The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 11 of 11
The Red Dog Mine, 17 years after startup, is unquestionably the economic and human resources success story of the Northwest Arctic Borough. Zinc and lead prices are strong, and production is up at the mine, which is operated by Teck Cominco Alaska on lands owned by the Alaska Native regional corporation, NANA Regional Corp. But the world's largest producer of zinc concentrate continues to be plagued by issues surrounding its discharge of wastewater. Treated water from the mine is released into tributaries of the Wulik River,...
An Anchorage judge gave little credence to arguments by a Nome citizens' group that construction of Rock Creek gold mine should be halted, decisively ruling in favor of developer NovaGold Resources. After a hearing in Alaska District Court June 7, Judge Ralph Beistline made his decision the following day. Bering Strait Citizens For Responsible Resource Development had requested an injunction to protect the area's wetlands. The plaintiffs argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 404 permit authorizing some of Rock Creek's...
The mining industry in British Columbia surpassed itself in 2006, with revenues at an all-time high, according to the annual survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Net income for companies active in the province totaled C$2.3 billion, by far the highest amount since the survey was first published in 1968, and an increase of C$507 million on the previous year's figure. The average number of people employed in British Columbia's mining sector increased from 7,071 in 2005 to 7,345 in 2006. The latest survey covered 17 operating...
A recent piece in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner newspaper indicated that the U.S. Department of Labor has determined that mining employment has hit a 4-year low in Alaska. I'm not sure who the Department of Labor was talking to but the world I live in happens to be drastically short of qualified manpower with no immediate relief anywhere in sight that might affect this demand surplus and supply shortfall. When you ask mining companies what they are up to, the most common resp...
TRustees for Alaska, the non-profit law firm that represented the Nome plaintiffs in the case against Rock Creek mine, has teamed up with another citizens' group to oppose coal mining in the Cook Inlet area. The new group is called the Chuitna Citizens NO-COALition, and together with Trustees for Alaska it has petitioned the Department of Natural Resources to declare the Chuitna watershed unsuitable for surface coal mining. Last summer the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held a series of scoping meetings about the...
Molybdenum prices have gained altitude and performed a "loop the loop" in recent years that aerobatic pilots would envy. Skyrocketing from a low of $2 a pound in 2002 to a peak of $50 a pound in 2005, before dipping to the $20-a-pound range last year and climbing back to $33.75 a pound in mid-June, moly prices are having a heck of wild ride. Mining companies, in response, have been scrambling to expand and start up molybdenum projects. The trend is particularly evident in mineral-rich British Columbia, where 1,350...
Geology isn't always a fast-moving business, especially when you consider that minerals lie around for billions of years before they're discovered and eventually mined. So the fact that Toronto-based Starfield Resources has recently sprung into action after almost a decade of relative quiescence shouldn't mean too much in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that the company is now taking serious steps towards development of its sole project, the Ferguson Lake polymetallic deposit in Nunavut. Starfield appointed a new...
A geologist who worked in Alaska decades ago is following a long-harbored ambition to find out if there is gold on the seabed in Cook Inlet. Doug Oliver helped to build the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and returned to the state in the early 1980s with Tenneco Minerals, which had several exploration projects at the time. Tenneco was approached by Aspen Exploration to look for the offshore gold, but a deal couldn't be reached. Oliver was always interested in the idea and is now pursuing it with Zurich, Switzerland-based Hemis...
Fortunately for Alaska, there are relatively few abandoned mine sites in the state that pose a hazard to the public. Historically, placer mining was widespread in Alaska, which means there aren't too many deep adits where necks can be broken. But there is still reclamation work to be done, and when there is no new owner to take responsibility on federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management steps in. Over the past few years staff from BLM's Fairbanks office have been working at two sites on Harrison Creek and Nome Creek in Int...
If Edwin Warren's diary is anything to go by, most miners in Alaska in the early 20th century were more interested in spending their paychecks on booze and debauchery than writing eloquent accounts of their daily lives and natural surroundings. But Warren was different. An avid ornithologist and devout Christian, he agonized over whether to work on a Sunday and wished that the local Indians could be kept away from the worst influences of white people. Warren's grandson, Barry Kibler, has published his diary of the years...
The open pit Minto mine in the Yukon produced its first copper-gold concentrates in late May as part of the equipment commissioning process. Production is forecast to ramp up to full capacity during the third quarter of 2007, Vancouver-based Sherwood Copper announced May 31. "This is an exciting day for Sherwood and everyone involved in the rapid transformation of the company to producer status," said Sherwood's president and CEO, Stephen Quin. "In less than two years we acquired the partially constructed but dormant Minto...
