The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 13 of 13
Calgary-based Golconda Resources Ltd., operator of the Shulin Lake diamond exploration joint venture, says it found micro-diamonds during its spring drilling program at the Southcentral Alaska property. The holes at the Shulin Lake project, which is about 25 miles due west of the Parks Highway and about 80 miles north of Anchorage, were drilled to test different areas of a circular structure visible on a satellite photo of the property. In an Oct. 6 statement, the company said 19 selected samples were sent to SGS Lakefield...
Canada's burgeoning diamond industry is not likely to get an extra lift from tax changes. A spokesman for the Canadian government dumped some cold water on hopes contained in a proposed national diamond strategy prepared by the governments of the Northwest Territories and Quebec on behalf of all provinces and territories, suggesting key tax reforms are a long-shot. The recommendations, made in late September, called for: - Eliminating the excise tax on jewelry, which jewelers argue makes Canadian diamonds more expensive...
Inco, the world's second largest nickel producer, is now in pursuit of a 50 percent increase in output by 2009. The Toronto-based company has ended a two-year hiatus by resuming work on its US$1.9 billion Goro project in New Caledonia and is six months ahead of schedule with its Voisey's Bay project in Canada's Labrador region. It confirmed Oct. 19 that the C$3 billion Voisey's Bay undertaking will start production by late 2005, instead of closer to mid-2006. The Goro project is now chasing a September 2007 start-up after hea...
Aboriginal groups in a remote corner of north-central British Columbia are resolutely opposed to plans by Vancouver-based Northgate Minerals to expand the Kemess gold and copper mine. Northgate took over Kemess four years ago after the previous owner went bankrupt and now wants to open up a new pit about three miles from the existing operation. It estimates the project would extend Kemess' operating life from 2009 to 2010, saving 400 jobs and pumping about C$150 million a year into the British Columbia economy. But the...
Saskatchewan, Canada's so-called breadbasket because of its seemingly endless grain fields and also the country's second-largest oil and gas producing province, has hopes of adding diamonds to the portfolio. After years of probing beneath the Prairie and studying the results, two mining companies are inching closer to deciding whether they have the resources to go commercial. Claiming to have control of the world's largest diamond deposits, Victoria, British Columbia-based Kensington Resources and its joint venture partners...
Robust metal prices are the most positive factor affecting Alaska's mining industry over the past year, according to Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association. "Metal prices are what drives the industry," Borell said. He said it is a significant fact that prices for base metals such as lead, zinc, copper, nickel and molybdenum are high at the same time as those for gold, silver and platinum. In world metal pricing it is not often the case that base metals and precious metals rise simultaneously....
Coeur d'Alene Mines said it has received final approval on its allowable use permit from the Juneau Planning Commission for the Kensington gold project 45 miles north of Juneau, inside the city and borough boundaries. Coeur called the decision "a milestone permitting event." The company said it expects the final supplemental environmental impact statement and record of decision to be issued by the U.S. Forest Service in November. In June, Coeur said that results from a revised feasibility study using a new geologic model...
It's still a few years off, but if NovaGold Resources Inc. turns the Ambler prospect into an operating mine, it could open up a mineral belt with a total of $12 billion in reserves - at 1982 prices. That $12 billion figure comes from a 1982 state report listing 10 major volcano-derived deposits in northwestern Alaska, from the operating Red Dog Mine all the way to the border of Gates of the Arctic National Park. Perhaps the biggest and richest concentration is the Arctic deposit 150 miles east of Kotzebue near the villages...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. has zeroed in on a port site on the southwest corner of Iniskin Bay on Cook Inlet, to serve its Pebble deposit, a proposed open pit, gold-copper-molybdenum-silver mine near Iliamna in Southwestern Alaska, according to Bruce Jenkins, director of corporate affairs. The port site is approximately 65 miles from the deposit. The company has also, in conjunction with the Alaska Department of Transportation, established a preferred road corridor leading from the port site to the Pebble deposit, with co...
Russia's gold mining industry, once ruled by Stalin's most vicious henchmen, has transformed itself into an attractive prospect for international corporations. Much of the gold mining takes place in the Russian Far East, in Magadan and Chukotka, thousands of miles and several time zones away from Moscow. The industry grew up on the backs of slave laborers, sent here as punishment for imaginary crimes and to carve a nation's wealth out of the permafrost. Gold was crucial to the economy of the Soviet Union, which sold gold to...
Despite the fact that winter has arrived over much of Alaska, exploration efforts continued at record pace throughout the state in October. Late summer programs are now competing for people and drills with early winter programs in a number of areas, a problem not normally encountered in Alaska. In a further sign of the strength of the rebound in the metals markets, a number of companies are already tying up people, drills, camp equipment, analytical services and helicopter...
A coal-fueled power plant could help meet the growing energy needs of Alaska's Railbelt, Usibelli Coal Mine Inc. believes. But the company faces a bumpy road to the realization of its Emma Creek Energy Project, with some electric utilities skeptical about the idea. At a meeting of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance in Anchorage on Oct. 20, Usibelli's vice president for business development, Steve Denton, gave a multimedia presentation on Emma Creek, promoting coal as a clean and cost-efficient alternative to oil and...
Tucson-based Liberty Star Gold Corp. started a boring project Oct. 23 on its expansive Big Chunk project properties, which border the Northern Dynasty Mineral Ltd. Pebble project near Iliamna in Southwestern Alaska. Drilling was scheduled to last only until Oct. 30, due to the late start, according to James A. Briscoe, Liberty Star president. A Zonge Engineering geophysical crew conducting induced polarization electrical surveys from Aug. 15 through Sept. 15 found a significant induced polarization anomaly in the northern...
