The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 201 - 225 of 239
Alaska's minerals industry has taken the surprising step of working with a state legislator to propose a new property tax on large mines. It isn't a purely humanitarian gesture: most of all, mining companies are looking for stability in the tax system and this bill would provide them with a way to estimate their costs more accurately. Senate Bill 179, introduced by Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, April 18, after consultation with the Alaska Miners Association, would levy a property tax of 4 mills for 15 years on mines in...
Toronto-based Kinross Gold has appointed Tye Burt as president and CEO, replacing Bob Buchan, the company said in a release March 23. Burt moves to Kinross from Barrick Gold, where he was vice-chairman and executive director for corporate development. Prior to that he spent 16 years in corporate finance, including some time as chairman of Deutsche Bank Canada. Burt sits on the board of directors of the Ontario Financing Authority and is chairman of technology developer NRX Global. Bob Buchan, who founded Kinross in 1993,...
Since the Pebble project began hitting the headlines, Bob Loeffler has been asked some strange questions. People accost the mild-mannered director of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Mining, Land and Water and demand to know why he issued permits for the Pebble project and when it is going to break ground. Loeffler is puzzled, because he hasn't issued any permits for the Pebble project. The developer, Northern Dynasty, won't even submit its permit applications until next year. Loeffler spoke to the Newh...
Alaska Native corporations have considerable experience partnering with mining companies and have seen economic benefits for their shareholders from the mining industry. They are also aware of people's concern about the effect of mining on the subsistence lifestyle, as became clear in a panel discussion on "Mining and the Native Perspective" at the Newhalen conference in April. Greg Beischer of Bristol Environmental and Engineering Services Corp. a subsidiary of Bristol Bay Native Corp., introduced the panel. Beischer, an...
Residents of Southwest Alaska - including a former state governor - expressed passionate opinions about the proposed Pebble open-pit mine at a conference in the village of Newhalen April 7-9, demonstrating that there will be a host of social issues to deal with even if mine developer Northern Dynasty can overcome the project's daunting environmental and economic hurdles. Local Natives are worried about the threat to their subsistence lifestyle, lodge owners and guides fear tourism could change and anti-mining NGOs are making...
Power, lime and logistics are the three major challenges Placer Dome needs to address this year as it moves ahead with the Donlin Creek gold project in southwest Alaska, project geologist James Fueg told a meeting of the Alaska Miners' Association and Society of Mining Engineers in Anchorage April 13. Placer Dome is the operator of the project, which is a joint venture with NovaGold Resources. Both companies are based in Vancouver. In terms of the power supply, there is no regional grid or generating capacity. The project is...
The chief of the mining section within the Alaska's Department of Natural Resources, Stan Foo, has taken a senior position with Placer Dome. Foo, 48, left DNR in mid-March, having worked there since 2001. He will now be Placer Dome's project manager for Alaska, representing the Vancouver-based company in the state and heading the Donlin Creek project, a joint venture with NovaGold. Foo spent 15 years of his career with Placer Dome and was an independent resource consultant for two years before moving to DNR. He started...
For the first time since the Fraser Institute began its investment survey in 1997, British Columbia did not score in the bottom 10 of the "policy potential index," although it remained in the bottom third. Alaska, although it rated high for potential investment, dropped from 29th place last year to 55th place this year in investment attractiveness. The Fraser Institute describes the index as a report card to governments on the attractiveness of their mining policies. A total of 259 company exploration managers from around the...
Many Alaska state legislators have a personal connection with mining, and perhaps none more so than Richard Foster, Nome's Democratic representative. Foster, 58, grew up on his father's mine, 100 miles north of Nome. Today he is glad to see Vancouver-based NovaGold developing its Rock Creek project in his district, but he also regrets the disappearance of "mom and pop" mining operations like the one where he worked as a child. "NovaGold has been very aggressive in trying to develop their gold and also their boundless...
No one shows up late to work at Greens Creek mine. That's because all the employees are in the same boat, from underground miners to top managers - literally. The ferry leaves Juneau's Auke Bay at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day for the 35-minute trip to Admiralty Island, taking the day and night crews back and forth. That doesn't leave a lot of time between shifts before you're back on the boat again, no matter what the weather. "We don't consider the ride rough until the seats begin folding up underneath you," Ron Plantz,...
The adventures of an intrepid judge at the height of Alaska's gold rush have been published online, thanks to the Alaska State Library. Judge James Wickersham was appointed district judge in 1900, and came up from Washington, initially to Eagle City, but soon afterwards cleaned up scandal-ridden Nome. On his death in 1939, Wickersham left behind 47 diaries containing a detailed account of Alaska's formative years as a territory of the United States. The first 13 diaries, up to 1908, were transcribed by Mary Anne Slemmons at...
Foreign companies will no longer be allowed to bid for exploration and development licenses in Russia, the country's natural resources minister said Feb. 10. Only companies that are at least 51 percent Russian owned may participate in the auctions, according to Yuri Trutnev. This will exclude mining companies like Canadian major Barrick Gold and Britain's Highland Gold Mining, which are already active in Russia. The decision by Russia brings it more in line with other countries' policies. Now foreign companies will have to fo...
Northern Dynasty is taking an innovative approach to the permitting process, the company's environmental project manager for Pebble, Ella Ede, told the Alaska Association of Environmental Professionals March 18. Unlike other mining companies, Northern Dynasty took the unusual step of submitting its 2004 environmental study plan to all the relevant agencies so that they could comment before the permit application process even started. Pre-application meetings are a common practice in Alaska's oil and gas industry and have...
