, while sliding in the Fraser Institute’s international annual ranking of mining jurisdictions, are still better than others at providing a climate conducive to fostering investment in resource development. However, if we want to stay competitive in the long run, policy makers in Washington must get their acts together and formulate a coherent national mineral strategy, at a time when much of the rest of the world has already done so.

The post Utah plant to reduce over-reliance on foreign rhenium imports appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Here are some interesting figures on Canada from the MEG Corporate 
Exploration Strategies study, which Commodities Now says 
includes “precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium and some 
industrial minerals.”:

- Canadian-based companies accounted for more than half of the
 2,400+ active explorers in the 2011 report.

- Those companies, collectively, accounted for 40 percent of the
$17.25 billion budgeted by all companies for nonferrous exploration last 
year.

- If the $3.1 billion in planned Canadian nonferrous exploration 
spending, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia accounted for more than 60
 percent, with a total of 781 companies planning to explore in Canada in 
2011.

In 2002, Canada overtook Australia as the world’s top country for 
exploration and has remained there for the last ten years. We can’t help
 but note that the Canadian economy benefits greatly from the country’s pro-mining stance.  According to the Fraser Institute,
 Canada’s leading free market think-tank, mining and metal processing has 
been (and is expected to remain) an important contributor to the country’s
 economic growth.

When taking into account that the mining industry was the only industry in the United States to add jobs since 2007, it seems clearly evident that many more jobs could be added if U.S. policy
makers would take a note from our northern neighbors and focus on fostering 
a climate that cultivates responsible investment in the growth sector of metals and minerals.

The post Canada remains worldwide leader of non-fuel exploration appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

The study looks at how the interplay of personal choice, voluntary exchange
coordinated by markets, freedom to enter and compete in markets, and protection
of persons and their property promotes investment, income and growth, improves
the general living conditions of a society, and helps foster peaceful relations. In the
2011 Report, Hong Kong is listed as the most economically free country, followed by
Singapore and New Zealand. On the other end of the spectrum, Venezuela, Myanmar
and Zimbabwe feature the worst scores of economic freedom.

While the study does not make a detailed assessment on the issue of resource
development, it touches on the importance of resources to growth, arguing
that “given two economies with the same level of economic freedom and other
attributes, the economy that is in addition abundant in natural resources will tend
to grow faster.”

If you’re interested in a more in-depth discussion of resource-related issues, the Fraser
Institute also publishes an annual Survey of Mining Companies, which assesses how
mineral endowments and public policy factors affect exploration investment. And
for a current perspective on Quebec’s mining policy, here’s a piece from American
Resources’ expert and Fraser Institute scholar Jean-Francois Minardi.

The post Fraser Institute Releases 2011 Economic Freedom of the World Report appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

McMahon is Vice-President of Research, International, at the Fraser Institute, and, among other things, co-author of the Fraser Institute’s annual Survey of Mining Companies.  Minardi is Associate Director of the institute’s Global Natural Resource Policy Centre and has researched, written and spoken on mining issues in Canada and internationally. He is also the author of a forthcoming series of papers on Canadian mining policy.

To learn more about their work, and our other distinguished panelists, visit our experts page.

The post Fraser Institute resource policy experts join ARPN panel appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.