The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 19 of 19
Alaska's mining industry captured the attention, not only of Alaskans but also the country during the past year when a controversy over the proposed Pebble Project in Southwest Alaska bubbled to the surface. Supporters and opponents of a ballot initiative aimed at blocking the mining venture squared off in a vocal and often strident campaign that made headlines nationwide. Alaska Miners Association director Steve Borell cited the contest over development the world-class...
NovaGold Resources Inc. reports that the startup of its first mining operation at Rock Creek near Nome is going smoothly. Production levels at Rock Creek have been higher than the company anticipated, averaging about 50 percent of design capacity during the first month of operation, NovaGold said in its third-quarter financial report. The gold mine's gravity circuits ran at about 80 percent availability and the carbon-in-leach system is in the process of being charged and...
The Northwest Transmission Line along Highway 37 is once again on the front burner in British Columbia, and development of the 517-kilometer-long, or 321-mile-long, power line could provide easier access to Lower 48 markets for power generated in Alaska. British Columbia has resumed the environmental assessment process and First Nations consultation required for the project, following an announcement by the Canadian province's Premier Gordon Campbell Sept. 26 that the power project was back on track. The B.C. government...
The national sucking sound of venture capital exiting the mining industry has now expanded to a worldwide sucking sound as virtually all of the world's economies fight the massive, unprecedented credit crunch which started in the U.S. The mining industry is certainly not alone in feeling the down turn but its effects in Alaska began to be felt last month and continued this month as projects were shortened, plans down-sized or programs cancelled, all in an effort to preserve...
While resource development issues other than those offered in conjunction with the availability of affordable energy have gotten very little play during the presidential campaign, a few sub-rosa developments are taking place that shouldn't escape the attention of those who would mine in Alaska. First, it is fair to say that neither U.S. Interior Secretary Kempthorne nor his predecessor, Gale Norton, made substantial progress in facilitating mineral development. Among the bad decisions made in recent years was the dissolution...
North Arrow Minerals Inc. has discovered a large, lithium-rich pegmatite in the Aylmer Lake area of the Northwest Territories, about 70 kilometers, or about 43 miles, east of existing winter road infrastructure that services the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines. The Vancouver, B.C-based junior is focused on exploration of a diverse group of gold-silver-base metal-and-diamond-prospective properties in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Territory. North Arrow Sept. 18 said the northwest trending "Big Bird" pegmatite dike is...
Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp.'s Kensington gold mine project, located about 45 miles northwest of Juneau, is expecting a Supreme Court ruling on its tailings permits in early 2009. If the court upholds the permits, Coeur hopes to complete its tailings facilities and begin gold production by the end of next year. Once in production the mine will employ about 200 people, and produce about 140,000 ounces of gold per year. Proven and probable reserves measure about 1.4 million ounces of gold, and an additional 623,000 ounces...
Full Metal Minerals Ltd. has 11 exploration projects spanning Alaska. The company's two primary projects are the Lucky Shot high-grade gold property about 90 miles north of Anchorage, and the LWM zinc-lead-silver prospect at its 40 Mile property in eastern Alaska. In a joint venture with BHP Billiton, Full Metal is exploring multiple copper-gold porphyry targets on 88,675 acres of Doyon Ltd. land in eastern Alaska. Full Metal has joint venture agreements with both major and junior mining companies, including Kinross Gold,...
NovaGold Resources Inc.'s Rock Creek gold mine began production Sept. 19. Crews began feeding the 6,500-metric-ton-per-day-mill at 25 percent capacity with a ramp-up to full production targeted for year's end. Once in full production, the operation is expected to turn out 100,000 ounces of gold per year. The main pit at Rock Creek has a resource of 500,000 ounces. The company's objective is to increase the resource to 1 million ounces over the next year. The Usibelli Coal Mine is a fourth-generation family-owned business...
