The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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When it comes to policies that attract mining investments, Alaska, British Columbia and the Canadian territories all lost ground compared to their global competition, according to the Fraser Institute's Survey of Mining Companies 2013. The 690 mining executives that completed the annual survey, however, consider these northern neighbors among the top-20 places in the world in terms of "pure mineral potential." The policy perception index (formerly referred to as the policy...
If you believe what you see in the press, Alaska's mineral industry was recently given a Christmas gift that trumps even the high-grade anthracite coal that most Alaskans were dreaming of during the last 40-below cold snap. The Alaska Dispatch reported on a recent presentation at the fall 2013 meeting of the American Geophysical Union titled, "Critical Metals in Western Arctic Ocean Ferromanganese Mineral Deposits," by James Hein, a senior scientist at the U.S. Geological...
I recently attended the 119th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Mining Association in Reno and came away feeling better about Alaska than when I arrived. Alaska Miners Association Director Deantha Crockett chaired and spoke in a session that covered everything from small mining operations and new exploration discoveries to advanced exploration projects and operating mines. The 8 a.m. session was surprisingly well-attended, despite the fact that the hotel was host to 1,000 explor...
VANCOUVER, B.C. - British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Territory - the headliners of the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia's 2013 Mineral Exploration Roundup - tallied more than C$1 billion of mineral exploration spending in 2012. This marks the second year running that these neighboring jurisdictions at the northwestern extent of the North American Cordillera topped the C$1 billion mark. But unlike the 2012 Roundup, a year in which explosive exploration...
When it comes to multimillion-ounce bulk-tonnage gold deposits in Alaska, one would be hard pressed to find one more ideally located than Freegold Ventures Ltd.'s Golden Summit Project. Situated alongside the paved Steese Highway some 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Fairbanks, a city of 87,000 that embraces its gold mining heritage, the project has direct access to an able work force, grid power and the full range of services needed to operate a low-cost drill program....
Alaska miners are on the cusp of topping 1 million ounces of gold produced, an annual milestone that has not been achieved since Gold Rush pioneers recovered copious amounts of alluvial aurum at the turn of the 20th Century. "When you think about what a million ounces of production means, it is all the more amazing that it was first accomplished by placer miners and a few lode miners, a few shovelfuls at a time, more than a century ago!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska...
FAIRBANKS - In contrast to the geology, geochemistry and geophysics that dominates discussions at most mining conventions, geopolitics grabbed the limelight at the 2012 Alaska Strategic and Critical Minerals Summit held in Fairbanks Nov. 30. "Countries that control a given element have a way to leverage businesses to come to those countries. They have a way of demanding there are technology transfers," American Elements President Michael Silver informed the more than 200...
British Columbia in 2012 continued to exhibit its strength as the mining and exploration powerhouse of the North American Cordillera. The Canadian province's wealth of mineral potential is the result of geological phenomena that also created the mountain chains "that we have in our province and to the north," according to Bruce Madu, director of the Mineral Development Office of the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines. Madu told participants in the 2012 Mineral Exploration Roundup in January that expansion is the theme at most...
An employment forecast published by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development in October pegged the state's mining sector job growth from 2010 to 2020 at 19 percent. That is second only to health care, at 31 percent, and outpacing the 12 percent average growth across all Alaska industries. Expansion of current operations coupled with prospects of building mines at the world-class Livengood and Donlin gold deposits were cited as drivers behind adding new miners t...
British Columbia, Yukon Territory and Alaska - the headliners of the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia's annual Mineral Exploration Roundup - tallied more than C$1 billion of mineral exploration spending and some C$12.7 billion in mine production in 2011. "We are going to talk in the next three sessions about the wrinkly parts of western North America - B.C., Yukon and Alaska. The geological phenomena that has created these mountain chains that we have in...
Is the "Yukon Gold Rush" about to spill into Alaska? Since the 1896 discovery of gold on the aptly named Bonanza Creek sparked a stampede of fortune seekers to the rivers and streams of the Klondike, these world-class mining jurisdictions that share a common geological and mineralization history have been engaged in a cross-border rivalry of drawing prospectors and miners to their mineral-rich deposits. While 19th Century miners seeking their fortunes in Alaska's Fortymile...
Despite the abundance of good news from the Alaska mining industry this month, there is an unusual black cloud hanging over the industry that threatens to rain on our parade of projects. Domestic and international markets got a severe case of the jitters during the recent United States debt crisis. The resulting economic uncertainty contributed to significant metal price volatility. For example, the London gold price jumped 20 percent, from about US$1,480 to US$1,770 during the month prior to the debt deferral and has since d...
From college students seeking their first job in the minerals industry to executives of the world's leading mining companies, a record-setting 7,003 people packed the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver, B.C., Jan. 24-27 to attend the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia's 2011 Mineral Exploration Roundup. "The theme this year is 'Exploring Today for Tomorrow's Resources' - it couldn't be more important a theme, and it couldn't be more important an activity,"...
