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
A former State of Alaska employee has submitted a proposal to the Board of Fisheries requesting it to designate the waters in the vicinity of the planned Pebble mine as a fish refuge. George Matz, who is now retired, but worked for the state for about 11 years as an analyst, is concerned that Gov. Frank Murkowski's policies have removed some of the checks and balances that would ensure fish are protected when a mine is developed. The seven-member Board of Fisheries is part of the Department of Fish and Game. The board...
A decade after more than C$6 billion in shareholders' value evaporated and six years after a court trial began, what has been described as the world's largest mining scandal has entered its final legal proceedings. By early September final arguments in the trial of former Bre-X Minerals chief geologist John Felderhof are expected to wrap up before the Ontario Superior Court. Felderhof faces eight criminal charges, accused by the Ontario Securities Commission of illegal insider trading and issuing press releases that misled...
NovaGold Resources Inc. has cleared several important permitting hurdles in its quest to develop the Rock Creek and Big Hurrah gold mines near Nome. The Alaska departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation issued construction permits for the project Aug. 9. NovaGold, owner and operator of the mines, envisions the project becoming its first development-stage venture to begin significant gold production. First gold production at a rate of roughly 100,000 ounces per year at Rock Creek could begin by late 2006...
BHP Billiton, the huge international mining company that Arctic Slope Regional Corp. has enlisted to help explore and develop coal deposits believed to lie beneath its lands in northern Alaska, is an old hand in virtually every aspect of the venture. London-based Billiton is the world's largest resource development company with 37,000 employees in 100 operations in about 25 countries and nearly $32 billion in revenue and $6.5 billion in profits in 2005 as well as $92 billion in market capitalization. Billiton is a mining... Full story
In posting third-quarter profits, Taseko Mines Ltd., a subsidiary of Vancouver, B.C.-based Hunter Dickinson, also shared the latest on its Gibraltar copper-molybdenum mine and its advanced-stage Prosperity copper-porphyry project, both located in south-central British Columbia. Hunter Dickinson, which is developing the Pebble copper-molybdenum deposit in southwest Alaska through its Northern Dynasty Ltd. subsidiary, has cited Gibraltar as an example of the environmentally responsible mining practices that the company aims to...
Stornoway Diamond Corp. of Vancouver, B.C., launched an ambitious bid in July that, if successful, will create a mid-tier diamond exploration and development company in Canada. The complex three-way combination of Stornoway with Ashton Mining of Canada Ltd. and Contact Diamond Corp. is valued at C$140 million. Considered a significant consolidation of leading exploration companies in Canada's growing diamond industry, the transaction would have a market capitalization of more than C$200 million, enough financial strength to... Full story
Flying high on strong commodity prices, Teck Cominco Ltd.'s profits soared to record levels in the second quarter. Despite the strong results, the Vancouver, B.C.-based mining company decided Aug. 16 not to pursue an outstanding hostile purchase offer for Inco Ltd., the world's second largest nickel producer. Teck Cominco disclosed the reversal one day after announcing plans to sweeten its original buyout offer to about C$89 a share. The move came less than 24 hours before its bid was due to expire. Meanwhile, the company... Full story
Unlike its neighbors to the north and east, the western Canadian province of British Columbia is widely regarded as an unlikely place to uncover commercial quantities of uranium. But that isn't deterring a small group of companies from organizing exploration of the few known prospects in the province. The impetus: The global market for uranium has accelerated rapidly in recent years as stores of uranium worldwide have been depleted and prices have climbed. Uranium prices have surged almost fourfold in the past three years....
Tahera Diamond Corp. celebrated the opening Aug. 17 of Jericho, Canada's third operating diamond mine and the first diamond mining venture to come online in the arctic territory of Nunavut. Just across the Northwest Territories border about 260 miles from Yellowknife, Jericho will eventually produce 375,000 carats of diamonds a year to yield 2.6 million carats over the initial eight-year life of the mine. Tiffany & Co., a marketing and financing partner in the venture, has first dibs on the mine's output, as well as a...
A Canadian mining exploration company with projects scattered throughout Alaska said it plans to seek coal in the sleepy community of Chickaloon. Full Metal Minerals (USA) Inc. was the sole bidder for about 35 square miles of coal leases put up for sale by the Alaska Mental Health Trust. The total number of leases offered for sale by the trust covered nearly 47 square miles off the section of the Glenn Highway about 40 miles north of Palmer. Some residents in the lightly populated area fear their backyard wilderness will be s... Full story
Two judicial rulings have been handed down recently which bode well for the future of mining activities in Alaska. The first concerns the Kensington Mine north of Juneau. In June of 2005, after 17 years of trying, the operators obtained all the permits necessary to start mining. The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council then sued to challenge the dredge and fill permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The so-called "404" permit was suspended temporarily in order to...
A federal court judge has ruled that Teck Cominco Ltd., owner and operator of the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska, violated the federal Clean Water Act by discharging treated wastewater into a nearby stream. U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick in Anchorage found that Red Dog exceeded limits set by the federal law in 618 claims in a lawsuit filed by a half-dozen residents of the nearby Arctic village of Kivalina. However, Sedwick denied the lawsuit's 1,300-plus other pollution claims in his July 28 ruling. The six...
The board of directors of Vancouver-based NovaGold Resources has unanimously recommended that shareholders reject the unsolicited takeover bid by Toronto-based Barrick Gold. At the same time, in mid-August, NovaGold filed a lawsuit against Barrick in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The lawsuit claims that in making a competing bid for Pioneer Metals, Barrick misused confidential information belonging to NovaGold. NovaGold was already entangled in a lawsuit brought by Vancouver-based Pioneer over the Grace property adja... Full story
Higher metals prices contributed to record earnings in the second quarter across the mining spectrum. Three companies heavily invested in Alaska, Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., Hecla Mining Co. and Kinross Gold Corp., posted stronger financial results for the period and noted how their Alaska properties fared. Fort Knox battles escalating costs with high gold output Kinross, owner of the Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks, posted record earnings of $65.6 million, or 19 cents per share for the second quarter of 2006, compared with a...
As federal regulators plan the opening of the 9.2 million acres in the southern part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas leasing, one Alaska industry group is urging them to broaden their outlook. The Alaska Miners Association is advocating that the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all activity in the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, cast a wider net in search of energy development opportunities. "For several decades, the mining industry has been aware of the mineral potential...
Hang on to your hat, the data is beginning to roll in from Alaskan field programs and there are some hum dingers in this month's data and several others will be showing up next month. What's a "hum dinger"? How about an Alaska gold project at the center of a $1.5 billion corporate takeover by the world's largest gold producer? Or how about 75 feet grading more than 2 ounces of gold per ton? Or maybe silver production costs of a negative $2.28 per ounce? But wait, there's more...
The president and CEO of Idaho-based Coeur d'Alene Mines has been in Alaska to thank Gov. Frank Murkowski and his administration for their help in staving off a lawsuit that had been threatening the Kensington project near Juneau. Dennis Wheeler attended a press conference with Murkowski in Anchorage Aug. 7 and promised that his company would proceed with construction of the gold mine. U.S. District Judge James Singleton dismissed a lawsuit in early August that had been brought by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council,...
