The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Contango ORE Inc. April 4 announced that Peak Gold LLC, a joint venture between Contango and Royal Gold Inc., has budgeted US$9.1 million for an initial phase of exploration at the Peak Gold (formerly Tetlin) project near the town of Tok in eastern Alaska. Contango ORE discovered the metals potential of Peak Gold while surveying the area for natural gas in 2008 and by 2014 had outlined a high-grade skarn deposit at the Peak zone with more than 1 million gold-equivalent...
New Age Metals Inc. April 14 announced that it has signed a binding letter of intent with Avalon Development Corp. for acquiring and exploring platinum group metals and rare earth projects in Alaska. "We are pleased to partner with Avalon Development Corp. and its president Mr. Curt Freeman in Alaska," said New Age Metals Chairman and CEO Harry Barr. "The LOI accomplishes another milestone in 2018 for NAM which was to find a new mining jurisdiction and a qualified consulting...
In 2017 Alaska’s mineral exploration industry saw its first up-tick in exploration spending since 2011, an increase that S&P Global Market Intelligence’s “World Exploration Trends” indicates was mirrored on the world-wide level. According to S&P’s data, the worldwide exploration industry spent $8.4 billion in 2017, the first such increase in spending since 2012. S&P also forecast a 15-20 percent increase in exploration spending for 2018 as well. The study also showed that dema...
Seven days of near-continuous rain did nothing to dampen the mood at the recently concluded Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver. The event was buoyed by a realistic optimism we have not seen in over five years. This change from half-empty to half-full glasses is due to a number of things including strong commodities prices, increasing global demand for metals and current or looming supply shortfalls in many of the metals produced by this industry. The event was...
Before color televisions hit the markets in the 1960s, rare earths where a curious group of elements that had the distinction of occupying their own separate section at the bottom of the periodic table but had very few practical applications. Over the ensuing 50 years, however, this group of 15 lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium have been discovered to possess unique properties that make them key ingredients in a wide range of modern products such as terabyte hard-drives...
Contango ORE Inc. Sep. 8 announced the discovery of West Peak Extension, a new zone of gold mineralization northwest of the Main Peak deposit, during the second phase of 2017 drilling at the Tetlin project near Tok, Alaska. Tetlin is being explored by Peak Gold, a joint venture between Contango ORE and Royal Gold Inc. In June, the Peak Gold partners published an updated global resource for Main and North Peak – measured, indicated and inferred – of 15.65 million metric ton...
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,...
While many of Alaska's mining explorers were riding the brakes on their promising projects going into 2016, Royal Gold and Contango Ore put their figurative foot to the accelerator at the high-grade Tetlin gold project near Tok, an eastern Alaska community at a junction of highways that lead from Canada to Fairbanks and Anchorage. Neither of these companies are your prototypical mineral explorer. Texas-based Contango Ore came to Alaska seeking natural gas and discovered...
The owners of Alaska’s five large metal mines – Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo, Hecla Mining Company, Kinross Gold Corp, Teck Resources Ltd. and Coeur Mining Inc. – accounted for nearly half the US$92 million of exploration spending in the state during 2014 and similar investments by these companies is providing solid footing for the Far North state’s mineral exploration sector this year. Avalon Development President Curt Freeman said he is seeing more mining majors shopping for d...
Freegold Ventures Ltd. is testing the idea that a large and previously unrecognized porphyry deposit could lie beneath its Shorty Creek property in the Livengood Mining District of Interior Alaska. Earlier this month, the exploration company raised C$1.35 million to fund a 3,000- meter drill program that could provide definitive evidence that various zones of copper, gold and molybdenum found across the 26,000-acre Shorty Creek land package are actually pieces of one porphyry...
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...
Peak Gold, a joint venture between Contango ORE Inc. and Royal Gold Inc., completed roughly US$11.8 million of exploration in 2017 at Peak Gold (formerly Tetlin), an extensive land package in Eastern Interior Alaska located near the crossroads town of Tok. The Peak Gold property hosts high-grade skarn deposits with gold, silver, copper and other metals. Contango ORE discovered the metals potential of Peak Gold while surveying the area for natural gas in 2008. After a...
Alaska's minerals exploration sector is on an upswing, thanks to Australian mining explorers looking north and mining majors upping their activities in the state. South32 Ltd., a Perth, Australia-based miner spun out of BHP Billiton Plc, is the largest mining company from Down Under to express an interest in Alaska's mineral potential this year. South32, which has eight operating mines in the Southern Hemisphere, secured an option to acquire a 50 percent interest in Trilogy...
