The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 21 of 21
The Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories has ruled that Canadian Zinc Corp. can reopen a winter road to its Prairie Creek mine without a new environmental review process, saying the road was already in operation well before new environmental rules were instituted in 1984. The territory's high court made its ruling May 6, overturning a decision by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board. The board had said at least a preliminary screening was needed, and perhaps an environmental assessment and environmental impact...
Vancouver-based Abacus Mining and Exploration Corp. said May 17 that it has signed a letter of intent with Teck Cominco Ltd. for the purchase of Afton Operating Corp.'s milling and processing facilities, tailings storage areas, associated permits, and other infrastructure at the shut-in Afton Mine near Kamloops, B.C. The company also agreed to purchase Teck Cominco's back-in rights on the Abacus' Afton properties. Abacus also said Giroux Consultants has completed the preliminary resource calculations on the DM/Audra and...
Barrick Gold Corp. has acquired an 11 percent stake in Northwest Territories diamond explorer Diamondex Resources Ltd., Canada's biggest gold producer said May. 18. Barrick said it acquired 7.55 million units of Diamondex for 90 cents cash each in a private placement, a deal worth an estimated $6.8 million. Each unit was made up of a common share and a purchase warrant that gives the company the right to buy another Diamondex share for $1.25 for the next two years. Barrick said it has the right to nominate one director to...
On May 18 a methane gas explosion ripped through a Siberian coal mine where 132 miners were working, leaving one dead and 10 with burns and other injuries, the mine's director, Yuri Kurtabashev, told Itar-Tass. All 10 injured were hospitalized. "Ten out of 11 miners who stayed near the epicenter of the explosion were brought to surface. They have injuries and burns. One miner was killed," a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Previous reports said that the last miner was alive. The explosion hit section 5...
The good news from Teryl, Kinross, Geoinformatics, Midas, Geocom and others is tempered by the loss of Alaska's gentleman scientist Ernie Wolff, who passed away on May 3; Liberty Star Gold appoints Phil St. George as VP of exploration s I write this summary of recent activities in Alaska's mining industry I am attending a once-every-five-year symposium in Reno put on by the Geological Society of Nevada. Some 1,500 attendees, mostly exploration geologists, are eagerly lapping up hours of new and previously unheard ideas on...
Construction work at the $320 million Pogo Gold Project near Delta Junction slowed in late April when a gastrointestinal virus plowed through workers at the remote site. The 24-hour bug, which caused nausea, diarrhea, abdominal cramps and vomiting, is similar to noroviruses that have attacked cruise passengers in Alaska waters in recent years, according to state health officials. About 60 percent of Pogo's work force took sick just days after the first victim was reported April 27, said Karl Hanneman, vice president of...
Owners of the Union Bay platinum project near Ketchikan, Alaska, have approved a budget of $1.1 million for exploration this year, the companies said May 16. Freegold Ventures Ltd., Pacific North West Capital Corp. and Lonmin PLC are backing the Union Bay enterprise. An extensive 2004 field program financed by Lonmin confirmed platinum concentrations of 1 to 14 grams per tonne. The 2004 work included nearly 6,000 feet of diamond core drilling in 10 holes, along with airborne magnetic and multi-frequency electromagnetic...
British Columbia is reveling in a mining boom without parallel in more than three decades, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Powered by higher metals and coal prices, reflecting the strong demand for commodities, and an increase in the number of producing mines, the province posted an increase of C$790 million or 29 percent in net revenues to C$3.5 billion in 2004, generating total net earnings of C$871 million - the highest annual earnings since the accounting firm started its annual survey in 1968. Net income...
A geologist with 30 years' experience in Alaska has been appointed mining section chief at the Department of Natural Resources. Tom Crafford, 54, will report to Bob Loeffler, director of the Division of Mining, Land and Water, beginning June 1. Crafford has recently been working as a consultant out of Anchorage in partnership with his wife Liz, who is also a geologist. He will have to give up his private clients now that he is employed by the state. Explaining in an interview with Mining News why he applied for the state job...
There aren't many places in the United States where you drive on the left side of the road, but Usibelli coal mine is one of them. When you arrive at the gates to the mine in Healy, Alaska, you have to switch to the left because that makes it easier for the drivers of the 150-ton Caterpillar 785 haul trucks to get a clear view of the road. And when you are passing by a 150-ton truck loaded with coal, at the wheel of a small car, avoiding a head-on collision is a priority. In such a case it certainly isn't the truck that...