Silverado Gold Mines Ltd. has recovered 26,879 ounces of placer gold from channel and bench deposits in the Nolan Valley through 2007. The largest nugget recovered from the property, located about 280 miles north of Fairbanks, weighed 41.35 ounces and was valued at $16,000 by weight, and sold for $50,000. Due to the coarse nature of the placer gold recovered, Silverado has begun exploration for the lode source of the gold. This season, the company completed 34 drill holes totaling 11,597 feet as part of its 2008 exploration d...
FREEGOLD MOUNTAIN, Yukon Territory - Bill Harris, chief executive and chief operating officer of Northern Freegold Resources Ltd., is pursuing an exploration adventure of a lifetime, literally. Harris, who was born and raised just 10 miles from Freegold Mountain, began prospecting for gold in the Dawson Mountain Range as a young child, tagging along behind his father, Glen, and their good friend Fritz Gruder in the 1960s. Nearly four decades later, his intimate knowledge of the area's geology is paying off with eye-popping...
The theme of the Alaska Miners Association's 2008 annual convention is "Water Management for Mining." Bill Jeffress, principle consultant in Anchorage for SRK Consulting, told Mining News, "Everything that is done with mining, from the initial exploration through development, closure and post-closure revolves around water quality." Jeffress is coordinator of the "Water Management for Mining" short course, a two-day technical course that will provide an overview of all aspects...
Alaska Rep. Kyle Johansen, R- District 1, told attendees at Alaska's Resource Development Council Oct. 2 breakfast that Alaska's initiative process has become a multimillion-dollar industry. Johansen is working on legislation that would hold individuals and groups in support or opposition to ballot measures to similar financial disclosure standards as those required of elected officials. Johansen argued that initiative-created law has the same authority as law created by...
Teck Resources Ltd. has purchased two new M3000 IsaMills equipped with 1.5 megawatt motors for its Red Dog zinc mine in Northwest Alaska. The new equipment will be used to grind harder ore from the Aqqaluk deposit adjacent to the mine's main deposit. The regrind circuit at Red Dog currently uses 10 vertical tower mills. The IsaMills will replace seven of them. One mill will regrind materials to 13 microns, and the other to 25 microns after the first phase of flotation. The...
Australian Mineral Fields Ltd. has signed an agreement with Alaska-based Tushtena Resources Inc. that grants the Perth-based junior the right to acquire up to an 85 percent stake in the Tushtena gold project 20 miles west-southwest of Tok. The Australian junior can earn 80 percent interest in the Tushtena project by spending $3 million within five years. The company also can increase its stake to 85 percent by completing a bankable feasibility study. Australian Mineral has...
The financial markets haven't been kind to junior mining and exploration stocks lately. During the past six months, five of Alaska's junior explorers have lost more than three-quarters of their average stock values. This decimation of junior stocks is not isolated to companies doing business in Alaska and northern Canada, but sweeps the industry across the board. The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index, which represents about 40 percent of mining companies worldwide, has declined...
Canada Zinc Metals Corp. Oct. 8 said the first assay results of its 2008 drill program has significantly expanded the zinc-lead-silver bearing Cardiac Creek deposit on the Akie property in northeastern British Columbia. The news came less than two weeks after the feisty junior changed its name from Mantle Resources Inc. "to better reflect its major focus, being zinc-lead projects in northeastern British Columbia." A total of 5,161 meters, or 16,773 feet, in 12 drill holes had been completed as of Oct. 8 on the Cardiac Creek p...
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-New Jersey, has circulated a letter to his fellow representatives encouraging them to sign an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. U.S. Reps. Don Young, R-Alaska, Bill Sali, R - Ind., and Mike Simpson, R - Idaho, responded to the appeal by Pallone with a letter of their own, urging their colleagues on Capital Hill "not to sign an erroneous amicus brief to kill good-paying American...
The face of the geology profession is changing and no where is the trend more evident than in the Yukon Territory, where a mini-boom in exploration brought scores of women rock hounds trooping to mining camps across the northern wilderness this summer. "We've had women geologists in the industry all along, but nothing like the numbers we've been seeing lately," said Mike Burke, a senior geologist with the Yukon Geological Survey. Women are increasingly populating mining teams as high mineral prices has spurred exploration...
