The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 17 of 17
Kinross Gold Corp., owner of the Fort Knox gold mine 25 miles northeast of Fairbanks, posted a loss for 2005 of $216.0 million, including a $154.3 million deficit in the fourth quarter. The Toronto-based gold producer blamed the bulk of its fourth quarter loss on non-cash impairment charges of $147.2 million, including a charge of $141.8 million related to Fort Knox. During a thorough review of its assets and investments in 2005, Kinross said it examined the Fort Knox operation to determine the impact of higher operating...
Alaska lawmakers, grappling with a requested $36 million hike in the University of Alaska budget this year, could end up axing about $3 million aimed at training young Alaskans for the thousands of new jobs expected in the state's mining, oil and gas, process and construction industries during the next decade. The sharply higher fiscal 2007 budget proposed in January by UA President Mark Hamilton and later endorsed by Gov. Frank Murkowski reflects unusually high fixed costs. These expenses include an estimated $30 million due...
A worldwide shortage of industrial tires is pushing up costs for Alaska's mining industry, just as soaring metal prices are fueling the sector's resurgence. The fast-growing economies of China and India combined with demand from the U.S. military and mining companies has led to a shortage of big tires, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. The shortage will likely continue for several years, vendors and mining executives said. Fort Knox, the state's largest gold mine, is wrapping chains around the giant tires its...
Silverado Gold Mines Ltd. has completed its winter excavation program at the Nolan Placer Gold Project, where it installed a new portal to access virgin placer deposits in the gold-rich Swede Channel. Having completed the first important leg of the project, company crews said they had stockpiled more than 5,500 bank cubic yards of frozen pay gravel by March at the Nolan property, which lies within the Arctic Circle about 280 miles north of Fairbanks in the historic Koyukuk Mining District. Nolan is 100 percent owned by...
Red Dog mine remains at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency's national Toxic Release Inventory for the third straight year, but owner Teck Cominco wants the public to know that the movement of waste rock is not the same as pollution. The lead-zinc mine near Kotzebue in Alaska's Arctic released 458.2 million pounds of toxic chemicals in 2004, according to the latest EPA report. This is slightly less than last year's figure, but still four times as much as the second entity on the list, Kennecott Utah copper mine....
"Ready, aim, fire" is the traditional litany of any marksman hoping to hit his target. But critics of the Pebble mineral development have confused that sequence, firing aimless broadsides at the project even before a clear target has emerged. Recent efforts to inflame public opinion against the Pebble copper-gold deposit as an inevitable environmental catastrophe ignore two fundamental truths. First, Pebble is not a working mine, nor even a mine under construction. It's a mineral deposit whose owners, though certainly busy...
Once again, the Anchorage Daily News has come out with a hand-wringing editorial worrying about the threat of global warming on Alaska. In the meantime, the state Legislature is forming a committee to look into the matter. It seems to me, however, that bemoaning the inevitable is counter-productive. Without minimizing for a moment the social costs that will result here in Alaska from extended significant global warming, this phenomenon has been ongoing, to one extent or...
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is moving ahead with plans to retrofit Skagway Ore Terminal for use by mining companies. AIDEA's board of directors voted 5-0 March 29 for a resolution approving a cost reimbursement agreement to analyze proposed improvements to the terminal. The agreement is with Vancouver-based Sherwood Copper, which is developing the Minto copper-gold project in Canada's Yukon. AIDEA passed a resolution last year to support a similar study by Toronto-based Cash Minerals, owner of the...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reinstated two permits for the Kensington gold project that the agency suspended last November following the filing of a lawsuit by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and other environmental groups. The permits authorize the discharge of fill material and the construction of a dock by Goldbelt in waters 25 miles north of Juneau. Specifically, mine tailings will be disposed of in Lower Slate Lake, which is the main point of contention in the lawsuit. "The decision to reinstate the...
Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia have improved their standings in the annual survey of mining companies published by Canada's Fraser Institute, but Russia remained low in the ranking of 64 jurisdictions around the world. This year representatives of 322 exploration, development and mining consulting companies responded to the survey, up from 259 last year. (See related news on the Fraser survey in Curt Freeman 's column on page 13.) Survey participants answered questions about the regions where they work, assessing their...
A woman who appears on a "Legends of the West" postal stamp and a man who killed two people in gunfights were inducted into the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame in March. Nellie Cashman and Jack Dalton followed very different paths in life, although both ended up in Alaska. Some of Dalton's descendants were present at the evening of historical reminiscences in Fairbanks, but Cashman never had children of her own. Her distant relative, Kay Cashman, is the publisher of Mining News and its sister publication Petroleum News. Nellie...
Tank, pump, pipe and filtration equipment supplier Rain for Rent has announced two new pump models, the HH-250 stainless steel 6-inch pump and the XH 100 4-inch pump. The company says that the HH-150 pump produces high discharge heads for mining and dewatering projects - the stainless steel construction of the impellers and shaft add durability for mining and quarry applications. The pump can handle solids up to 1.5 inches in diameter, flows of up to 2,250 gallons per minute and heads of up to 320 feet, the company says. The...
Following the example of a brewery, a cookie company and the Alaska Mint, Anchorage Sand & Gravel has won the annual Made in Alaska Manufacturer of the Year award. Savvy tourists look for the Made in Alaska polar bear logo in local stores to avoid the fake Alaska souvenirs that are manufactured by the ton in China, but fewer members of the public are likely to purchase bags of cement or lengths of reinforced steel. Not everyone appreciates that AS&G's products have been holding Alaska together since 1938. AS&G got its start...
The world will need the equivalent of 28 more discoveries the size of Alaska's Pebble deposit by the year 2016 if demand for copper continues at the current rate. That's the powerful message from Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty, Pebble's developer, part of the company's effort to rebut the wave of attacks on the project spearheaded by environmentalists, lodge-owners and U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. Alaska's senior senator has said he might be more sympathetic to Pebble if it were going to produce an "essential commodity."...
Ontario-based Wolfden Resources is making its mark in Canada's far north, and the company's acquisition of Lupin gold mine from Kinross could significantly lower the costs of its other projects in Nunavut. Almost simultaneously with the announcement in mid-February of the deal with Kinross, Wolfden also signed a letter of intent with Inmet Mining to acquire the nearby Izok, Hood and Gondor base metal deposits in Nunavut. Lupin has produced more than 3 million ounces of gold since 1982, and there may be potential for further...
The sound of boots, hammers, drills and helicopters is starting to drown out the sounds of "we are planning," "we hope to" and "later this year" that we've been hearing for the last few months. Despite a late spring through most of Alaska, a number of projects kicked off recently and more are gathering steam as the short, hectic Alaska summer season approaches. Companies counting on an early spring due to Global Warming have been disappointed and Plan B options are being formulated however, the end result will be the same:...
Nunavut has a reputation for being one of the most remote parts of the world, but for Toronto-based Baffinland Iron Mines, the Canadian Arctic territory's proximity to Europe is one of its biggest selling points. Western Europe currently imports around 50 percent of its iron ore from Brazil, and Baffinland believes that Nunavut could be much more convenient. Of course, it also helps that the Mary River property hosts five high-grade deposits that could yield 10 million metric tons of iron ore per year for 25 years or more....
