The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 126 - 150 of 236
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) have teamed up to introduce bipartisan legislation aimed at addressing America's "Achilles' heel" – a heavy dependence on foreign countries for its growing mineral needs. "Our nation's mineral security is a significant, urgent, and often ignored challenge. Our reliance on China and other nations for critical minerals costs us jobs, weakens our economic competitiveness, and leaves us at a geopolitical d...
With 12.5 million acres of land spanning Alaska's Interior, Doyon Ltd. is the largest private landholder in the state and one of the largest in the nation. For mining and mineral exploration companies, the rich mineral potential of these lands may be more impressive than the sheer size of the estate. This is because the Doyon region is a nearly Texas-sized swath of Interior Alaska that is renowned for its gold and a host of other metals, providing the regional corporation,...
When it comes to attracting mining investment, Alaska, British Columbia and all three Canadian territories rank among the top 20 jurisdictions in the world on the Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2018. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their mineral endowment and various policy topics important to mining. "The mining survey-now in its 21st year-is the most comprehensive report card on government...
Those of you that attended the recent Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver can attest to the exuberant, upbeat atmosphere that pervaded the conference and was very much in evidence at the standing-room only festivities at our annual self-hosted Alaska Night meet and greet. But digging down under this veneer of optimism, many of the junior explorers and most of the producers admitted to their expectations of challenging times in 2019. Putting words to this apparent...
Underscoring the interconnected nature of the global mining market, not 48 hours after the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law, the mining industry began wondering out loud how they were going to produce rare earth element, tungsten, tantalum and molybdenum in the near future. Why these metals and why the worry now? Because one of the many impacts the Defense Authorization Act will have on the U.S. economy is its ban on the U.S. Department of...
While not the flashiest of the 35 minerals on the United States Geological Survey's critical list, barite plays an essential role in America's energy sector. Barite got its name from the Ancient Greek word for heavy, barús, and it is the high specific gravity that earned this mineral its name that makes it a critical mineral. Added to drill mud, a solution that serves multiple purposes in bore drilling, barite's weight helps maintain the integrity of the drill hole and...
Cobalt is an essential ingredient to optimizing the performance of batteries in the growing number of electric vehicles on global highways, yet essentially none of this battery metal is mined in the United States. With at least one advanced stage exploration project in Alaska looking into the potential of producing cobalt alongside its copper, America's 49th State could provide a domestic source for this critical metal. In its annual report, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2018,...
As gold exploration cools globally, the search for the precious metal is once again heating up in the larger Pogo Mine region of Interior Alaska. One of the reasons this region continues to be a hotbed of gold exploration is Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo LLC’s success in finding and expanding new deposits of high-grade gold on its Pogo Mine property, which anchors the Goodpaster Mining District. Another dozen promising prospects found beyond the borders of the Pogo Mine claims a...
It is high summer in Alaska and the mining industry is busy breaking rocks, drilling holes, collecting baseline data, making upgrades to mine facilities and producing metal and coal across the state. The effects of declining prices for metals are starting to be felt at the operating metal mines and except for a few projects, the exploration sector continues to wallow in the doldrums, which have plagued the industry since 2013. That said, the tire-kicking of earlier this...
Anniversary celebrations, golden milestones and rising metals prices are providing Alaska's metal miners with plenty to cheer about in 2016. Roughly 1 million ounces of gold will be mined in Alaska this year, when you tally the amount of the precious metal produced at four of Alaska's large metal mines – Fort Knox, Pogo, Kensington and Greens Creek – and the placer aurum produced at the family-scale operations across the state. Fortunately for all these miners, gold shot up...
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska hit an apex of US$365 million in 2011, but as venture capital for mining explorers dried these expenditures plummeted 78 percent to US$80 million in 2015. However, rising gold prices and a loosening of venture capital in 2016 seems to have marked an end to a painfully long bear market for mining explorers in Alaska. “After taking head shots for the past four years, the industry suddenly came to life over the past month, with new budgets,...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Feb. 17 reported that its SuperLig®-One rare earth separation pilot plant, currently being constructed in Utah by IBC Advanced Technologies Inc., is expected to be completed and ready for initial fluid testing in March. Roughly 40 metric tons of material sourced from Ucore's Bokan-Dotson Ridge property in Southeast Alaska was processed at Tomra Systems ASA in Germany utilizing dual energy x-ray transmission ore sorting technology. This process, which represents the first step in Ucore's process flowshee...
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska will likely struggle to top US$80 million for 2014, a dramatic fall from the US$365.1 million pinnacle reached in 2011. "The din of mineral industry activity that is normally a part of the summer months in Alaska is decidedly muted this year as the global mining industry attempts to lift itself off the bottom of a plus-18-month-long slump," Avalon Development President Curt Freeman opined in a June column written for Mining News. Unlike 2...
