Dear CIMG Members,

In this edition we have included some interesting news, events, information and articles.

Please be reminded that the Secretariat of the CIMG is located within the AustCham Beijing Office and welcomes all members to come and visit. As well, the office has three workstations for non resident Beijing CIMG companies that may need a space to work from time to time. If you do need a workstation please book the required times with the Secretariat by sending an email to Auslan or Mary.

News from the last CIMG meeting

The last three CIMG meetings have seen good attendance. Auslan hosted the last meeting. He passed on Nigel Clark’s apology and said that the past month had been busy with the CIMG presenting in Huhot at the 2006 China Nonferrous Metals Mining Forum.

2006 China Nonferrous Metals Mining Forum focussed on Western China territory as an important production and reservation base for the nation's nonferrous metals and gold mineral resources, which accounted for more than half of the total reserves and became the primary provider of China's nonferrous metals raw materials. The forum saw 370 attendees who attended the seminar sessions on mining development and other potential projects. Teckcominco, was the Gold Sponsor for the event. Nigel Clark presented on “Questions and solutions for international mining companies joining in western mining development�. To download his presentation – click here.

There were two presentations given at the last meeting. The first was from Kerry ten Kate- Director, Biodiversity Offsets Program, Forest Trends. Kerry presented the Business and Biodiversity Offset Program (BBOP) to the members. Forest Trends and Conservation International form the Secretariat for the BBOP. The Business and Biodiversity Offset Program (BBOP) is a new partnership between companies, governments and conservation experts to explore biodiversity offsets. BBOP is:

-Demonstrating conservation and livelihood outcomes in a portfolio of biodiversity offset pilot projects;

-Developing, testing, and disseminating best practice on biodiversity offsets; and

-Contributing to policy and corporate developments on biodiversity offsets so they meet conservation and business objectives.

The BBOP partners wish to show, through a portfolio of pilot projects in a range of industry sectors, that biodiversity offsets can help achieve significantly more, better and more cost-effective conservation outcomes than normally occurs in infrastructure development. The BBOP partners also believe that demonstrating no net loss of biodiversity can help companies secure their license to operate and manage their costs and liabilities. The BBOP vision and expectation is that biodiversity offsets will become a standard part of business practice for those companies with a significant impact on biodiversity. The routine mainstreaming of biodiversity offsets into development practice will result in long-term and globally significant conservation outcomes. To download her presentation – click here.

The second presentation was given by Bertram Boie where he presented on the China Mining Awards. He mentioned that CHINA MINING 2006 is launching new awards. It will be presenting CHINA MINING Awards in five different categories for the very first time at this year's congress and exhibition. The awards will be distributed during the Awards Dinner at CHINA MINING 2006.

The awards recognise and promote industry leaders and reward them for their innovation and cooperation achievements in China. More and more international mining enterprises and financial institutions see CHINA MINING as a platform for their multi-level, cross-regional cooperation.

The CHINA MINING Awards will focus the spotlight on joint ventures that are leading the way in China's mining industry. In this 8th year of CHINA MINING, the new awards add a new dimension to China's largest mining conference.

CHINA MIING Awards will be presented in the following categories:

Prospector/Explorer of the Year Award
The recipient will be a company or person who discovered the most significant mineral deposit of the year.

Mine Development Award
For a company (foreign or domestic) that has successfully completed a feasibility study and is preparing to go into production.

Mining Environmental Protection Award
This Award will be given to an exploration project or mine in China which has demonstrated outstanding initiative, leadership, innovation and accomplishment in protecting and preserving the environment in the interests of sustainable development.

Technological Innovation Award
The winner will be a domestic company that has executed that most successful facility expansion or new technology adoption in the past 12 months.

Governmental Support Award
The Award will be given to the provincial Department of Land & Resource, which has provided the support for foreign companies its province.

Deadline for nomination submissions is September 15th, 2006. To nominate please download the CHINA MINING Awards Nomination form.

