The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 96
Racing past a milestone that marks roughly the midpoint of its planned path to production at Lawyers, Benchmark Metals Inc. completed a preliminary economic assessment in August that outlines an economically robust mine at this Northern British Columbia project that would produce 1.7 million ounces of gold and 26.7 million oz of silver over an initial 12 years of mining. According to a calculation completed in June, the AGB, Cliff Creek, and Dukes Ridge deposits at Lawyers...
Working with First Nations is key to unlocking the Golden Triangle's vast potential. A world-class copper-gold district that is also enriched with nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals, and other critical minerals, the Golden Triangle region of Northern British Columbia is poised to be a major supplier of the mined commodities critical to a low-carbon future, cutting-edge technologies, and strong global economies. "Responsible mineral exploration and development are critical...
Pushes ahead AK mine, WA plant to meet vast EV battery demand. As automakers look to secure the graphite required for lithium-ion batteries that will power the hundreds of millions of electric vehicles expected to traverse global highways over the next three decades, Graphite One Inc. continues to put milestones in its rearview on a journey to develop a mine at its Graphite Creek project in Alaska and advanced graphite processing facility in America's Pacific Northwest. "Our s...
A shortage of the graphite required for the lithium-ion batteries powering the transition to electric mobility is elevating the criticality of Graphite One Inc.'s plans to develop a mine in Alaska and advanced graphite processing and recycling facility in the Pacific Northwest. "Our strategy is to build a complete graphite anode supply chain – from mine to battery – located in the United States," said Graphite One CEO Anthony Huston. "And to complete the circular economy for...
Tesla and other automakers clamor for nickel suppliers with low CO2 footprint Tesla CEO Elon Musk's 2020 appeal to "please mine more nickel" served as a rallying cry for mining companies with projects positioned to deliver this critical battery metal into global markets. Going into 2022, however, the electric vehicle trailblazer's words were echoing in nearly empty warehouses as the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs are demanding more nickel than global miners can supply....
Electric Vehicles require six times the minerals than their fossil fuel forebearers With even the most basic models boasting sophisticated driver-assist, navigation, infotainment, diagnostics, and other advanced digital systems being fed power from oversized versions of the lithium-ion batteries found in your laptop or smartphone, electric vehicles are becoming personal computers that you can drive. While this puts a whole new spin on the term mobile computing, riding around i...
General Motors, Stellantis, and Tesla moving further up battery supply chain With the batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution demanding more lithium than miners can produce, the price of this lightest metal in the universe rocketed more than 1,000% over the span of two years. This has prompted automakers such as Tesla and General Motors to become more directly involved in the mining and refining of the lithium-ion battery namesake. "Price of lithium has gone to...
Benchmark Metals Inc. Aug. 16 published results from a preliminary economic assessment that outlines an economically robust mine at its Lawyers project in Northern British Columbia that would produce 1.7 million ounces of gold and 26.7 million oz of silver over an initial 12 years of mining. According to a calculation completed in June, the AGB, Cliff Creek, and Dukes Ridge deposits at Lawyers host 67.38 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.26...
Benchmark Metals Inc. July 27 announced plans to drill multiple new targets near the AGB deposit on the company's Lawyers gold-silver project in Northern British Columbia. One of three deposits currently delineated at Lawyers, AGB hosts 11.37 million metric tons of pit-constrained measured and indicated resources averaging 1.05 grams per metric ton (384,000 ounces) gold and 43.9 g/t (16.1 million oz) silver. Benchmark has identified multiple intriguing targets adjacent to AGB...
Benchmark Metals Inc. June 13 announced that its Lawyers gold-silver project in Northern British Columbia now hosts 2.74 million ounces of gold and 52.9 million oz of silver in the measured and indicated resource category. The updated resource for Lawyers includes the results from 200,000 meters of drilling completed in 1,097 holes at the Cliff Creek, AGB and Dukes Ridge deposits. "The expanded Mineral Resource Estimate is demonstrating the world-class potential of Benchmark's...
Benchmark Metals Inc. May 31 announced the signing of a new agreement with the Tahltan Central Government that establishes processes that allow the Tahltan First Nation to engage and benefit from Benchmark's exploration of the Lawyers gold-silver project in Northern British Columbia. The roughly 96,000-square-kilometer (37,000 square miles) Tahltan Territory, which covers approximately 70% of the Golden Triangle region of northwestern BC, extends east to the north-central...
Benchmark Metals Inc. May 24 reported that drilling cut high-grade gold and silver within a wider zone of mineralization in the Marmot discovery area of the company's Lawyers property in Northern British Columbia. According to a calculation completed about a year ago, Lawyers hosts 40.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.19 grams per metric ton (1.55 million ounces) gold and 38.7 g/t (50.2 million oz) silver; plus 16.2 million metric tons of inferred...
