InfoMine Expands into Oil and Gas Careers

InfoMine is pleased to announce the acquisition of What Oil and Gas Jobs. What Oil and Gas Jobs has been the industry's leading upstream oil and gas job site for over two years hosting over 120 new upstream oil jobs each day from around the world. Unique visitors coming to the site exceed 157,000 per month. As of April 1, 2006 What Oil and Gas Jobs will become InfoOil Careers and will continue to provide the same great service to job seekers, employers and recruiters in the booming oil and gas industry. InfoOil Careers will share many of the current features which make InfoMine's own CareerMine the dominant job site for the global mining industry. We welcome the What team onboard!

InfoMine News

Wrapup for March 2006

Governments from around the world received a report card from the Fraser Institute on how well they are treating their local mining industry. Top marks went to the following policy jurisdictions: Nevada, Alberta, Manitoba, Chile, Mexico and Utah. The governments with the lowest marks were Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela and California.

The Fraser Institute is a public policy organization based in Vancouver, B.C. The study, which was release on March 22, is a composite index that measures "...government policies including uncertainty concerning the administration, interpretation, and enforcement of existing regulations." The report weighs other factors such as infrastructure and political stability. Survey respondents are mining executives and exploration managers.

The survey was first published in 1997 to report on how poorly the B.C.government was running its mining industry. The report notes that since the survey's inception, B.C. has climbed its way from the bottom 10 of the "policy potential index" to the top half. British Columbia would rank higher but uncertainty over native land claims still gives survey respondents the jitters.

As of March 29, the survey was still freely available.

Zimbabwe did not help its ranking when the government's resource minister announced that it would grab 25% ownership of all mines. Zimbabwe has some of the world's richest reserves of platinum. While President Robert Mugabe's policies of divide and conquer continue to wreck the economy, the sky high platinum prices caused him to focus on Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (Implats), which is developing mines in the country. The CEO of Implats, Keith Rumble, met Mugabe. The government appears to be backing off the plan and may just wait for the tax dollars to roll in rather than risk running the mining industry into the ground. Zimbabwe has a poor record of running industry. After it grabbed white-owned farms and replaced them with staff friendly to the Mugabe government, one of the most fertile countries in all of Africa became a net food importer.

Check the news section each day for the latest mining stories. You can also subscribe to our Headline News Digest,. News subscribers can sign up for our specialty publications, Diamond Digest and Gold Digest.

InfoMine Supplier Editorials

Nalco solves reprocessing quagmire - by International Longwall News

According to International Longwall News, a specially developed coal flotation program has enabled the Glenlee coal preparation plant to overcome problems with reprocessing tailings.The preparation plant, at the old Glenlee site near Narellan in New South Wales, was originally established in the mid-1950s and was, at one stage, considered the largest such facility in the southern hemisphere.In 2002 Sada Coal Preparation Services restarted operations at the site with a two-stage program involving processing feed from a nearby coal mine and later reprocessing the slurry in the tailings dams at Glenlee. more...

Increase your copper solvent extraction efficiency while lowering cost. - by SpinTek

The SpinTek CoMatrix™ system is specifically designed to provide excellent organic recovery and electrolyte filtering for the solvent extraction(SX) market. The system is designed to operate at five times the flow rate of traditional SX filters. more..

InfoMine Careers

CareerMine welcomes our latest "Employers of Choice" - Barrick Gold Corporation, Endako and The Swann Group. Please look at their current openings and all our other Employers of Choice career opportunities. We work closely with our Employers of Choice to help them with their recruiting needs. To find out more about becoming an Employer of Choice please email Renee and she will be happy to assist.

Professional Development

AST Mining acquires an EduMine Site licence

EduMine is pleased to welcome AST Mining as a client. The company has signed up for an EduMine Site licence enabling all employees to view all EduMine courses at any time and to pursue professional development opportunities.

AST Mining Canada is a mining consulting company that specializes in the application of advanced technologies to practical mining situations. The company was founded in early 1997 and since that time has been extremely well received in the industry, both locally and internationally. AST Mining has offices in South Africa, Canada and Australia, allowing them to participate in a diverse range of projects. more...

Mining Humor

If Geologists Wrote Nursery Rhymes

A research team proceeded toward the apex of a natural geologic protuberance; the purpose of their expedition being the procurement of a sample of fluid hydride of oxygen in a large vessel, the exact size of which was unspecified.

One member of the team precipitately descended, sustaining severe fractural damage to the upper cranial portion of his anatomical structure. Subsequently, the second member of the team performed a self-rotational translation oriented in the direction taken by the first member.

TRANSLATION: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.

Engineers in Hell

An engineer died and reported to the pearly gates. An intern angel, filling in for St. Peter, checked his dossier and grimly said, "Ah, you're an engineer; you're in the wrong place."

So the engineer was cast down to the gates of hell and was let in. Pretty soon, the engineer became gravely dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and began designing and building improvements. After a while, the underworld had air conditioning, flush toilets, and escalators, and the engineer was becoming a pretty popular guy among the demons.

One day, God called Satan up on the telephone and asked with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan laughed and replied, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God's face clouded over and he exploded, "What? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake; he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan shook his head, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God was as mad as he had ever been, "This is not the way things are supposed to work and you know it. Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughed uproariously, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

If you have any humorous stories about mining or just want to inflict misery on our readers with jokes worse then mine, we would love to get your input. Please email the editor with the subject line marked "InfoMiner Jokes".

InfoMine's Tech Tips of the Month

Internet Explorer: Clear your drop down address bar

Is your drop down address bar full of old addresses that you will never use again? Mine isn't, because I have fixed that problem by getting rid of them. Want to know how? Then keep reading.

Mine of the Month

Keywords

Canada
oil sands
open pit

The Albian Sands Project consists of the Muskeg River Mine and a pipeline to the Scotford Upgrader. Albian Sands operates the Muskeg River Mine and is a a joint venture of Shell Canada, Chevron Canada and Western Oil Sands Inc.

The project began operation in 2003 and has a projected mine life of 30 years. The Muskeg River Mine is an open pit operation that mines bitumen on a 121-square-kilometre lease, Lease 13. Muskeg River contains more than five billion barrels of mineable bitumen.

The mine is 75 km north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, 493 km northeast of Edmonton. A pipeline transports diluted bitumen from the mine to the upgrader near Edmonton.

Muskeg River is a truck and shovel operation, with semi-mobile crushers. About two tonnes of oil sands must be dug up, moved and processed to produce one barrel of oil. Roughly 75 per cent of the bitumen can be recovered from sand; processed sand has to be returned to the pit and the site reclaimed. Bitumen extraction is done at a plant on the mine site, and diluted bitumen is piped to the Scotford upgrader.

Visit Albians Sand's Minesite page for more in depth information on the mine's reserves/resources, production, mining and processing methods as well as news, links and supplier information. You can also view the Minesite pages of other mines by visiting the Minesite homepage. Feel free to contact us with any comments or suggestions you may have for Minesites.