Chuanju also made a short announcement on the upcoming “China Minmet Engineering and Technology Forum 2006� which will be held in Nanchang in late October. For more information please visit www.itmetal.com/cmet.

Auslan then made note and ask for comment on the Notice of the People’s Government of Yunnan Province on new four laws including Management Rules of Yunnan Province for Rights of Exploitation and Mining. He noted that the laws focussed on the Rights of Exploitation and Mining, Interim Procedures of Yunnan Province for Levying and Management of Fees for Compensated Use of Mineral Resources, Interim Procedures of Yunnan Province for Management of Mineral Property Transaction, and the Interim Procedures of Yunnan Province for Management of Deposit for Security for Rehabilitation and Governing of Mine Geologic Environment. The members present at the meeting gave no comments. For those wishing to make comment or if you would like a copy of the laws please contact Auslan at admin@austcham.org.

The CIMG Secretariat would like to make note of the following new members:

SMEC International Pty Ltd
CRU International Limited Beijing Representative Office
Tianshan Goldfields Limited
The Beijing Axis Ltd
Norton Rose
Companhia Vale Do Rio Doce (CVRD)
Major Drilling International (Beijing) Limited Company
Intercedent
Kumsan JV Co.
Pan Pacific Gold Ltd.

The CIMG Secretariat would like to make note that the following presentations are available for download:

CIMG presentation at the 2006 China Nonferrous Metals Mining Forum - Questions and solutions for international mining companies joining in western mining development - August 2006

The Business and Biodiversity Offset Program (BBOP) presentation to the CIMG August 2006

Presentation on Cyanide Tailings Dam Requirements August 2006

FIE Banking in China Presentation July 2006

ICMM presentation to CIMG members July 2006

CIMG Presentation at the Metal Mining North East Asia 2006 Conference - Outlook of the North-East Asia Metal Mining Market: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Development - Shanghai - June 2006

ERM’s presentation - Licence to Operate…regulatory and reputationally - June, 2006

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Member Update

ICMM and CIMG announce new alliance:
The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) and the China International Mining Group (CIMG) have announced an alliance to promote awareness of sustainability in China’s domestic mining industry.

ICMM, which was founded in 2001, has taken a leadership role in promoting good practice in sustainable development performance in the global metals and mining industry. This has included the development of a Sustainable Development Framework that ICMM’s 14 corporate members have signed up to.

ICMM, along with the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), is currently taking part in a dialogue with the Chinese government on health and safety issues. The initiative aims to assist the Chinese government to implement a safety culture in the Chinese mining industry by sharing technical expertize and examples of good practice.

The alliance with CIMG will help to build on the positive steps taken by ICMM, ICEM, ILO and the Chinese government.

ICMM Secretary General Paul Mitchell said “We are committed to working in partnership with national organizations to raise the profile of our work, and look forward to working more closely with CIMG in future.�

Auslan Ishmael, General Secretary of the China International Mining Group said “ICMM and CIMG support the benefits of promoting sustainable business outcomes in mining. In the coming months, ICMM and CIMG plan to work jointly on enhancing awareness of good practice mining tools developed by ICMM.�

The announcement was also supported by a luncheon with the Andrew Parsons, a Director, with the ICMM on the 5 July where 60 CIMG members attended along with the officials from CMA and MLR.

Media Engagement
The CIMG is now contributing regularly to the MINING JOURNAL CHINA and WORLD NON FERROUS METALS. The Secretariat is seeking content related to Environment, Community, Safety and Technology. Articles should be case studies, in Chinese and 2 pages long. This is a unique chance to share information and promote the international mining community in China. If you are interested in submitting an article, please send your article as a word document to admin@austcham.org by the first week of the month to be published the following month.
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Feature Article

Sustainable development as related to a natural resource that is in essence depletable as it is mined, has often been seen as an oxymoron. Further, the traditional manner in which mining has been carried out for centuries has tended to emphasise short-term gains, with no consideration for the negative impacts on the environment and communities where the project takes place, not only during operations, but also beyond mine closure. Increasing awareness for sustainability concerns, coupled with technological developments, have shifted the centre of the debate from whether to how mining can be sustainable. From that perspective, sustainability in mining involves at least the following dimensions:

