Christopher Pollon
Recent Posts on BCBusiness
Their flagship project is Solwara 1, located more than 1.5 km below the surface off the coast of Papua New Guinea, boasts average copper grades over 7 per cent—land-based open pit mines currently target ore as low as 0.2 per cent—and comparatively high rates of gold. “This is a deposit you...
In September, the MV Nordic Orion became the first commercial bulk carrier to use the Northwest Passage as a commercial trade route, moving a shipment of B.C. coal from Vancouver to a steel mill in Finland. Before the ship had even cleared the Passage, the Danish company that owns the Nordic...
Recognizing the imperative to slash energy consumption by pulp mills, on September 19 the federal government and a consortium of pulp operations awarded UBC’s Pulp and Paper Centre a $2.7-million grant to further its research. The funds will support nine projects at UBC and enable collaboration with two other Canadian universities...
Despite a staggering drop in metallurgical coal prices, Anglo American PLC announced last week it has begun work on expansion of its Trend mine about 400 kilometres northeast of Tumbler Ridge. CEO Mark Cutifani flew to Tumbler Ridge from the company’s head office in London, England, last week to officiate...
2013 has not been kind to B.C. junior miners seeking cash on the equity markets. The first half of 2013 spawned just 28 financings worth about $800 million on major Canadian stock exchanges, compared to 82 deals worth $1.6 billion in the first half of 2012. But not everyone is singing...
Tell us about yourself and how you got into the forest industry. I was born in Cold Lake, Alberta, then moved to Sicamous near Salmon Arm. I got a bachelor’s of science in resource management from the University of Northern B.C. in 1998, and became a registered professional forester in 2000. What...
In 1980, the prefabricated town of Kitsault was hastily erected beside a significant deposit of molybdenum in a remote, idyllic stretch of coastal northern B.C. to house and service 1,200 miners and their families. Two years later, molybdenum prices tanked and the town was abandoned. In 2005, a Virginia businessman bought Kitsault, sight unseen, as a future eco-retreat that would attract the planet’s best and brightest to think and create in beauty and serenity. But then molybdenum prices bounced back and...
It’s 4:30 on a Monday afternoon in early June, and Seaspan Marine Corp.’s North Vancouver shipyard is deserted. Well, almost deserted. Sparks fly from a gaping hole in the belly of the Cavalier, one of Seaspan’s 54 tugboats, which is...
Imagine a vast green swath of pristine forest, wetland and lakefront, where the owner gets paid to simply let the trees grow. Like a green ATM, the forest dispenses money. Such a place exists today in B.C., across 55,000 wild...
Canada’s west coast is naturally endowed with much more than stunning mountain views and ocean-swept coastline, says Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada president and CEO Yuen Pau Woo. There’s also the close proximity to Asia, and the unrealized prospects of...
Talk about taking a giant leap. In the space of one month last summer, Karina Briño jumped from assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Energy and Mines to the helm of the Mining Association of B.C., the advocacy voice...
It’s the Wild West again, with prospectors scouring the province, hatching conspiracy theories and keeping nuggets close to the body . As we approach Hell’s Gate in the Fraser Canyon, Lloyd Myers tells me about a secret vein of quartz. He found it hunting last year as he tracked a deer across a dry creek bed near Kamloops; he looked to the ground and there it was, shining like a beacon. It haunts his dreams at night, this crystalline streak of white...