The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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New people, I think, have any real sense as to how much of a burden the federal government places on those who seek to develop minerals on the public domain and in the national forests. In Alaska, although there are vast deposits of valuable minerals in the ground, and although it is relatively easy to locate a mining claim, that is only the beginning of the job. Because of statehood selections and selections made by Native corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims...
When a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor moonlighting as a consultant asked student Mike Busby to drive out to a gold mine north of the city, Busby had no idea the day trip would change his life. It turned out the mine was looking for workers and hired Busby on the spot. That opportunity in the mid-1970s thrust Busby into a gold mining career in Interior Alaska that has lasted for 30 years. Along the way, Busby met his wife, Lou, and raised two children. In 1990, the Busbys began mining a site about 180 miles east of...
Members of the public, particularly Native Alaskans, have made a wide variety of comments about the Chuitna coal project that is being proposed for the Cook Inlet area. Following a series of scoping meetings this summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a summary of public responses in October. The responses will be used to help prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement, which should be published in draft form by spring 2007. A plan to develop the Beluga coal field, 45 miles west of Anchorage,...
Out of an average 157,800 tons of rock, with the assistance of 30 tons of explosives, 6.7 tons of lime and 20,506 gallons of diesel fuel, Fort Knox mine produces 900 ounces of gold per day. Trucks with giant tires that cost $10,000 each carry 150 tons of ore to the crusher every three minutes. The ore comes out of a pit that is 1,100 feet deep and will be a mile long and half a mile wide by the time mining comes to an end in 2010. The mine operates 24/7, 365 days a year and its electricity bill is $1.9 million per month....
Two Vancouver-based mining companies are forging ahead with gold projects in Nunavut, and if all goes according to plan they could both be in production by 2008. Cumberland Resources and Miramar Mining have seen their stock prices leap from under $2 a year ago to around $5 today thanks to endorsement from the Nunavut Impact Review Board. The mainly indigenous residents of Canada's far northern territory have expressed enthusiasm for new mining projects, as long as stringent environmental conditions are adhered to. After...
In the race to develop new mines in British Columbia, Calgary-based Copper Fox Metals is jostling its way to the front of the pack. In August the company started the environmental assessment process for its Schaft Creek copper-gold-molybdenum-silver project, filing a preliminary report with the provincial government. In September Copper Fox completed $5 million in expenditures at the property, enabling it to acquire a 70 percent ownership share from Teck Cominco, in accordance with an option agreement signed in 2002. A group...
If a company has explored a property for three years and not found any economic mineralization, it will often cut its losses and find a new place to go. The RDN property in northwest British Columbia is in its third consecutive year of exploration. Assay results from this season's drilling could determine whether or not two Vancouver-based companies, Rimfire Minerals and Northgate Minerals, invest any more of their time and money here. Rimfire is a junior mining company with exploration properties in Alaska, the Yukon,...
As public and private interests in British Columbia move forward with cleaning up and reclaiming the old Britannia Mine site, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn has weighed in with additional support. Lunn attended the opening Sept. 29 of the mine's renovated concentrator mill, now part of the BC Museum of Mining. Earlier, he told members of the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia at a breakfast meeting in Vancouver that he would instruct Natural Resources Canada to contribute another C$5 million...
Teck Cominco revised its sales advisory to customers and investors in September, saying ice and poor weather conditions delayed shipments from its Red Dog zinc, lead mine, which is located about 50 miles above the Arctic Circle. The shipping delays adversely affected the company's third-quarter results, cutting anticipated sales nearly 30 percent, or by 50,000 tonnes, Teck Cominco said Sept. 26. The company said its sales of zinc in concentrate from Red Dog, the world's largest zinc mine, would drop to 125,000 tonnes for the...
Nothing's been built yet, but Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty has already opened the floodgates to a torrent of discussion of the enormous dams the company proposes for the Pebble project. One of the tailings dams would reach an ultimate height of 740 feet and would be at least 4.3 miles long. The largest dam in North America, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, is 550 feet tall and almost a mile long. Northern Dynasty had already come under fire before it submitted the proposal for five dams to Alaska's Department of...
Normally at this time of year the mining industry's seasonal peak of activity is over and the paucity of news coming from the bush is a function of the dwindling volume of work going on out there. While there has been the anticipated lull in mining results released to the public in the last month, I can almost hear the deep, slow collective inhalation of breath being taken by the industry as it catches its second wind and launches an unusually diverse series of fall and winter programs. These efforts span the gamut from...
A century ago, gold fever rampaged across Alaska and miners could be found everywhere from the beaches of Nome to the mountains of Juneau. Today there's been another outbreak of the symptoms. Explorers' boots are again trudging through some of the most inaccessible parts of the state, following in the footsteps of their pioneer predecessors. One such location is Woewodski Island in southeast Alaska, where enterprising local people have teamed up to finance the search for valuable minerals. Woewodski Island is a 45-minute...