Most of Alaska is now enjoying a warm, early spring, allowing field programs to get off to an quicker start this year. While budgets are still tight, interest in Alaska projects has steadily increased as the mining and metals markets slowly recover from a four-year slowdown. Current estimates for 2016 exploration expenditures are looking like they will end up in the US$50 million to US$60 million range, down from the US$75 million range of last year but less precipitous than...
With metal prices stabilizing, physical stockpiles dwindling and demand again on the rise, things are beginning to look up for the beleagered mining industry. Gold's performance over the past several months is a case in point. The World Gold Council reported that during the first quarter, buying of exchange-traded gold funds rose to its highest level since early 2009, wiping out the deep sell-offs of 2014 and 2015 for this instrument. Uncertainties in the fiscal stability of...
When When Steve Wackowski asked his superiors at the U.S. Department of Interior office in Washington D.C. for a message to deliver at the Alaska Miners Association's annual convention in Anchorage, their response put an exclamation point on a clear shift in federal policy since President Donald Trump took office – "The war on mining is over." This does not mean the United States' mining sector has a new federal ally, but it does indicate that the Bureau of Land Management, N...
Will the rare earth elements separation technology that Ucore Rare Metals Inc. has been endeavoring to develop during the past two years revolutionize the recovery of these minerals crucial to modern technology? With the completion of the SuperLig®-One rare earth separation pilot plant, the answer to that question draws nigh. The pilot plant, designed and constructed by Utah-based IBC Advanced Technologies Inc., utilizes a highly-selective process known as molecular...
Although there is plenty of Alaska mining industry news this month, the big dog in the pen is the dramatic and unexpected run-up in the price of gold, which moved from a low of $1,078 per ounce to a high of $1,246/oz., most of which occurred after Feb. 1. Although profit-taking and other factors have caused the price to back off a bit, the move was both dramatic and unexpected. As you might guess, the ether is full of talking heads telling us why it went up, why it either won'...
Primarily associated with cans, cups and roofs, tin is not the flashiest metal on the market. Despite its lowly ranking, even among base metals, this lackluster commodity fetches around US$8.00 per pound - substantially more than copper, zinc, lead, or even nickel - and Alaska has plenty of it. Strongbow Exploration Inc., a company primarily focused on exploring for nickel in Northwest Territories, is working on a deal that would allow it to acquire two Alaska tin properties...
Mineral and coal exploration in British Columbia, which peaked at C$680 million in 2012, retreated to roughly C$476 million in 2013. This drop is on par with the roughly 30 percent decrease in exploration expenditures worldwide. The dynamics that led to the decrease - tight capital markets that continue to challenge the ability of junior explorers to raise money, senior miners keeping tight reins on exploration spending and softer gold prices - have remained in play during...
After ushering in devolution in concert with implementing the first phase of a well-reasoned mineral development strategy, the Northwest Territories is eager to attract new mineral resource investment in 2014 in hopes of building on an uptick in exploration activity in recent years. "The Canadian North is the next frontier in mining and mineral development and nowhere is this more evident than in the NWT," said NWT Industry, Tourism, and Investment Minister David Ramsay. Home to the third-richest diamond resources in the...
As a result of its timely partnership with Dowa Metals & Mining Co. Ltd., Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. has launched the largest single-season exploration program ever carried out the Palmer volcanogenic massive sulfide project near Haines in Southeast Alaska. At US$6.2-million, this year's exploration expenditures at the precious metals enriched copper-zinc project also ranks among the largest programs expected to be carried out in the 49th state during 2014. "The Palmer...
Scotiabank's Commodity Price Index, having lost steam in late 2013, is expected to bottom out this spring and rally in the second half of 2014 on stronger global growth, Scotiabank Vice President, Economics Patricia M. Mohr told an overflow crowd attending the 2014 Nunavut Mining Symposium in April. Mohr, a commodities market specialist at the Toronto-based international bank, again opened the 17th annual gathering, held April 7-10 in Iqaluit, NU, the northern territory's capital. She said growth in the global manufacturing...
Contango ORE Inc. co-founder Brad Juneau ventured to Alaska seeking natural gas; today, his Texas-based company is sitting on a gold-copper-silver deposit at its Tetlin project with an initial 1.1 million-ounce gold-equivalent resource and a 760,000-acre land package with enough "blue sky" potential to keep a mineral exploration company busy for decades. Following five years of systematic exploration, Contango ORE Jan. 23 reported an indicated resource of 5.97 million metric...
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...
