The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The Alaska Miners Association recently released an economic benefits summary of the Alaska mining industry. This summary indicated that in 2009 the Alaska mining industry provided 3,300 direct jobs along with 5,200 indirect jobs in 120 communities in Alaska with a combined payroll of US$320 million. Average industry jobs came in at US$83,000 per year, which is 85 percent higher than the average Alaska wage and second only to wages in the oil and gas industry. The industry...
The economic catastrophe that has plagued the national economy for the past 24 months has precipitated a laundry list of blame factors and proposed solutions that are simultaneously well intended and, thus far at least, ineffective. The bailout of financial institutions and automobile manufacturers has not yet done the job. The rolls of the private sector unemployed continue to grow, albeit more slowly than was the case a year ago. Many of the so-called "shovel ready" projects that were supposed to be funded, are still on...
I am a great supporter of Alaska's mining industry. How could an Alaskan not be? In 2009, Alaska's mining industry paid a total of US$12.3 million to local governments, US$35 million to the state government in royalties, rents, fees, and taxes, US$48.9 million in other state government-related revenues and US$320 million in direct and indirect payroll to a total of 5,200 industry jobs. Those are also proving to be some of Alaska's highest paid jobs. In my six sessions with the Alaska State Legislature, I have found myself on...
As the price of gold soars to all-time highs and physical demand climbs in the face of a weakening U.S. dollar, gold companies are embracing new approaches and shifting focus from pure gold deposits to polymetallic, or gold-containing, base-metal deposits in the quest to augment diminishing reserves. The scarcity of world-class gold deposits is already taking its toll on the industry's bottom line. Since 2001, the number of gold discoveries has trended downward, and global output has shrunk nearly 5 percent per year. This...
Environmental groups are pushing for special protection of watersheds near the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit, which, according to the most recent estimate by the Pebble Partnership, contains around 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 107.4 million troy ounces of gold and 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum. The Pebble Partnership is equally owned by the London-based global miner Anglo American plc and the Vancouver British Columbia-based junior explorer Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. While many of the local...
Bankers, miners and scientists are predicting a shortage of copper in the coming decade as developing countries, particularly China and India, urbanize and industrialize. This growing need has spurred Barclays Capital, the investment division of the London-based Barclays Bank plc, to back a team of top-level copper miners who are scouring the globe for large, undeveloped copper assets. Barclays Natural Resource Investments and five former top executives from Phelps Dodge, Free...
Geologically, Alaska is a terrane wreck, with multiple tectonic plates dumping their mineral payloads over the landscape. Geologists are still sifting through the wreckage in many places across the state to determine which mineral deposits were dumped by which terranes and when - a task not always easily accomplished as pileups have resulted, in many cases, from multiple mineralization events happening in the same geographical regions over time. A terrane is a series of...
Mineral exploration activity in British Columbia fell 58 percent to $154 million in 2009 from C$367 million a year earlier, but one B.C. government official said the outcome still was the sixth-highest for exploration spending in the past 20 years and the province has reason for optimism. "Despite a difficult economic climate in 2009, the mining industry is helping lead the provincial economic recovery," said Randy Hawes, B.C. Minister of State for Mining. Hawes made the announcements during a keynote address at the opening...
With base metal prices bouncing back and liquidity returning to the financial markets, a feeling of optimism filled the Westin Bayshore Hotel during the 2010 Mineral Exploration Roundup in Vancouver, B.C. The four-day-long event provided a forum for geologists to swap stories about their 2009 exploits, miners and investors to get together to fund new exploits, suppliers to show off their latest wares, geology students to seek out prospective employers and some 5,800 old and ne...
A large abandoned underground gold mine just south of the City of Yellowknife could provide the Northwest Territories community with geothermal power, an environmentally friendly resource to help meet the Far North community's energy needs. But the immediate challenge facing Yellowknife officials in bringing the project to life is not "how," but rather "how much." Yellowknife is in advanced stages of project engineering and planning to install a district heating system by extracting geothermal heat from the abandoned Con...
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Jan. 21 that federal regulators must confine their mine project review scoping decisions to alternatives allowed under provisions of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. But in a unanimous decision, Canada's high court declined to set aside the federal regulatory decision that prompted the legal challenge - an environmental assessment of the Red Chris copper-gold porphyry project in northwestern British Columbia. The case arose when MiningWatch challenged the environmental assessment,...
Though federal and provincial regulators prevailed in a legal challenge to the green light they gave Imperial Metals Corp. for the Red Chris copper-gold porphyry project in northwestern British Columbia, the proposed mine has another major hurdle to clear. Development of Red Chris into a mine is contingent upon construction of a power line to service northwest British Columbia. A 2005 feasibility study for the project was based on the assumption that a power supply would be available at Tatogga near Iskut, about 23 kilometers...
Coming off of a record year of zinc production, Red Dog partners Teck Resources Ltd. and NANA Regional Corp. are facing the possibility that operations at the zinc-lead mine will be shut down in October. Nearing the end of 20 years of production at the mine's main pit, Teck said it would need access to the neighboring Aqqaluk pit by May in order to continue uninterrupted operations at Red Dog. But state and federal appeals of a permit needed to continue operations could...
Left leaderless and weighed down with about C$11 million in debt in mid-2009, it appeared Freegold Ventures Ltd. would become another casualty of the market collapse of 2008. Many believe this surely would have been the case if not for the tenacity of Kristina Walcott, then the company's vice president of corporate development. Stepping into the leadership role at Freegold, Walcott leveraged the value of the company's four gold assets in Alaska and Idaho. Over the course of a...
As researchers around the world strive to shrink the level of greenhouse gases pouring into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion and other sources, one aspect of the challenge is taking on new dimensions. Coal has long been recognized as a dirty and deadly fuel. Researchers conducting autopsies in the 1800s found the lungs of infants to be black, sparking early fears that coal emissions were toxic. Yet it took more than 170 years for scientists to develop methods to remove toxic gases from coal combustion emissions that...
The Government of Yukon has issued an immediate one-year interim withdrawal from mineral staking for all Crown Land, Category B settlement lands and fee simple lands in the Peel Watershed Region of Yukon Territory in hopes of providing certainty during an ongoing regional land use planning process. The Peel Watershed Region is one of eight regions for which mineral-rich Yukon Territory is developing land use plans. The Peel watershed is located north of Mayo in northeast Yukon Territory. A major subbasin of the Mackenzie...
