The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Alaska's mining industry captured the attention, not only of Alaskans but also the country during the past year when a controversy over the proposed Pebble Project in Southwest Alaska bubbled to the surface. Supporters and opponents of a ballot initiative aimed at blocking the mining venture squared off in a vocal and often strident campaign that made headlines nationwide. Alaska Miners Association director Steve Borell cited the contest over development the world-class...
Left leaderless and weighed down with about C$11 million in debt in mid-2009, it appeared Freegold Ventures Ltd. would become another casualty of the market collapse of 2008. Many believe this surely would have been the case if not for the tenacity of Kristina Walcott, then the company's vice president of corporate development. Stepping into the leadership role at Freegold, Walcott leveraged the value of the company's four gold assets in Alaska and Idaho. Over the course of a...
As the active exploration season winds down in Alaska, both good news and bad is afoot and both sets of news turn out to be the same data. Double speak you say? Read on and judge for yourself. Halifax-based Metals Economics Group announced some preliminary numbers relating to worldwide mineral industry exploration for 2009. The group estimates that worldwide exploration spending will drop to US$8.4 billion in 2009, a 40 percent decrease from the US$14 billion spent in 2008.... Full story
The recession is taking its toll among mining companies with properties in Alaska and northwestern Canada as mergers and acquisitions surged in this sector during the second quarter, in step with a global industry trend. Companies across the exploration and development spectrum from mining giants to the smallest juniors closed on deals with firms that are struggling to survive the recent cash crunch as independent entities. The Wall Street Journal reported in early August that according to data provider Dealogic, value of... Full story
Last month we talked about economic impacts of the Alaska mining industry. This month, the world mineral exploration industry is in our crosshairs. Halifax-based Metals Economics Group reported that 2008 worldwide nonferrous mineral exploration reached $13.2 billion, more than 2.5 times the previous peak exploration spending level reached in 1997. Add uranium exploration expenditures, and the total expands to $14.4 billion. Exploration spending would have been even higher...
There are some new stats out from the State of Alaska that I thought you might like to see. For 2008, the Alaska mining industry accounted for 3,500 direct jobs and 5,500 indirect jobs. The industry doled out US$350 million in payroll with the average salary totaling US$82,600 per year, which is 90 percent higher than the statewide average for all sectors. Mining salaries were higher than all other sectors, except for the oil and gas sector. The industry paid US$105 million in...
The Northwest Territories has four operating mines: three diamond producers and one long-running tungsten operation. Exploration and development activity was brisk in 2008 with the most advanced projects located in the Slave Province. Here's a look at mining companies active during 2008 in the Northwest Territories: Producing mines BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc. (80 percent) and partners C. Fipke (10 percent) and S. Blusson (10 percent) produced about 3.5 million carats of rough diamonds at the Ekati diamond mine in 2008, making... Full story
The plummet in base metal prices in 2008 will be felt across Alaska and Northwest Canada's mining sectors. Miners of the far north reaches of North America enjoyed a bounty when base metal prices reached record values in 2007, carrying into 2008. The escalation of base metal prices was driven by expanding markets in China and India, as well as a building, retail and technology boom in the West. Mines producing the industrial metals enjoyed unprecedented returns from the ore sh... Full story
Alaska saw robust mining activity in 2008 across the full spectrum of the industry, from small placer operations to major producers, and from exploration programs to advanced development projects. Here is a look at companies reporting significant progress during the year. Placer mining Silverado Gold Mines Ltd. has recovered 26,879 ounces of placer gold from channel and bench deposits in the Nolan Valley through 2007. The largest nugget recovered from the property, located about 280 miles north of Fairbanks, weighed 41.35...
As 2008 winds inexorably to a close, I found myself looking for words adequate to describe what will go down in history as one of the most memorable years in many a moon. Words like tumultuous, unpredictable, singular, turbulent, chaotic, confusing, and unsettling hardly do justice to the past year's events. As usual, the mining industry played its small but vital role in the scheme of world events. The first half of the year brought stratospheric commodity prices, while the...
Let me start this month's mining update by saying I am not a chartist nor do I believe economic cycles are controlled by cosmic forces known only to the mystics. That said, I do believe in cycles because I have lived and worked through more cycles in the mining industry than I care to remember. So a couple of observations seem in order as we plummet down the slope off another peak into what looks to be a pretty deep, chilly valley. First off, what goes up, must come down with...
The game is afoot all across Alaska with the drills turning to the right on projects all across the state. The operating mines turned in strong first-quarter results and several new acquisitions, joint ventures and new players were announced in the last month. Western Alaska Teck Cominco American announced first quarter results from its Red Dog Mine. In the first quarter, the mine produced 138,500 metric tons of zinc in concentrate. Zinc ore grade increased to 21.3 percent while mill recoveries remained steady at 83.8...