Explorers from Canada, Washington, Arizona - and Alaska too - have staked claims in the vicinity of the massive Pebble gold-copper deposit. These juniors hope to emulate the success of Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty and take a project to the development stage. As some of their representatives told a mining and sustainable resources conference in Newhalen, Southwest Alaska, in April, the explorers are seeking harmonious relations with the local community as well as valuable minerals. Full Metal Minerals, another Vancouver...
A mention of the world's richest diamond mines conjures images of hot, steamy African jungles. Yet it is the frozen tundra of the Canadian Arctic that is yielding the latest treasure trove of diamonds and sparking a staking stampede that is bringing hundreds of prospectors to the far north. Between 1998 and 2002, 13.8 million carats have been mined in Canada, and the diamonds - precious stones of pure carbon - are worth $2.8 billion. That is roughly a 1.5-kilogram bag of rocks each day for five years, with each bag worth...
Natural Resources Canada has completed C$7 million in renovations to its experimental mill in Ottawa, adding flexibility, back-up systems and energy efficiency to the facility, according to the department. The facility has been redesigned for use as a pilot-scale wet lab for industrial-scale research on mineral processing and environmental issues such as effluent treatment, mine reclamation, waste management, and ecological toxicology. Among the ongoing projects are studies of effluent toxicity and passive effluent treatment...
The hunt for diamonds is undergoing a reawakening in Manitoba, four years after the first wave of explorers failed to locate kimberlite. The province's far north has attracted interest from De Beers Canada, which has collected exploration licenses for almost 5 million acres, giving the gem giant the largest rights holding in the province. But the world's most famous diamond company doesn't have things to itself. Stornoway Diamond has picked up two sites in northeastern Manitoba, while a partnership of BHP Billiton and Nustar...
Exploration spending on Yukon mines is forecast to double this year from 2004 to about C$40 million, according to an exploration and development survey by the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines. The greatest push is coming from healthy commodity prices, which have given a lift to investment in mining companies, said chamber President Scott Casselman. In addition, he credited the Yukon government with "working very hard" to encourage a mining revival, especially by eliminating regulatory obstacles. He placed Yukon...
The air miners breathe, the noise they hear, the equipment they use and the substances they consume all pose safety risks. The industry has learned this the hard way, with tens of thousands of mining fatalities in the 20th century, but today safety regulations are stringent and there is a plethora of measures that can be taken to prevent injuries and ill-health. To discuss what's being done at mines around Alaska, the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration held its Spring Thaw informational seminar...
Red Dog's unenviable position at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency's national Toxics Release Inventory doesn't mean that the world's largest zinc mine is a dangerous polluter, according to the state of Alaska. The Teck Cominco-operated mine in the Arctic, near Kotzebue, released 487.4 million pounds of toxic chemicals in 2003, the newly published TRI reported. The TRI does not indicate whether, or to what degree, the public has been exposed to toxic chemicals, the EPA points out. Greens Creek polymetallic mine...
The road has been cleared for Canada's latest diamond mine, with South African gem giant De Beers giving its final go-ahead for the C$636 million Snap Lake project. In the planning and development stages for several years, the mine is scheduled to start production in 2007, targeting about 1.5 million carats a year once it achieves peak output. It will be De Beers' first diamond mine outside of Africa and the third in the Northwest Territories, joining Diavik and Ekati. But Tahera Diamond will actually be the third to come on...
Idaho-based Coeur d'Alene Mines received its 12 state of Alaska permits for the proposed Kensington underground gold mine in May, and the company expects federal permits to be issued by the end of the second quarter of this year. The targeted construction startup date at the Juneau site is July 1, with production to begin in late 2006. Kensington is designed to produce 100,000 ounces of gold annually, with a mine life of approximately 10 years. "We are confident this project will demonstrate Coeur's leading approach to sound...
Prosecutors have opened a criminal case into alleged misappropriation of property at the Russian state diamond monopoly Alrosa, officials said May 14. The case, opened May 13, concerns the misappropriation of property worth more than 153 million rubles (US$5.8 million), said Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman for the Moscow prosecutor's office. He said the investigation would include a full probe into the finances and business activities of Alrosa. The Interfax news agency quoted a source close to the inquiry as saying that a numb...
Freegold Ventures is planning a 2005 summer program on its Grew Creek epithermal gold deposit 22 miles west of the town of Ross River. The Yukon project is just over half a mile from the Robert Campbell Highway and the Whitehorse power grid. Freegold acquired the Grew Creek project last summer and has since completed 12 diamond drill holes predicated on a new geological theory that proposed mineralization trended north-south, as opposed to previous interpretations which assumed the mineralization trended east-west. "This new...
