The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 15 of 15
Stornoway Diamond Corp. of Vancouver, B.C., worked up until a Sept. 18 deadline to win over minority shareholders of Ashton Mining of Canada Ltd., succeeding in wooing enough shareholders to move forward with the complex three-way merger. Stornoway said late Sept. 18 that conditions of its offer for outstanding shares of Ashton and Contact Diamond Corp. were met, and Stornoway has given notice to the depositary to take-up all shares tendered under the offers and extend the offers until Oct. 2. Stornoway proposed the...
Construction costs for Alaska's Pogo gold mine near Fairbanks have risen again to $378 million, Japan's Sumitomo Metal Mining said in a release Aug. 23. Sumitomo owns a 51 percent stake in Pogo and the operator is Vancouver-based Teck Cominco. The original construction cost estimate in May 2004 was $280 million. The latest estimate in October 2005 was $357 million. Some of the increases were due to rising material prices, including oil and steel. Additional investment of $21 million is now required to install a third filter...
A senior executive from Hunter Dickinson, the company that owns Alaska's Pebble prospect, has moved to St. Andrew Goldfields as president and chief operating officer. Keith Minty started his new position Sept. 15 with Ontario-based St. Andrew, which owns Nixon Fork mine near McGrath, Alaska. Nixon Fork is a small underground gold mine that recently received permits to restart operations. Minty takes over as president from Glenn Laing, who retains his position as chief executive officer of St. Andrew. Since 2004 Minty has...
No sooner than clearing an infrastructure hurdle to development of its Red Chris copper-gold project in northern British Columbia this year, bcMetals Corp. encountered another obstacle in the form of a blockade against road access to the property by a small group of local residents. The Vancouver, B.C., junior mining company went to court and won an injunction to clear the blockade earlier in September only to find itself the target of a potentially hostile takeover offer from Imperial Metals Corp., another small Vancouver,...
By most years' standards, the last month has been a barn burner for mining news. By 2006 standards it hardly measures on the Mining Industry Care-O-Meter, a highly subjective, totally unscientific measurement of what is happening in Alaska's mineral industry. In the last month we have seen the state's largest primary gold deposit resources increase to a mind-boggling 32 million ounces, we've seen one new mine begin commercial construction, we've seen one mine under construction receive a partial injunction against part of...
If you have ever thought that the cost of manufactured goods is too low, and wondered what you can do about it, you might consider the case of the Tulsequah Chief prospect in nearby British Columbia. The Tulsequah Chief is an historic mine located up the Tulsequah River, a tributary to the Taku, about 40 miles north of Juneau and about 60 miles south of Atlin, British Columbia. The Tulsequah Chief was discovered in 1925 and it produced base and precious metals from 1951 to...
As the mine permitting process gets ever more rigorous, advances in technology are helping companies comply with environmental requirements. Clean water is usually at the top of the list when it comes to mining concerns, and membrane treatment systems are the wave of the future, according to G. Paul Schuitt of Anchorage-based GPS Environmental, which represents several water and wastewater equipment manufacturers. Membrane treatment systems are fairly new to the industry, having arrived in the past 10 years, Schuitt said in a...
Mines ministers from across Canada gathered in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, in late August to craft a mining action plan aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of the minerals and metals industry in ways that benefit all Canadians. Representing Canada's federal, provincial and territorial governments, the ministers met for the 63rd Annual Mines Ministers' Conference Aug. 28-29. The ministers noted that challenges exist that potentially threaten the future viability of the minerals and metals industry in Canada, its intern...
More studies are needed before a copper and gold mine is reopened upstream from Juneau, Alaska, environmental groups have asserted in a lawsuit against the Canadian government. Opponents of the Tulsequah Chief project in the Taku River watershed, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have said punching the 100-mile road through one of the largest roadless areas on the continent and reopening the mine could damage or wipe out the protected East Atlin caribou herd. The case filed Aug. 23 by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund on behalf...
You could say David H. Brett has Cassiar Valley gold production in his blood. Brett is president of Cusac Gold Mines Ltd., a company with a history of finding and producing gold in northern British Columbia that dates back half a century. Brett's father, Guildford Brett, prospected for gold in the Liard Mining District in the 1950s, and began amassing mineral claims in the area. In 1965, he founded Cusac and led the company to become one of the few Vancouver, B.C,. juniors to take a gold mining project all the way from...
The Usibelli coal mine in Healy, Alaska, is shipping coal to a power plant in Mejillones, Chile. The panamax vessel MV Coral Sapphire departed Seward Aug. 18 loaded with 73,000 metric tons of Alaska coal. There is an option for the customer to order a second shipment of the same size during the last quarter of 2006. Since 1985, Usibelli has exported more than 13 million tons of coal to several Pacific Rim customers - primarily South Korea. Test shipments to Chile began in 2004 and since then Usibelli has exported more than 25...
Drop by Galore Creek camp this summer and you're sure to be well fed. A lively bunch of young people load up their plates with steak, shrimp, potatoes, salads and cakes, refueling after another rainy day in the field. The only slight problem for the casual visitor is getting here. There is no way into this temporary town up in the mountains of British Columbia other than by helicopter. From Wrangell in southeast Alaska a group from the Alaska Miners Association took a five-seater plane to Bob Quinn airstrip across the border...
Barrick's Eskay Creek mine in British Columbia isn't a bad place to work underground. The miners are well paid and happy to be doing their jobs alone, without a boss looking over their shoulder all the time. They consider the search for gold an adventure. And compared with being above ground, where grizzly bears prowl around in summer and up to 60 feet of snow falls in winter, the mine's dark tunnels begin to look like rather a comfortable environment. The sharp-angled roofs of the mine buildings weren't enough to protect...
If there are any NovaGold shareholders left who aren't aware that the Vancouver-based junior is in a dispute with Barrick, the world's number one gold producer, they must be living on the moon. Facing a hostile takeover bid from Toronto-based Barrick, the management of NovaGold filed lawsuits against the major recently in Alaska and British Columbia, alleging that Barrick is misrepresenting the facts about NovaGold's properties to its shareholders. Even if NovaGold doesn't win either of the cases, their existence will almost...
Alaska legislators didn't get much of a break this summer. After sitting through two special sessions in Juneau to debate a new oil tax and a proposed gas pipeline, followed by some hard-fought primary elections, members of the House and Senate Resources Committee convened again Aug. 31 for a hearing about Kensington mine. Several legislators participated in the Anchorage meeting by telephone, keen to find out what was going on after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an injunction in late August against work on...
