▣ Fraser Survey Gives High Marks to Chile, Nevada
Dorothy Kosich
'23-MAR-06 04:00'
RENO--(Mineweb.com) British Columbia's Fraser Institute's ninth annual "Survey of Mining Companies" Wednesday ranked Chile, Nevada, Mongolia, Quebec, Mali, South Australia, Ghana, Mexico, Ontario and Western Australian as the most attractive jurisdictions in which to mine or explore for minerals.
Interestingly, for the first time the survey--which was originally founded in 1997 to demonstrate the failure of British Columbia's mining policies--ranked the province in the top half in terms of policy attractiveness for mining and exploration. The state of Colorado scored the lowest in terms of attractiveness. California, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Wisconsin, Washington, Minnesota, Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Venezuela joined Colorado in the cellar.
The survey was sent to 1,435 exploration, development and mining consulting companies around the survey. Responses were received from 22.4% (322) of those companies. Survey respondents are believed to represent a third of total global exploration of $5.1 billion in 2005 as defined by the Metals Economics Group.
The respondents said they spent $1.83 billion in 2005 compared to $1.31 billion in 2004. Of those responding, 50% or 107 companies are exploring for gold, while 32 companies (15%) explore for copper. The survey questioned miners on 12 policy areas affecting mining, and the investment attractiveness of 64 jurisdictions around the world on every continent except Antarctica.
"Sadly, many of the jurisdictions with the greatest room to improve are development countries, where additional investment, and job, wealth, and capital creation are most needed," according to the survey. "This includes Zimbabwe, DRC, Papua New Guinea, Zambia, China, Venezuela, and Peru. However, some of the worst performers are from the developed world and include Colorado, California and Montana."
Although the comments provided by respondents were anonymous, a vice president for an exploration company said he felt "Russia has uncertainty of title, high level of corruption, (and) low personal safety assurance."
Meanwhile, the companies gave Canadian provinces mixed reviews. One vice president commented that "Canada in general has reasonably favorable policies. However, this is decreasing rapidly due to the uncertainty surrounding the First Nations land claims settlement." The president of an exploration company added that "Ontario has one of the highest mineral potentials but land use expropriation and aboriginal land claims threats are swiftly making Ontario undesirable."
Another exploration company president complained that "NI 43-101 [a disclosure regulation in Canada} is ill thought out and forces mining companies to hire consultants with much less competence than the companies that hire them. The requirement to physically visit properties in remote areas, in extreme winter conditions, just to say the consultant was there is inane bureaucracy. The policies are administrated by career government and regulatory employees who tend to have very little industry experience and even less common sense in enforcing the regulations."
Respondents complained about the influence of environmental and human rights NGOs. An exploration company president said environmental lobby groups in California and Montana "shut down anything to do with resource development." The manager of an exploration suggested that the ability of NGOs to "overrun villages with imported protestors" be curtailed. Meanwhile, an exploration company official complained about Peru's lack of stability and the spreading of misinformation among indigenous people by NGOs.
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