No description available.

No description available.

The search for promising mineral deposits and their development into producing mines require the expenditure of much larger sums of money than was formerly necessary for success. Mining is recognized as a risky business, and the suppliers of venture capital must be adequately compensated for assuming this risk. With the progressive development of a prospect, the uncertainty regarding its value is reduced and capital is more readily available at lower cost. As capital requirements have increased, greater reliance has been placed upon the internal resources of established producers. Equity capital is still supplied by the public for the hazardous first stages of prospecting and exploration, but later development and production financing is likely to be obtained from operating companies or financial institutions. Government guarantees, loans, and purchase agreements have been important in the financing of several large ventures. The development of a mining property is a stochastic production function, the outcome of which is probabilistic. In order to optimize this output, no more should be spent on a property than the expected realization of its present worth. This requires the continuous assessment of the probability of various outcomes and their financial results at each stage of the decision process. The purchase of information to further reduce the uncertainty of future earnings may be necessary before making the final commitment to production. The developer must also be assured of sufficient capital to complete mine development and plant construction. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The hypothesis of this study is that the optimal plant size for a mining venture is dependent upon both uncontrollable and controllable variables. Examples of variables which are uncontrollable to the firm are characteristics of the orebody, capital and product markets, projected price levels, and tax structure. Controllable variables in determining plant size are rate of recovery, level of recovery, capital costs, and operating costs. The primary purpose of this study is to delineate the effects of these variables, both singly and jointly, upon plant size and to present a model which will interrelate the variables with that scale of plant which will maximize the value of the firm. A secondary purpose of the study is to compare the impact of both Canadian and United States tax laws upon the profitability of a given operation, and upon the optimal grade-capacity combination to be employed for a given orebody. The difference of the impact of Canadian and United States tax laws with respect to the conservation of resources is also considered. After each of the controllable and uncontrollable variables is defined and analysed, a detailed analysis is made of various methods of mine valuation, with the objective being to identify the valuation method which most closely relates to the value of the firm. Then a model is constructed which will give the mine-life annual cash flows for a given orebody under various concentrator-capacity--cut-off-grade combinations. These cash flows are then converted to internal rates of return and benefit-to-cost ratios, which are contoured for various cut-off grades and concentrator capacities under various metal prices. The model assumes an orebody with a tonnage of 40e ⁽²ˉ ⁵x⁾ million tons, where x is the cut-off grade, in percent copper. Contour plots of benefit-to-cost ratio and internal rate of return were constructed for cut-off grades ranging from 0% to 1% copper, and for concentrator capacities ranging from 5000 tons-per-day to 50,000 tons-per-day, at net smelter returns of 40¢ per lb. to per 46¢ per lb. of contained copper. The tax system under which the highest profits are attained is Canadian tax laws with pre-1968 British Columbia taxes. The operation is least profitable under United States tax laws. However, optimal plant size is least sensitive to changes in metal price under United States tax laws, and most sensitive to price changes under Canadian tax laws with pre-1968 British Columbia taxes. Similarly, optimal cut-off grade is most insensitive to changes in metal price under Canadian tax laws with pre-1968 British Columbia taxes, and most sensitive to product price changes under United States tax laws. Therefore, it can be shown that under United States tax laws, the response of an operation to changing product prices would be to change the optimal cut-off grade, while in Canada, particularly under pre-1968 British Columbia taxes, the response would be to change the optimal operating capacity. Therefore, American tax laws provide the greatest flexibility for responding to changes in product price. The tax system which produces the greatest degree of conservation of resources, as is reflected by completeness of ultimate extraction, is the American case. The lowest extraction level would result under Canadian taxes, with pre-1968 British Columbia/taxes. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Foreign ownership and control of major segments of the Canadian economy today, according to many prominent Canadians, present grave problems and offer grim forebodings as to the future ability of Canada to maintain its economic and political independence. In the press, on the political platform, in Parliament, in a Royal Commission Report, and in learned societies, the controversial debate rages with the participants constantly diagnosing the economy's present state of health and busily suggesting a host of remedies. Pre-occupation with the question of foreign ownership and control of the economy is not a twentieth century phenomenon alone. The mining industry of the West Kootenay and Boundary regions of British Columbia in the 1890's—which constituted a significant segment of the economy—was once believed to be almost entirely American owned and controlled, Judge Howay and Dr. Sage, historians, who studied the mining industry in British Columbia, concluded that it was only after 1897 or 1898 that American ownership and control were replaced as "British and Canadian capital began to come into the Kootenays in fairly large quantities." Professor Hansen declared that American activity was strongly in evidence in the mining industry after 1896. Professor Innis stated that the development of lode mining in the Kootenay was the result of the construction of a transcontinental railway which had been primarily designed to handle Pacific Coast traffic. In expanding and focussing the thesis of Professor Innis on the national scene, Professor Creighton insisted that the central objective of national policy after 1867 involved realizing a strong, varied and integrated transcontinental economy. The statements of these authorities have stimulated the present study. New and additional