Liberty Star Uranium and Metals Corp. April 10 said it has received interest from "more than one large global mining company" in becoming a joint venture partner to explore the 113,000-acre Big Chunk property that borders the northern and western edges of the Pebble Property in Southwest Alaska. The Tucson, Arizona-based junior said expressions of interest came within two days of a March 26 announcement that Liberty Star is seeking a partner to explore the property. "It is early in the process and the company has no way of ju... Full story
Anglo American plc, a 50-50 partner in the Pebble Project in Southwest Alaska, posted record earnings of $5.8 billion, or $4.40 a share, and $10.1 billion in operating profits in 2007. The results compared with $5.5 billion, or $3.73 a share, in earnings and $9.8 billion in operating profits a year earlier. Total group revenue, however, decreased 7.7 percent in 2007, dipping to $35.7 billion from $38.6 billion in 2006. "The strength of our performance was due to improved production volumes of ferrous metals, copper and zinc,...
Full Metal Minerals Corp. is gearing up for a busy 2008 exploration season. And Rob McLeod, the Vancouver, B.C.-based junior's vice president of exploration, "can't think of a better place to explore than Alaska in terms of mineral potential." McLeod told Mining News in a recent interview that the company will spend between $17 million and $20 million on exploration this year on ten projects in Alaska and one prospect in Canada's Yukon Territory. Some $6.5 million of that... Full story
The results from Alaska's summer field campaigns continue to pour in from all over the state, while field crews wind down their summer work and kick off their winter programs. If the results released this month are any indication of what is yet to come, 2008 is fixing to be one heck of a year! Western Alaska NovaGold Resources announced that initial testing of their crushing circuit had commenced at their commissioning Rock Creek gold mine near Nome. The operation is...
As the late, great Phil Rizutto used to say when something amazing happened on the baseball field: "Holy Cow!" The last month has seen an explosion of activity across Alaska with companies working in virtually every region on a diverse package of metals including gold, platinum group elements, silver, molybdenum, lead, zinc, copper and nickel. Several new companies have entered the exploration field in Alaska and several new partners have joined forces with previously active... Full story
Okay, the lull is over. It lasted about 25, maybe 30 minutes, after I wrote those prophetic but ill-considered words in late January! Shortly after that point I was in Vancouver for the annual Cordilleran Roundup mining conference, an annual barometer of mining activity in western North America if not the world. What I saw at the 2007 conference was a crowd well in excess of 5,000, populated by two types of people: those who were smiling from ear to ear and those whose terrified eyes reminded me of a whitetail deer in the...
Exploration spending in British Columbia hit a record high of C$265 million in 2006, a figure that the province's mining minister, Bill Bennett was proud to announce at the recent Mineral Exploration Roundup in Vancouver. Unfortunately for Bennett, he probably won't be invited to boast about the industry's successes next year, since he was forced to resign in early February after sending an obscenity-laced email to a gun club member. "British Columbians want good jobs, and they also, frankly, want the tax revenues that come... Full story
Hang on to your hat, the data is beginning to roll in from Alaskan field programs and there are some hum dingers in this month's data and several others will be showing up next month. What's a "hum dinger"? How about an Alaska gold project at the center of a $1.5 billion corporate takeover by the world's largest gold producer? Or how about 75 feet grading more than 2 ounces of gold per ton? Or maybe silver production costs of a negative $2.28 per ounce? But wait, there's more...
The game is afoot! The last month has seen the start of a number of field programs in Alaska, marking the beginning of the traditional "field season" in the Great Land. With demand for metals remaining extraordinarily high, Alaska's mining industry is operating at capacity but well below demand. An acute shortage of drills and drillers, geologists and engineers and helicopters to move them all around is affecting exploration, development and production plans around the state. For the first time in my career, money is not in...
In the last month the Alaska mining industry has seen start-up of its first major gold mine in five years (Pogo) and approval of permits for the Nixon Fork copper-gold mine. We also saw announcement of substantial increases in copper, gold and molybdenum resources at two advanced exploration/development projects (Donlin Creek and Pebble). New development plans were offered for heap leaching at the Fort Knox gold mine and initial funding was approved for evaluation of a coal to liquids facility at the Beluga coal deposits.... Full story
As expected, results from the summer field programs have begun to roll in from all over the state. Discoveries from base and precious metals properties were reported in September and several properties previously explored in the Carter administration were rediscovered and are turning out promising results. Metals prices remain robust with gold pushing the $475 per ounce mark. While Alaska's mining industry is still trying to catch its breath from this year, many companies...
The good news from Teryl, Kinross, Geoinformatics, Midas, Geocom and others is tempered by the loss of Alaska's gentleman scientist Ernie Wolff, who passed away on May 3; Liberty Star Gold appoints Phil St. George as VP of exploration s I write this summary of recent activities in Alaska's mining industry I am attending a once-every-five-year symposium in Reno put on by the Geological Society of Nevada. Some 1,500 attendees, mostly exploration geologists, are eagerly lapping up hours of new and previously unheard ideas on... Full story
On the cusp of what promises to be one of the busiest mineral exploration and development seasons in the last 20 years, the mineral industry is madly preparing its personnel and equipment all across the state. Despite the late season snows and unusually cool temperatures being experienced as this summary is being written, many of Alaska's exploration programs are either under way or will be sometime in early May. Competition for funds within and between companies remains fierce as projects in the U.S., Canada, Europe,...
