Chinese firms pledge to invest $1.4B in private BC coal projects

B.C.’s new Liberal premier, Christy Clark, has made bold statements about mining since taking power. 

In September, she unveiled a provincial jobs plan that emphatically stated her province will help push through eight new mines
and the expansion of nine mines operating in B.C. by 2015. 

On a week-long trip to China in November to enhance trade relations, Clark announced two major investment proposals worth $1.36 billion by Chinese firms in private B.C. coal projects. According to the premier’s office, the two mining projects alone will help create over 6,700 jobs. 

Gone is the New Democratic Party-led, anti-mining government of the 1990s that devastated B.C.’s mining sector, Clark suggests. The Liberals are now telling the world, and Asia in particular, that B.C. is once again open for business. 

Delegates from more than 130 B.C. companies and organizations accompanied the premier to China, some of whom were to have taken in a subsequent trip to India. 

The Chinese investments announced on Nov. 9 include $860 million by Canadian Kailuan Dehua Mines, a partnership backed by several Chinese coal producers, in the Gething coal project 25 km south of Hudson’s Hope, and $500 million by Canadian Kailuan and another Chinese coal player for a second unspecified project in its early stages.

Nevertheless, critics have been quick to greet Clark’s latest announcement with skepticism. The Vancouver Sun quoted the mayor of Hudson’s Hope, Karen Anderson, as saying it was only two months ago that Kailuan Dehua Mines abandoned the project after an irresolvable conflict with the West Moberly First Nation, one of three aboriginal groups with territorial claims in the area. Anderson and the district support the project – which would bring 400 full-time jobs to the community during a 40-year mine life – but were somewhat puzzled by the announcement. “Dehua had called us at the end of September and told us at this time they were walking away from the project because they could not get approval or any kind of permits, because they were being stalemated by First Nations. So I’m kind of wondering what’s going on,” Anderson was quoted as saying.

West Moberly’s Chief Roland Willson did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Northern Miner. However, Reporter Matthew Bains from Mile 0 City in nearby Fort St. John quoted Willson as saying Clark’s announcement was a “blatant slap in the face” to his community’s treaty rights and right to meaningful consultation. The Gething coal deposit is located within 1 km of a historical cultural area that is used today by the community as a camp.

“Premier Clark’s announcement yesterday comes before the environmental assessment process is even completed, so she’s already made a predetermination that this mine is going ahead before the assessment has even finished its process. And what does that tell us about the whole Environmental Assesment process, and about consultation with First Nations? Obviously it doesn’t mean very much to them,” Willson commented.

According to the article, the West Moberly band has been negotiating with the mining project’s proponents for the last five years, with the project trapped in the pre-application stage since 2006. 

Should the environmental assessment, regulatory permitting and First Nations and community consultations all reach positive conclusions, construction would begin in about two years. This would place the project firmly in-line to be one of the eight new mines included in Clark’s provincial jobs plan. 

Critics have derided parts of Clark’s job plan for being vague and overly optimistic. The government has so far refused to provide the names of the eight new mines and nine expansion projects, and has no binding agreements in place that would see them developed by 2015, if at all.

For now, the leaders of West Moberly remain unhappy with the project’s plan and argue it would lead to their camp’s destruction. “It’s a camp where we take our youth out, and we use it for hunting, gathering and teaching – we teach who we are as a people, as a Dene Tha’ people, to our children. This is one of the last places we can go that is relatively undisturbed to carry on the peaceful enjoyment of our treaty rights,” Willson was quoted as saying.

The West Moberly community is at the west end of Moberly Lake, which, like the Gething project, is 25 km south of Hudson’s Hope.

Chinese investment in Canada increased by 9.3% to $14 billion in 2010, with B.C. one of the growing destinations for investment, behind Alberta and Saskatchewan.