information now has been made available to help to measure the relative control of capital— coastal British Columbian, or interior British Columbian, or other Canadian, or British, or American—in the mining companies of the West Kootenay and Boundary regions, 1890 to 1900. Records pertaining to 1,306 mining companies which were organized and operating in the West Kootenay and Boundary areas at some time between 1890 and 1900 have been examined. Five hundred ten of these companies were either foreign registered or were extra-provincially registered or licensed companies. Information concerning them could only be obtained by examining the British Columbia Gazette and current mining journals. Usually the source of capital has been assumed to be identical with the area of incorporation and with the locale of the head office. Considerably more information is now available on the 762 incorporated companies in British Columbia. Annual returns containing names, and addresses of shareholders and directors and the value of stock held by them provided the means to determine the source of capital for most of these companies. The writer classified these names under the various sources or nationalities. He then determined the total value of stock held by each of these sources for the 762 locally incorporated companies. The source or nationality controlling the company could thus be frequently ascertained. To obtain this information, the writer examined the files of 2,174 companies whose records are preserved on microfilm. The source of capital of a company—if it could be determined—has been noted for the year in which the company was incorporated or registered. This practice has appeared to be satisfactory as examination of annual reports has shown a remarkable absence of transfer of capital control from one group to another. The study is then confined to an examination and comparison of the source of capital of mining companies as determined by the year of incorporation or registration. The thesis is an inductive one. In addition to the above assumptions, lack of sufficient and reliable evidence on the source of capital of 214 companies has caused these companies to be classed under the category of insufficient information. The financial operations and the reasons for the success of a few companies and the reasons for the failure of many companies are examined. Changes in the control and ownership of many of the more important corporations are noted. Important capitalists, promoters and political figures who played a prominent role in financing companies are noted. The basic patterns and trends in capital formation, 1890 to 1900, and in a more general fashion, the trends from 1901 to 1914 are traced. In the period before 1890, the few companies established after the completion of the transcontinental line of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 are briefly described. In the 1890 to 1900 period, American owned companies declined relatively as Canadian and British owned companies increased, but there were always significant numbers of American companies. The Canadian companies played an active role as one of the main agents in stemming the pervasive American influences in the region. After 1898, as Canadian capital controlled a second east-west railway in the South Kootenay and Boundary country, and as Canadians owned the major smelter, the Canadian and British owned mining corporations assisted in integrating the regions into the new Canadian transcontinental economy. Within the eleven year period, 1890 to 1900, three subsidiary movements of capital flow occurred. The first two, from 1890 to 1894—chiefly to the Slocan,—and from 1895 to 1897— chiefly to Rossland—followed the basic pattern of the major movement with an initial heavier emphasis on American capital, and a later swing to Canadian and British capital. The last movement, from 1898 to 1900, followed a different course as there was no large early influx of American capital. It only became more prominent at the end of the movement. Consolidations of mining corporations paralleling consolidations in the other major industries of the Province characterized the period from 1901 to 1914. The Canadian owned Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company, a gargantuan concern by 1914, and even then almost synonymous with mining in the Kootenay, had expanded rapidly after its beginning in 1905. Its growth epitomized the era of consolidation before World War I. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, / In 2004, the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME, predecessor to the current Department of Mineral Resources - DMR) published a guideline to calculate the amount that a mining right holder would require for financial provision at mine closure. This research report reviews the guideline, specifically focussing on the “rules-based approach” for determining the quantum of financial provision. Some authors have recorded the misapplication of this guideline in practice and their research supports a conclusion that the guideline does not provide adequately for the real costs of mine closure. This research report makes a comparison between the DME guideline master rates for mine closure costs and actual tendered prices for those same elements of mine closure in the period from 2009 – 2016. The analysis of the actual tender prices for the various master- and component rates in comparison with the DME guideline rates delivered mixed results. While the actual tender values exceeded the guideline master rates in most cases, there were notable exceptions where the actual tender results lagged the master rates. The data obtained from the actual tender prices for mine rehabilitation projects by a third party suggests that the use of CPI to escalate mine rehabilitation costs was very quickly overtaken in reality by higher annual costs and rate increases for most of the DME guideline master rates that relate to surface mining. It means that the DME guideline master rates were not reflective of actual rehabilitation costs by the time that the use of the DME guideline was superseded by the publication of new regulations by the Department of Environmental Affairs in November 2017. Whilst no perfectly linear and distinct relationship could be deduced, the results broadly support the findings of several authors that the actual costs to rehabilitate a mine are much more than the DME guideline document would lead a mine to provide for. The application of a rules-based approach remains an exercise mired in controversy and with many potential inaccuracies. The new NEMA regulations for financial provision completely negate the need for a guideline and relevant State Departments and mining companies alike are consequently dependant on third parties to prepare closure cost estimates. / E.R. 2019