Miners, explorers, suppliers and others interested in Alaska's mining industry got a generous helping of surf and turf during the Alaska Miners Association 2010 Annual Convention and Trade Show, held the first week of November at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel. Mining and Fisheries, the theme of this year's convention, also was the subject of a two-day course held Nov. 1-2. The class provided miners with information on the importance of the fishing industry to the economy and...
President Barack Obama heralds green renewables as key to a strong economy and energy independence, but without vigorous domestic copper production, his goals will be difficult to reach. Copper, the world's preeminent electricity and heat conductor, is a necessity. The average American home contains an estimated 400 pounds of copper in wire, plumbing, and fixtures; the average automobile requires 50 pounds. The Northwest Mining Association estimates that a typical child born today will use 1,500 pounds of copper throughout...
As termination dust falls across most of Alaska, the curtain has come down for the bulk of the exploration projects around the state; however, mine development programs as well as mine-site exploration continue apace as does some exploration work in tropical Southeast Alaska. With few exceptions, preliminary conclusions drawn from 2010 work indicate that 2011 is going to be a busy year. And though a lot of exploration and development is still going on for gold, copper...
More and more explorers are buying up and/or staking claims in an elongated area of central British Columbia that is emerging as a significant rare earth metals play, while juniors line up to mobilize exploration crews to begin searching the area for economic concentrations of rare earths. All of this attention is focused on a major continental geologic feature known as the Rocky Mountain trench, a southeast-northwest trending swath of mountainous ground that could host numerous potentially economic concentrations of rare met...
Now that the word is out about Atac Resources Ltd.'s impressive gold discoveries at the Rau Project in central Yukon Territory, the financial market is taking to the early-stage exploration effort with the enthusiasm of a bear in a beehive. Atac recently reported impressive results from drilling and prospecting the Osiris and Isis targets on the Sten claim block near the eastern edge of the 185-kilometer-, or 115-mile-long Rau Project. Meanwhile, investors have fueled a run-up in Atac's stock price to about $7 a share from...
China, which mines the majority of the global supply of rare earth elements within its borders, has, over recent years, increasingly restricted its exports of the unique minerals to non-China-based production facilities. This trend has continued with a July announcement that the Far East country intends to slash its exports of the high-technology metals by an additional 72 percent. Rare earth minerals are made up of 17 elements including terbium, thulium and yttrium. They are...
Rare earth elements have become a hot topic among United States policymakers. The growing demand for the unique properties of these metals in "green energy" technology and military applications, coupled with China's monopoly on the rare earth market has lawmakers and the Pentagon investigating the need to stimulate domestic production, manufacture and stockpiling of these elements. A bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., in March has moved the rare earth conversa...
I recently attended the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto where a buoyant, project-hungry crowd of 22,000 created enough of its own hot air to start the Greenland Icecap melting. In a clear case of anthropogenic global warming, representatives of companies, governments and agencies rolled out their projects in efforts to see and be seen. Alaska was well represented at the conference and should see some new investment interest coming from...
The Alaska Miners Association recently released an economic benefits summary of the Alaska mining industry. This summary indicated that in 2009 the Alaska mining industry provided 3,300 direct jobs along with 5,200 indirect jobs in 120 communities in Alaska with a combined payroll of US$320 million. Average industry jobs came in at US$83,000 per year, which is 85 percent higher than the average Alaska wage and second only to wages in the oil and gas industry. The industry...
Ucore Uranium Inc., a junior based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has shifted its primary focus at the Bokan Mountain Granite complex in Southeast Alaska from uranium to rare earth elements. Ucore changed the name of its U.S. subsidiary from Bokan LLC to Rare Earth One LLC to reflect its evolving focus at the heavy rare earth element-rich prospect on the southern end of Prince of Wales Island about 60 kilometers, or 37 miles, southwest of Ketchikan. "The property goes well beyond its superficial prospects as a prior high-grade...
The Canadian government has approved C$130 million in funding for construction of the Northwest Transmission Line in northern British Columbia, a power conduit that could eventually connect with Alaska. The 335-kilometer transmission line will carry hydroelectricity to communities in the northwest region of the province, and provide a clean and reliable source of power, while enabling development of an estimated 2,000 megawatts of renewable electricity generation from small hydro, geothermal and wind sources. "Our government...
Advances in high technology, especially the recent drive to produce increasingly efficient hybrid automobiles, is spurring demand for rare earth elements and energizing a little-known mining sector with at least one known Alaska mineral deposit. Thanks to analysts touting the virtues of investing in rare earth mining, two companies, Commerce Resources Corp. and Rare Element Resources Ltd. listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange have seen gains in their stock price of 32 percent and 37 percent, respectively, this spring,...