An Alaska mine located in one of the nation's most unique ecosystems has received the prestigious ISO 14001 certificate for its environmental management practices. Greens Creek silver, gold, zinc and lead underground mine is on Admiralty Island National Monument in southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest. The old growth temperate rainforest on the island provides habitat for about 1,700 brown bears - more than in the Lower 48 states combined - as well as around 2,500 bald eagles, black-tailed deer, salmon and a host of...
The report of the 2005 Alaska Minerals Commission, published in January, stresses the urgent need to overcome the twin obstacles of permitting and lawsuits at a time when the mining industry is experiencing a dramatic upsurge in activity. Since its creation in 1986 the commission has made annual recommendations to the governor and Legislature on ways to mitigate constraints on the development of minerals, including coal, in the state. "Despite the improvements in 2004, the industry continued to be dogged by an array of...
Alaska's attorney general, Gregg Renkes, resigned in February following an investigation into his role in promoting the sale of coal to Taiwan. The Bundy report concluded that Renkes had not violated the state ethics code, but added that it was a "close question," and there were immediate calls from lawmakers to tighten up the ethics code. While negotiating the sale of Alaska coal to Taiwan on behalf of Gov. Frank Murkowski, Renkes owned stock worth $126,125 in KFx, the Denver-based company that is developing an experimental...
Alaska's Usibelli Coal Mine began talks in January with Matanuska Electric Association about the possible construction of a coal-fired power plant. Usibelli is looking for a customer in the Railbelt and MEA serves nearly 50,000 people in the Matanuska and Susitna valleys north of Anchorage. The Mat-Su location would be an alternative to Usibelli's proposed 200 megawatt Emma Creek project, a power plant close to the mine at Healy. "If our talks are successful, we could have a plant in service as early as January 2015," MEA spo...
While KFx struggles to prove that its K-Fuel process can dry Alaska's sub-bituminous coal in an economical manner, another company wants to convert the coal into liquid fuel. Like KFx, Vancouver-based Silverado Gold Mines has a checkered history and is having trouble bringing its ambitious project to fruition. Silverado has previously been involved in placer gold mining on its Nolan properties, north of the Arctic Circle. With little to show for that, the company is now enthusiastically promoting its "green fuel" process. Sil...
Canadian junior Rimfire Minerals is expanding its horizons yet again, this time by clinching a deal with one of the world's largest gold mining companies. In December Mining News reported on Vancouver-based Rimfire's promising results at the Tide property in British Columbia. In January the company announced a partnership with Barrick Gold to explore another British Columbia gold-silver property called Kizmet. Under a memorandum of understanding between the two companies, Barrick has agreed to make a $60,500 cash payment to R...
Northern Dynasty Minerals will defer its permit applications for the planned Pebble gold mine in southwestern Alaska until 2006, the company's chief operating officer, Bruce Jenkins, said at an Alaska Miners' Association meeting Feb. 9. Previously Northern Dynasty had been hoping to file the applications by the end of 2005, but it will wait until the feasibility study by international project management and services company AMEC is complete, Jenkins said. AMEC will undertake the feasibility study out of its Vancouver office....
The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys released new airborne geophysical data and maps for the Goodpaster River area in Interior Alaska on Jan. 24. The survey covers approximately 210 square miles in the western Goodpaster mining district, which is home to the Pogo deposit. (See map on page 15.) Several mining companies, including AngloGold, Rimfire, Freegold and Teck Cominco, are active in the area. "We use these data all the time and have found more and more uses for the geophysical data since (the...
Management and employees at the Red Dog zinc mine near Kotzebue expect a decision from the National Labor Relations Board in February on holding a union election there. The mine's electrical workers have asked to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but owner Teck Cominco opposes the move. The company believes the group of 16 electricians is too small to unionize by itself. "The company would prefer the workforce to stay non-union, but at the end of the day it's up to the employees," Red Dog's general...
Drilling for diamonds is getting under way at Shulin Lake, 47 miles northwest of Anchorage. This year's $1 million drill program is a joint venture between Calgary-based Golconda Resources (51 percent), Shulin Lake Mining and Shear Minerals. The program got the go-ahead after microdiamonds were found at the property in hole 22, the last one drilled in 2004. Last year's reinterpretation of an airborne magnetic survey undertaken in 2000 showed that this hole was at the edge of two of the most prominent anomalies. The...
When Andrew Olson first came to Alaska from Sweden, in February 1907, he had to hike the 400 miles from Valdez to Fairbanks. Mining pioneer David Strandberg paid Olson $7 a day to shovel dirt and gravel into sluice boxes and pan for gold. In 1938 his Goodnews Bay Mining Co. was handling more than a million cubic yards of dirt in a season and more than a million dollars worth of platinum. By the time Olson retired, in 1970, he could make the trip back to his homeland in just 24 hours. Olson saw and contributed to all the...
Full Metal Minerals plans an "aggressive" exploration program in southwest Alaska this summer, having signed a second agreement with a Native corporation, the Vancouver-based company said Jan. 22. The second agreement is with Bristol Bay Native Corp. to explore approximately 565,000 acres of the southwest Alaska Peninsula. It follows an agreement last year with the Aleut Corp. to explore on the Port Moller property in the Aleutian Islands chain. "By aggressive we mean we're not just going to sit back, we'll be doing soil...
