The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 226 - 239 of 239
Robert Buchan, the president and CEO of Toronto-based Kinross Gold, has announced that he will step down following the company's AGM on April 27 and assume the role of non-executive chairman. Buchan, 57, who is from Scotland, founded Kinross in 1993. After he oversaw a merger with TVX Gold and Echo Bay Mines a decade later the company became the world's seventh-largest gold producer. In Alaska Kinross owns and operates the Fort Knox and True North mines near Fairbanks. "Starting Kinross in 1993 with 25,000 ounces of annual...
Mining, of course, is the oldest profession in Alaska. In the late 19th century the "fancy ladies" followed the miners up to outposts like Juneau and Nome, and then came the lawyers. A motley crew of Alaska mining history buffs told entertaining stories at a panel discussion in Anchorage on Nov. 4, but they also had a serious message about the way disputes over mineral rights necessitated the writing of laws for this unruly territory. The first attempts at mining in Alaska took place under Russian rule, after Tsar Nicholas I...
A new mining company has staked out a future in Alaska with the acquisition of the Shorty Creek prospect near Livengood. Select Resources, formed last December, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bakersfield, Calif.-based Tri-Valley. Gold Range Ltd., a private exploration firm headquartered in Fairbanks, has leased its Shorty Creek claims to Select Resources, Tri-Valley announced Jan. 5. Neither company disclosed details of the financial arrangement. Indications of mineralization at the 34-square-mile Shorty Creek prospect...
Russia's diamond monopoly Alrosa, based in the Sakha Republic, has a new chief executive, the company announced in a release Dec. 17. Alexander Nichiporuk, previously Alrosa's chief operating officer, will take the reins from Vladimir Kalitin, who becomes a deputy chairman of the supervisory board. Alrosa produces nearly 100 percent of Russia's diamonds and accounts for around 20 percent of the world's rough diamonds. The reshuffle strengthens Moscow's control over the company, as Nichiporuk was President Vladimir Putin's...
The state of Alaska's attempts to export coal to Taiwan have become bogged down in a political scandal, with a prosecutor investigating Attorney General Gregg Renkes' role in the negotiations. The Anchorage Daily News alleged that Renkes owned stock and traded shares in KFx, the Denver-based company that is developing technology to remove moisture from sub-bituminous coal. Documents show that Renkes and Gov. Frank Murkowski pushed the participation of KFx to the Taiwanese government. Murkowski has appointed former federal...
An initial investment of $10 in a gold-silver property by Vancouver-based Rimfire Minerals might pay off handsomely in the long term. Rimfire purchased the Tide property in British Columbia from Newmont Exploration in 2001 for that nominal fee, and last year partnered with another Vancouver company, Serengeti Resources, to push forward a drilling and fieldwork program. Serengeti is earning a 51 percent interest in Tide by spending C$1.4 million on exploration. The results so far have been very promising. High-grade gold and...
Alaska's Red Dog zinc mine has received environmental certification under ISO 14001, becoming one of a handful of mines in North America to achieve this status. Malcolm Ting of the international inspection and certification agency SGS presented a banner to Teck Cominco and NANA Corp. representatives at an Alaska Support Industry Alliance event in Anchorage Dec. 10. When the banner flies at Red Dog, in the Arctic 90 miles north of Kotzebue, it will be the farthest north symbol of a certified mine. "It doesn't contain specific...
A new copper discovery in Mongolia's South Gobi region could rival Alaska's Pebble deposit as one of the most valuable in the world. Drilling on the Hugo North deposit at the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project has produced impressive results, according to a Nov. 18 release from Ivanhoe Mines. Ivanhoe's controversial chairman, Robert Friedland, denies media accusations that he has been over-hyping the company's Mongolia finds. "Based on my 30 years of experience in the exploration business, I believe the Hugo North deposit is the...
After seeing his daughter Lisa elected to the U.S. Senate, the first place Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski headed to on Nov. 3 was the Alaska Miners Association convention in Anchorage. Perhaps because of his good mood, Gov. Murkowski promised to request a $700,000 addition to next year's budget for enhanced airborne geophysical surveys. In a speech to the convention two days later, Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin confirmed the state's enthusiasm for the mining industry. "Men and women of the Alaska...
Exploration at five porphyry-copper gold properties in the Quesnel trough of northern British Columbia is proving its worth, Vancouver-based Serengeti Resources announced in a Nov. 18 release. All the properties lie within 10 kilometers of the Omenica mining access road, with the Choo and Darby prospects directly accessible off logging and mining roads. The Choo property is 25 kilometers west of Placer Dome's Mount Milligan Deposit. "Serengeti's recently completed fall program on these five highly prospective properties,...
Placer mining in Canada's Yukon Territory has increased significantly this year, and although there are no operating hard-rock mines in the territory yet, that may change soon. Mike Burke of the Yukon Geological Survey outlined the varied projects of the past season at the Alaska Miners Association Convention in Anchorage on Nov. 4. In particular, he drew attention to Expatriate Resources' exploration in the Finlayson Lake District at Wolverine, for which the company has raised C$16.6 million. Wolverine is one of several impo...
Neither the heat and smoke from wildfires, nor excruciatingly low winter temperatures could deter miners from expanding their operations in Alaska this past season. Representatives of several companies described their achievements in the "Development and Mine Operations" session at the Alaska Miners Association convention on Nov. 5. NovaGold Resources' Rock Creek John Odden from NovaGold Resources began with a presentation on Rock Creek, which is located on the Seward Peninsula, seven miles north of Nome. Part of it is on...
Russia's gold mining industry, once ruled by Stalin's most vicious henchmen, has transformed itself into an attractive prospect for international corporations. Much of the gold mining takes place in the Russian Far East, in Magadan and Chukotka, thousands of miles and several time zones away from Moscow. The industry grew up on the backs of slave laborers, sent here as punishment for imaginary crimes and to carve a nation's wealth out of the permafrost. Gold was crucial to the economy of the Soviet Union, which sold gold to...
A coal-fueled power plant could help meet the growing energy needs of Alaska's Railbelt, Usibelli Coal Mine Inc. believes. But the company faces a bumpy road to the realization of its Emma Creek Energy Project, with some electric utilities skeptical about the idea. At a meeting of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance in Anchorage on Oct. 20, Usibelli's vice president for business development, Steve Denton, gave a multimedia presentation on Emma Creek, promoting coal as a clean and cost-efficient alternative to oil and...
