Chinese firms to invest $1.36 billion in private B.C. coal projects

Vancouver – British Columbia’s new Liberal premiere, Christy Clark, has made some bold statements to Canada’s mining sector and the rest of the world these past few weeks.

In late 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 currently operating in B.C. by 2015. More recently, on a week-long trip to China in November to enhance trade relations, Clark announced two major investment proposals by Chinese firms worth $1.36 billion in private British Columbian coal projects. According to the premiere’s office, the two mining projects alone will help create over 6,700 jobs.

Gone is the NDP-led anti-mining government of the 1990s that devastated British Columbia’s mining sector, suggests Clark; the Liberals are now telling the world, and Asia in particular, that the province is once again open for business.

Delegates from more than 130 B.C. companies and organizations accompanied the premier to China, some of which will also have followed on a subsequent week-long trip to India from Nov. 11-16.

The Chinese investments announced on Nov. 9 include $860 million by Canadian Kailuan Dehua Mines Co. Ltd., 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 scepticism. The Vancouver Sun quoted the mayor of Hudson’s Hope, Karen Anderson, as saying it was only two months ago that Canadian Kailuan Dehua Mines decided to abandon the project due to 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 about 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 any 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 recently 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 1,000 metres of a historical cultural area that is used today by the community as a camp.

“Premier’s Clark’s announcement yesterday comes before the environmental assessment (EA) process is even completed, so she’s already made a predetermination that this mine is going ahead before the EA has even finished its process, and what does that tell us about the whole EA 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 about the last five years, with the project left stuck 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 be scheduled to begin in about two years. This would then 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 jobs plan for being too vague and overly optimistic. The government has so far refused to provide the names of the eight new mines or the nine expansion projects, and has no binding agreements in place that would definitely see them developed by 2015 or at all.

For now, the leaders of West Moberly remain unhappy with the project as it is currently planned and argue it would lead to the destruction of their camp. “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 lives at the west end of Moberly Lake, which like the Gething project is roughly 25 km south of Hudson’s Hope. Chinese investment in Canada increased by 9.3% to $14 billion in 2010, with British Columbia being one of the growing destinations for that investment behind Alberta and Saskatchewan.