Benchmark Metals Inc. April 29 reported that strong results from this year's resource expansion drilling at Dukes Ridge indicates that this deposit still has gold and silver to contribute to the overall resource on the company's Lawyers project in Northern British Columbia. According to a calculation completed last year at about this time, the Cliff Creek, AGB, and Dukes Ridge deposits at Lawyers host 40.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.19 grams per...
Benchmark Metals Inc. Jan. 28 reported that the latest results from its 2021 drill program is continuing to expand Cliff Creek South, a newly discovered expansion area of the Cliff Creek deposit on the company's Lawyers gold project in Northern British Columbia. According to a calculation published in May, the Cliff Creek, AGB, and Dukes Ridge deposits at Lawyers host 40.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.19 grams per metric ton (1.55 million ounces) gold...
Assays are pending, the unofficial slogan of the 2021 mineral exploration season across Alaska and Canada's North, is a phrase that continues to echo in a void left by the lack of drill results going into the new year. "'Assays pending' has become one of the least popular phrases around the industry this year, given the painfully slow turnaround time at the labs," Tectonic Metals Inc. President and CEO Tony Reda penned in a year-end update on the Vancouver, British Columbia-ba...
Continuing a massive drill campaign launched in 2020, Benchmark Metals Inc. completed 83,570 meters of drilling at Lawyers during 2021. This includes resource upgrade and expansion drilling at and around the three gold-silver deposits defined so far, plus exploration drilling at several discovery targets across the 56-square-mile (144 square kilometers) property in Northern British Columbia. This expansive program has garnered the support of Eric Sprott, which has invested...
Despite a season challenged by heavy rains and an early snowstorm, the massive amount of exploration carried out in Northern British Columbia during 2021 piled loads of drill core and surface samples on assay labs already severely backlogged by COVID-19 protocols and restrictions that slowed the flow of samples in and data out of these facilities. Just how busy was the 2021 exploration season across the northern half of BC? According to North of 60 Mining News calculations,...
Benchmark Metals Inc. Jan. 12 reported strong gold and silver mineralization from infill and expansion drilling at the AGB deposit on the company's Lawyers project in Northern British Columbia. According to a calculation published in May, the Cliff Creek, AGB, and Dukes Ridge deposits at Lawyers host 40.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.19 grams per metric ton (1.55 million ounces) gold and 38.7 g/t (50.2 million oz) silver; plus 16.2 million metric tons...
Benchmark Metals Inc. Nov. 8 reported that drilling has encountered additional near-surface, high-grade and bulk-tonnage gold-silver mineralization that could improve the economics of mining of the Cliff Creek deposit on the company's Lawyers project in Northern British Columbia. According to a calculation published in May, the Cliff Creek, AGB, and Dukes Ridge deposits at Lawyers host 40.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.19 grams per metric ton (1.55...
The global transition to electric vehicles plugged into renewable energy sources is powering enormous demand for graphite, the single largest ingredient in lithium-ion batteries. "Graphite demand increases in both absolute and percentage terms since graphite is needed to build the anodes found in the most commonly deployed automotive, grid, and decentralized batteries," the World Bank penned in a 2020 report, "The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition." According...
Considering the almost unfathomable quantities that will be needed to power the global shift to low-carbon energy and electric mobility, copper is the most critical of the minerals and metals that have not been deemed critical by the United States or the European Union. How much demand will it take to push an abundant and widely produced metal like copper to the level of criticality? A doubling of current demand would likely be sufficient, and many analysts are forecasting...
The envisioned green future where every North American is driving a battery-powered electric vehicle charged with renewable energy could be undermined by cobalt, a somewhat scarce and controversial metal that makes lithium-ion batteries better. "Cobalt is considered the highest material supply chain risk for electric vehicles in the short and medium term," the U.S. Department of Energy penned in an April report. This risk has automakers, lithium-ion battery manufacturers, and...
"Please mine more nickel," these four words from Tesla CEO Elon Musk reverberated across the global mining sector and raised awareness of how fundamental nickel is to the lithium-ion batteries powering hundreds of millions of electric vehicles to come off Tesla and traditional automaker assembly lines over the next two decades. "Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Musk implored...
Global governments and industries are setting increasingly ambitious targets for the phasing out of fossil fuel-burning automobiles in favor of electric vehicles charged with green energy. Achieving these grand climate objectives, however, is going to require an equally bold strategy to ensure there are plentiful supplies of the new generation of energy minerals and metals critical to building this revolution in the way the world generates and uses energy. The World Bank...
The lightest of all the metals in the universe, lithium has emerged as the namesake for the batteries powering electric vehicles down global highways and storing renewable energy for those EVs to plug into. This is on top of the countless laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearable electronics, power tools, household appliances, electric bikes, scooters, toys, and the seemingly endless list of electric devices made possible by lithium-ion batteries. "Lithium consumption for...
