Topper wrote:
The in situ value of a deposit is $0.
This is a disingenuous statement. There is obvious value in any known deposit and your mining companies are pretty much all over it like Oprah on a baked ham.
If there was zero value we wouldn't have this conversation.
Topper wrote:
It only has value when it is extracted. Reserves go up and down with metal prices. The easiest way to increase the reserves of a deposit is to have the commodity price increase. The fastest way to close a mine is have commodity prices drop.
Interesting that you use the term reserve, as in we will reserve our option to set the perceived value on any given day depending on artificial constructs.
Obviously, the price one gets on market day fluctuates but the inherent value remains. So whether you sell it today, tomorrow, next week or next year it's never actually a loss.
Unless of course you count a profit you didn't make today as a loss...
But that is speculative at best and no one should have a guarantee of that.
Topper wrote:
What grade of a commodity is economic to mine? It depends on the commodity price. If you add a tax on the mine, you effectively lower the commodity price, you therefore lower the mine reserves.
More dishonest language, Barrett wasn't adding a tax at all, he was trying to stop mines from deferring the tax they already owed.
Are you entitled to defer your taxes until such time as it suits you to pay them?
Topper wrote:
You will also stifle exploration. Why try to find something if it immediately adds to your tax burden before it is in production.
Would you agree to a tax on your savings account?
Ahh but it's not your bank account is it? The deposit belongs to the people if BC. So it erroneous for mining companies to imply ownership at all.
Yes it is a gamble (in this day and age more like an educated guess) to go looking for new deposits but that's the gamble all business risk when they invest.
No one deserves a guarantee against losses. Especially when we are talking about extracting our descendant's inheritance.
Topper wrote:
Example, Galore Creek Deposit in north western BC, Teck and their partner were spending several hundred million a year doing engineering and environmental studies, detailed exploration, constructing road access to the site...... They flew in a 300+ man camp, they had the worlds largest heavy lift helicopter bringing in heavy equipment to the site.
All for the detailed work that would get the project into the mine development stage and mine permitting process.
Then Teck's economists downward adjusted their long term outlook on the prices of copper and gold.
The project, overnight, went into engineering care and maintenance with only exploration being carried out
Impressive on the surface but it amounts to more of the same argument. Teck having identified and placed the infrastructure to extract the resources present at galore creek are now sitting on it waiting to cash in as they see fit.
I'm sure that the value of the ore has been added to the value of the company and they sell shares and borrow and lend that value on a daily basis.
When the time comes they will cash in and they will have sold a line of bullshit that they shouldn't have to pay tax because "look the price of copper is only x per tonne.
On the streets that's call a shell game...
Topper wrote:
Another example, an exploration project I have been involved in for the past decade was optioned from us by a major international mining company. Metal prices at the time were escalating, every six months,we would get updated long term projected metal values from their economists to use in our in house reserve estimates and they were always increasing. Up until two years ago when commodity prices began to fall and few saw it coming. The project went from being one of BC largest exploration projects (~$7million/year budget, 20,000m drilling/yr over four years) to being completely shuttered as gold prices fell and the company began to loose money.
Wait, optioned from you?
Meaning another company purchased the theoretical value of the deposits in your mine?
Wouldn't that prove there is value on a deposit before it's extracted?
It does sound unfortunate for the major international mine that took a gamble but at the end of the day the deposits are still there and hey the house always wins right?
Seems to me that this major player hedges it's bets pretty good thanks to the work you were doing and it also seems as an international corporation they manage to mitigate their losses pretty well.
Topper wrote:
Another example, Highland Valley Copper - Canada's largest copper mine and one of the largest open pit operations in the world, south of Kamloops, just outside of Logan Lake. It was due to close in 2002 having exhausted it's ore. Further exploration, a better understanding of the geology and increased commodity prices (from the historic average of $0.90/lb Cu) have Teck still operating and projecting a 2020+ for end of mine life.
Highland valley is a great example of a steady operation that has been going on for years. A blue chip investment (no pun intended)
Whoever has owned that hole in the ground has made their money no question. But the province had to wait for it's money after a long line of investors and shareholders got theirs didn't it?
Topper wrote:
So tell me UK, what is the value of the deposit in the ground?
Like I said before it's a disingenuous question, the value is intrinsic otherwise no one would dig it up in the first place.
Topper wrote:
Tell me UK, would you put your money in a bank in a country that taxes your savings account?
Red Commie Dave was was killing investment in BC and jobs for British Columbians.
All banks charge fees on savings accounts and it's not your savings we are talking about. The metals in the ground belong to everyone.
Your last statement "commie" Dave is apropos,
Your arguments are old school bait and switch.
Derisive personal comments linked to Cold War propaganda.
Communism does not describe the political ground upon which unionist and social minded people stand.
Dave Barrett is no more a communist than Jimmy Pattison is a nazi.
Yet this is the first page in the right handed play book, divert attention to the irrelevant and hope everyone missed the obvious.
(Sadly it seems to work on Mëds)