Contango Ore Inc. Feb. 2 said the first phase of 2017 drilling at the Tetlin gold project in Interior Alaska was underway. Peak Gold LLC, a joint venture between Contango Ore and a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Gold Inc., invested roughly US$10.6 million on exploration at Tetlin in 2016, which included the first winter drill program at this project located just south of the Alaska Highway near Tok. Royal Gold, which is the operator of the JV, can earn up to a 40 percent...
Contango Ore Inc. May 9 reported that 5,236 meters of drilling was completed in 47 holes during the initial phase of drilling at the Tetlin gold project near Tok, Alaska. Carried out by Peak Gold LLC, a joint venture between Contango Ore and an Alaska subsidiary of Royal Gold Inc., this program tested the boundaries of the North Peak deposit and an outlying prospect known as Blue Moon. "The phase 1 2017 drilling program finished up in early April 2017, consisting primarily of...
While the mineral exploration season in Interior Alaska typically runs from the time the ground dries in the spring, usually mid-May, until snow and cold weather make logistics too cumbersome and expensive in October, an increasing number of explorers are carrying out successful winter programs in this especially frigid region of the Far North State. Without a doubt, mounting a successful exploration program in temperatures cold enough to make metal brittle and with only...
From a Texas oilman discovering rich mineral prospects at Tetlin while investigating the natural gas potential of these Native owned lands to a royalty company setting aside its business model to get in on the ground floor of what is shaping up to be a multimillion-ounce deposit of high-grade gold lying alongside the Alaska Highway, Contango Ore Inc. is adding some intriguing new entries to the annals of Alaska geology. The latest chapter of the Tetlin story includes a US$11...
While many mining companies continue to scale back programs on their promising mineral exploration projects, Royal Gold and Contango Ore are expanding the extent of their work at Tetlin. This year, the partners have launched the first-ever winter drill program at this high-grade gold-copper project located near Tok, an eastern Alaska community at a junction of highways that lead to Fairbanks and Anchorage. Neither of these companies are your prototypical mineral explorer -...
Mineral exploration spending in Northwest Territories dipped sharply in 2015. While the final numbers are not in, Natural Resources Canada predicts exploration and deposit appraisal expenditures in the territory to be around C$43.6 million, or less than half the roughly C$95.8 million invested last year. Industry and government leaders in the territory, however, have come together "to develop a robust mineral industry in the NWT." In January, the government announced the...
FVL: TSX President and CEO: Kristina Walcott VP, Exploration and Development: Alvin Jackson In recent years, Freegold Ventures Ltd. has focused its exploration primarily on Golden Summit, a 6-million-ounce bulk-tonnage gold project located roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Fairbanks and four miles (seven kilometers) from Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine. In 2015, the company turned its attention to Shorty Creek, a copper-gold project in the Livengood region of Interior Alaska. For at least three decades,...
Millrock Resources Inc. has cut a deal to buy the Apex-El Nido property, home to two historical high-grade gold mines in Southeast Alaska that have largely been forgotten. Located on Chichagof Island, about 70 miles southwest of Juneau and about the same distance northwest of Sitka, the Apex and El Nido mines churned out at least 17,000 ounces of gold from ore that averaged about 1.4 ounces per-ton gold during spurts of mining carried out between 1922 and 1940. While very...
If another US$4 million investment by Royal Gold Inc. is any indication, drilling so far this season at the Tetlin gold property in Interior Alaska is a success. In January, Royal Gold and Contango Ore Inc. finalized an agreement that affords the Denver-based royalty company an opportunity to earn as much as a 40 percent joint venture interest in Contango's Tetlin project by investing up to US$30 million on the unique and promising gold properties near the crossroads town of...
Thanks to recent progress in development of several major projects in 2014, the outlook for diamond mining in Northwest Territories is suddenly a lot brighter. This is especially good news for the territory's mining industry, which is largely dependent on the production of diamonds now and in the foreseeable future. This point was driven home most forcefully in "Measuring Success 2014: NWT Diamond Mines Continue to Create Benefits," a report recently released by the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines. An update of a January 2013...
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...
AVL: TSX President and CEO: Donald Bubar Senior Vice President, Metallurgy: Dave Marsh Vice-President, Exploration: William Mercer Avalon Rare Metals is focused on developing a mine at its Nechalacho rare earth elements deposit at Thor Lake in Northwest Territories. During 2014, the company is continuing exploration while optimizing a feasibility study completed in 2013. Drilling in 2013 identified high-grade rare earth mineralization near the proposed access ramp location, with one hole intersecting 12.1 meters averaging...
