Never Rest on Your Ores: Building a Mining Company, One Stone at a Time

by Norman B. Keevil

Overview

A century ago, a prospector discovered gold at Ontario’s Kirkland Lake and a son was born to British immigrants in Saskatchewan. The boy – Norman Bell Keevil – went on to become a renowned scientist, teacher, and prospector, discovering a small but high-grade copper mine in Ontario. Parlaying that into control of the Kirkland Lake gold mine fifty years later, he formed the fledgling mining company Teck Corporation. In Never Rest on Your Ores , Keevil’s son Norman, also a geoscientist, recounts how over the next fifty years, a growing team of like-minded engineers and entrepreneurs built Canada’s largest diversified mining company. In candid detail he tells the story of a company and its makers, of the discovery and creation of mines, of the mechanics of industry financing, and of the role that mergers and acquisitions play in a volatile environment. Along the way he meets fascinating captains of industry and politicians not only in Canada, but in the United States and around the world. Finding an ore body – rock that holds valuable metals and minerals – and promoting its development in order to finance and create a mine, most often in hard-to-access wilderness, is complicated work, comparable to locating and extracting a needle in a very messy haystack. Underlying this history is a constant need to replenish the ore, and this need drives the people involved. A detailed and revealing history of a company that he helped to grow and lead for many years, Norman Keevil’s Never Rest on Your Ores is both entertaining and instructive, a rare insider’s account of an industry that has been crucial to the building of this country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773552029
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	10/09/2017
Series:	Footprints Series , #26
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Norman B. Keevil, a geoscientist with a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, is board chairman of Teck Resources, an officer of the Order of Canada , and a member of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.
Norman B. Keevil, a geoscientist with a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, is former board chair of Teck Resources, an officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

List of Characters xiii

Maps xix

Introduction 3

Part 1 Beginnings 7

1 Discovering Gold 9

2 The Keevils from England 22

3 Discovering Copper at Temagami 38

4 What Happened to the Trilobites? 50

5 From Temagami to Teck Corporation 67

Part 1 Epilogue 78

Part 2 Intermezzo 79

6 From Silver to Lobsters 81

7 The Texas Gulf Discovery at Timmins 91

8 Early Prospecting in Chile 101

9 When Teck was an Oil Company 110

10 Feeling the Stones in the 1960s 114

Part 2 Epilogue 124

Part 3 The New Teck Takes Shape 127

11 Evolving Strategy, People, and Prospects 129

12 Divertimento: Tales from the Wild West 139

13 Consolidation 151

14 Building Two More New Mines 155

15 The Song of Afton 162

16 Dave Barrett and the "Socialist Hordes" 173

17 The Turbulent Seventies 181

18 Bullmoose Coal, Saving Order from Chaos 198

19 China, a Giant Stirring 214

Part 3 Epilogue 227

Part 4 A Sea Change in the World 231

20 Heady Days as an Era nears Its End 233

21 Managing through an Unprecedented Recession 241

22 The Highmont Mine and Metal Prices 247

23 Hemlo and the Gold Hustlers 254

24 How Highland Valley Copper Evolved 269

25 Acquiring Cominco, the First Stage 280

26 New Mines at Red Dog and Louvicourt 290

Part 4 Epilogue 299

Part 5 The 1990S, A Slow Era for Mining 301

27 Returning to Chile with Quebrada Blanca 303

28 Financial Problems in Cominco 315

29 The More Things Change … 321

30 Expanding in Metallurgical Coal 324

31 Prospects Come and Go 332

32 Bob Hallbauer, a Leader Gone 344

33 The Saga of Diamond Fields 346

34 Stranger Still, the Bre-X Tale 359

35 The Sumitomo Connection 371

36 Finding Antamina, a Jewel in the Andes 379

Part 5 Epilogue 398

Part 6 Before the Boom 399

37 Noodling Strategy 401

38 Biting the Bullet on Cominco 406

39 Consolidating Canadian Coal 416

40 Denouement 426

41 The Changing of the Guard 435

42 The Last Decade 439

Part 7 Observations and Reflections 447

43 Crossing the Stream by Feeling the Stones 449

Riding into the Sunset 457

Bibliography 461

Index 463

Editorial Reviews

Never Rest on Your Ores contains many valuable lessons.” Gordon Davis, discoverer of Anvil mine in Yukon


“A must read for anyone in the mining industry.” Bryan A. Coates, president, Osisko Group


"Clear, concise, and entertaining.” Pierre Lassonde, chief executive officer, Franco Nevada


“Never Rest on Your Ores is an inspiring story and a great general summary of fifty years of development of one of Canada’s core industries. It tells how the Keevil Family and their associates built Teck Mining into a leading international resource icon using the combination of great geological intellect, entrepreneurial drive, innovation and science. This should be a mandatory read for everyone with an interest in the Canadian mining industry and, in particular, the students. It paints a broad picture of the industry and how Teck, a Canadian champion, assisted so many industry participants in a wide range of projects in such a meaningful way.” Peter M. Brown, founder and former chairman of Canaccord Financial


"A truly fascinating read." Glen Clark, former Premier of British Columbia

From the Publisher