• The environmental dimension emphasises the sustainability of the natural environment and the stock of natural resources;
• The social dimension underscores social and cultural sustainability, what relates both to questions of distribution of benefits and costs of mining, and of process, that refers to how decisions are made and how all stakeholders are involved in decision-making;
• The economic dimension highlights the economic sustainability of human living standards. An important issue is substitution, and in this sense depletion of a resource could be compatible with sustainability if the interest from the revenues generated from mining are reinvested in building human and social capital, or in other sustainable activities.
  

One additional dimension is the fourth “pillar� of sustainable development: governance, law and institutions. Governments have a crucial role to play in designing a solid foundation for the effective utilisation and management of mineral resources in ways that balance environmental, social and economic interests so as to contribute towards sustainable development. From the industry’s viewpoint, it is important to have a regulatory system that is stable, transparent and appropriate to the conditions of the country. However, while a few nations have partly defined a framework to address some sustainability aspects, in most of them these concepts remain embryonic.

Although Agenda 21 underscored the need for guidelines for natural resources development, there is no specific chapter dealing with the minerals sector. A host of provisions are of direct or indirect relevance to mineral development, though. Perhaps the “Berlin Guidelines� provide the most useful guidance for mining sector governance in the context of sustainable development.

Drafted in 1991 as the outcome of the Round Table Conference organised by the United Nations and the German Foundation for International Development, they served as a basis for the first edition of the 1994 Environmental Guidelines for Mining Operations prepared by the UN Department of Economic and Social Development and its Commission for Sustainable Development, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at request of a number of countries looking for environmental guidance. The final draft of a second edition of the Guidelines reflecting the changes occurred within the mining sector and with sustainable development particularly in the evolution of legal, fiscal and regulatory policies, and growing awareness for developing tools for managing the social impacts of mining has been adopted. The Guidelines provide a model, rather than a blueprint, for sound and sustainable management of mineral development, and should be amended and improved according to the specific needs of each country.

• The Berlin Guidelines acknowledge the need to:
• recognise environmental management as high priority, notably during the licensing process and through the development and implementation of environmental management systems. These should include early and comprehensive environmental impact assessments, pollution control and other preventive and mitigative measures;
• recognise the importance of socio-economic impact assessments and social planning in mining operations from the earliest stages of project development;
• ensure participation of and dialogue with the affected community and other directly interested parties on the environmental and social aspects of all phases of mining activities;
  encourage long term mining investment by having clear environmental standards with stable and predictable environmental criteria and procedures.

Consistently, the Guidelines state that if sustainable development is defined as the integration of social, economic and environmental considerations, then a mining project that is developed, operated and closed in an environmentally and socially acceptable manner could be seen as contributing to sustainable development.

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Regulatory Update

Provisional Regulation on Disciplining Dereliction of Duty in Environmental Protection Activity -SEPA -issued date: 20030228

Notice of Further Regulating Exploration Licenses and Mining Licenses Granting/Transfer Process Management

Notice of the People’s Government of Yunnan Province on new four laws including Management Rules of Yunnan Province for Rights of Exploitation and Mining. Laws in Yunnan were released that focus on the Rights of Exploitation and Mining, Interim Procedures of Yunnan Province for Levying and Management of Fees for Compensated Use of Mineral Resources, Interim Procedures of Yunnan Province for Management of Mineral Property Transaction, and the Interim Procedures of Yunnan Province for Management of Deposit for Security for Rehabilitation and Governing of Mine Geologic Environment. For those wishing to make comment or if you would like a copy of the laws please contact Auslan at admin@austcham.org

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Classifieds

There are no classifieds as this time

NOTE: If you are interested in placing a classified-hiring, buy or sell (looking for staff, equipment, etc) please contact the Seccretariat. This service is FREE for CIMG members

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