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Power Corp. to lower rates for some Snare hydro customers NTP C has applied to bring down rates in Behchoko and Dettah along with the whole- sale rate in Y ellowknife as part of its rate rebalancing. S ee page 3 . Painter shares residential school experience NWT-bornartistRobertBurke debuted his most recent show on residential schools in his hometown of Fort Smith last week. S ee page 19 . STORMS A MIXED BLESSING Wildfires tempered by cool weather and strong winds. See page 7. Land-based work heals hard history lessons at Dechinta Art and land-based activities helped students work through challenging classroom mate- rial at Dechinta U niversity this spring. S ee page 13 . Fort Smith comes together to support family after accident Thousands have been raised to support the parents of Brad Lafferty who is still in hospi- tal after a serious car accident last week. S ee page 8. V IS IT W W W .N O R J.C A A national award winning independent newspaper serving northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories since 1977 1.00 June 16 2015 Vol. 39 No. 7 NWT tungsten companys stocks crash prompting mine clean-up concerns By MEAGAN WOHLBERG The owner of two mining proper- tiesintheNorthwestTerritorieswent intocreditorprotectionlastTuesday due to crumbling finances leaving someintheterritoryconcernedabout the companys ability to pay for site remediation in the event that opera- tions are discontinued. North American Tungsten Corp. NATCwhichownsandoperatesthe CantungmineandMactungproperty in the NWT near the Y ukon border recentlypetitionedtheB.C.Supreme Courttobeputundercreditorprotec- tionwhileitrestructuresitsfinances. AccordingtothepetitiontheVan- couver-based company has 8 4.4 million in liabilities 1 4 million of which are unsecured and an esti- mated book value of 27 .9 million. It owes around 7 5 .5 million to over 20 0 creditors. For the six months ended March 3 1 20 1 5 NATCex periencedanetloss of 6.6millionthedocumentstates. NATCscashbalancesareex tremely low and additional or replacement financing will likely be re uired. AsofWednesdayafternoonNATC stockshadplummeted42.8 6percent to a unit price of 0 .0 2. The company said numerous fac- tors have contributed to its current financial standing not the least of whichisaseverelydepressedglobal tungsten market. The need for NATC to restruc- ture is attributable to a number of factorsincludingthecontinuationof lowprevailingmarketpricesoftung- sten high debt service payments insufficient capitalization and re- cent operational issues chairman and CEO Kurt E. Heikkila said in a statement released Tuesday. Thoserecentoperationalissuesin- clude interruptions with power sup- ply at the Cantung property which halted production at the mine for a week at the end of May. Thecompanywasgranted3 0 days of protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act CCAA on Tuesday and now has until July 9 toconductitsrestructuring.Afurther hearing date of July 8 has been set atwhichtimethecompanyindicated it plans to apply for an ex tension. Without the creditor protection thecompanyfeltitwouldnotbeable to stay afloat. Absent a CCAA filing NATC ex- pects to have insufficient cash in the coming weeks with which to pay its suppliers employees and debt ser- vicepaymentsstatedthepetitionto the court. Key trade creditors may take steps to refuse to provide ser- vices that are essential to transport and therefore sell ex isting tungsten inventories. Layoffs at Cantung The announcement follows the temporarysix -weeklayoffofapprox i- mately8 0 employeesatthecompanys CantungmineonJune1 undertaken as a cost-saving measure. Eachemployeewillmissonework rotation of three weeks. During this time NATC said it believes it has sufficient tungsten ore stockpiles to continue operating the mill and shipping to customers throughout the layoff period. Tungsten prices have been vola- tile over the last two to three years andwefullyex pectthemtoincrease fromtheircurrentlevelovertimebut inthemeantimewewillcontinueto reduceouroperatingex pensesatCan- tungHeikkilasaid.Weappreciate the significant contributions of our employees and understand the im- pact that this difficult decision has on our employees. Heikkilasaidthecompanybelieves it can solve its financial issues with time to restructure. Although the corporation is cur- rently unable to meet all of its past obligations and ongoing financing costs NATC expects that a financial restructuringwillenableittocontinue tooperateasagoingconcernandpre- servevalueforstakeholdershesaid. S ee Minister on page 2. Team Butterflies takes a lap at the Fort Smith 2015 Relay for Life held overnight at the Queen Elizabeth campground on June 13. The Butterflies collected a total of 17 098.30 the highest amount raised by a team this year. For more on the communitys fight against cancer see pages 9-11. PhotoDonJaque