The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Extremely hard and with the highest melting point of all the metals, tungsten's toughness is legendary. Like many of the other metals that have found their way onto critical mineral lists in Canada, Europe, and the United States, this durable metal is vulnerable to Chinese control. "World tungsten supply was dominated by production in China and exports from China," the U.S. Geological Survey inked in its 2021 mineral commodities report. It is estimated that mines in China...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Aug. 11 announced that it has joined the National Mining Association, which advocates for United States mining to Congress, the White House, federal agencies, and others in Washington, D.C. Ucore's joining with the more than 250 other corporate and organization members of NMA coincides with its preparation to construct the Alaska Strategic Metals Complex rare earth element processing facility by the end of 2023. "Ucore's membership in the National...
After raising C$10 million earlier this year, Graphite One Inc. is collecting the final bits of data needed for a prefeasibility study that details the company's vision to establish a United States supply chain for the coated spherical graphite used as an anode material in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and store intermittent renewable energy. The first segment of this supply chain is the world-class Graphite Creek mine project about 35 miles north of...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. believes the Biden administration's newly announced strategy to strengthen America's supply chains aligns with its own vision to disrupt China's dominance of the rare earth elements supply chain in the United States. "We are very pleased with the White House's concern for REEs and its efforts to spur the domestic production of critical materials," said Ucore Rare Metals Chairman and CEO Pat Ryan. Based on the feedback from a 100-day American supply...
Racing to become Canada's first miner of rare earth elements, Vital Metals Ltd. had clocked another milestone by producing a 12-kilogram sample of rare earth carbonate in a bulk sampling program at its Nechalacho rare earths project located 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Yellowknife, the capital of Northwest Territories. Vital is hoping to begin production of rare earth oxide at Nechalacho in the second quarter of 2021, with early production from a North T starter...
I always tend to look at the world through the wrong end of the telescope. For instance, many people regard the so-called political divisions in our country as being a problem, but for me, it is an expression of diversity. To be sure, Congress is divided, allegedly along "party" lines; however, the last time I checked, the Republican "party" is ensconced into two camps, which tend to vote together on most important issues. The Democrat "party" on the other hand consists of...
From a world-class graphite deposit in the Northwest to rare earths on the Southeast Panhandle, Alaska has the potential to offer a sustainable and secure supply to meet the coming explosive demand for the minerals and metals crucial to the renewable energy and electric vehicle sectors in North America and around the globe. International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, estimates that this shift to low-carbon energy and electric mobility will create nearly...
Alaska mines produced roughly $3.16 billion worth of non-fuel minerals during 2020, a slight increase over the $3.13 billion during 2019, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021 published by the U.S. Geological Survey on Feb. 2 The rise in Alaska mine production value is largely due to higher gold output at Alaska's large mines and record setting prices for the precious metal last year. According to early estimates by the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical...
Already headed toward the lowest level of annual mineral exploration spending in nearly two decades, the mining industry in Nunavut got broadsided by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Travel and workplace restrictions quickly imposed last spring by federal and local authorities to prevent the spread of the disease to the northern territory led some companies to cancel or postpone planned exploration programs until 2021. In February, Natural Resources Canada released figures...
With 2020 in the rearview mirror, now is a good time to reflect on and prognosticate about Alaska and things mining. First, with regard to things past, from the impeachment to the election, 2020 was not a great year. Despite the incessant sniping at the President's heels, the Administration almost survived for another term. Due to the weighting of the Electoral College system, some analysts tell us that a shift of only 22,000 votes would have changed the outcome. While the...
Would you consider drinking heavy metals to make your stomach feel better? A serum containing arsenic, cadmium, lead or mercury would only make matters worse and could be deadly. Bismuth, the heaviest of the heavy metals, however, is swigged by millions of indigestion sufferers each year. In fact, stomach remedies such as Pepto-Bismol, along with cosmetic applications, are currently the largest market for bismuth. Being the only non-toxic heavy metal, bismuth is being...
Best known for its ability to resist heat and corrosion, antimony is in a wide array of consumer goods – from paints and plastics to batteries and wind turbines. This critical mineral is also used to make clearer glass for smartphones, computer screens and solar panels. "Today, antimony is used in lead-acid storage batteries for backup power and transportation; in chemicals, ceramics, and glass; in flame-retardant materials; and in heat stabilizers and plastics," the U.S. G...
Niobium and tantalum are nearly identical critical mineral twins with unique personalities that takes them on separate career paths in the defense, energy, high-tech and medical sectors. "The leading use of niobium is in the production of high-strength steel alloys used in pipelines, transportation infrastructure, and structural applications," the United State Geological Survey penned in a 2018 report on the indispensable twins. "Electronic capacitors are the leading use of...
The United States is heavily dependent on China and other foreign suppliers for its barite, a mineral critical to the petroleum sector. Barite derives from barús, the Ancient Greek word for heavy, owing to an exceptionally high specific gravity for a non-metallic mineral. It is this weight that makes barite a key element to the oil and gas sector and lands the mineral on USGS' critical list. "More than 90% of the barite sold in the United States was used as a weighting agent...
America's supply of tungsten, an extremely durable metal that is vital to a broad range of American industrial sectors, is at high-risk. A recent U.S. Geological Survey assessment to identify which mineral commodities are most at risk to supply disruptions ranked tungsten near the top of the list – alongside rare earth elements, cobalt and graphite, platinum group metals and tungsten. Like many of its neighbors at the top of the mineral commodity supply risk list, much of the...
When you consider the 17 rare earths and six platinum metals individually, more than 50 of the elements on the periodic table have been deemed critical to the economic wellbeing and security of the United States, a list that worries the White House and many policymakers in Washington, D.C. To sort the hierarchy of this expansive list, the U.S. Geological Survey has developed a tool that helps identify which mineral commodities lying at the crux of America's manufacturing...
Due to their vital importance to American manufacturing and the fact that 100% of U.S. supply comes from overseas, primarily China, rare earth elements top the list of minerals and metals deemed critical to the United States. When the U.S. Geological Survey plugged in 52 critical mineral commodities into a recently developed supply risk tool, six rare earth elements – dysprosium (No. 1), yttrium (No. 2), neodymium (No. 3), lanthanum (No. 5), cerium (No. 6) and praseodymium (...
In addition to dealing a major blow to the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic has shined a spotlight on a chink in the United States' economic and security armor – an overreliance on foreign countries for the minerals and metals that lie at the frontend of American supply chains. "The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how delicate our supply chains are and that should be a wakeup call for all of us," Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said dur...
Northern Dynasty Minerals first set its sights on Alaska's Pebble deposit in the 1990s. After acquiring the property in 2001, the company spent more than a decade and close to $1 billion proving it up as one of the greatest mineral resources ever discovered – certainly on American soil. Consider the following: • contained copper at Pebble is equivalent to ~1.3% of all the copper metal ever discovered or produced in the past 10,000 years; • contained gold at Pebble is equiv...
More than six years after turning its attention to advancing to production the world-class mineral reserves of its Nico project in Northwest Territories, Fortune Minerals Ltd. is again putting boots on the ground in search of new mineralization near the Nico deposit located 160 kilometers (99 miles) northwest of Yellowknife. The tenacious junior reported Sept. 2 that an exploration program planned for the 2020 field season is underway, despite restraints imposed by the...
National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan says the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the risks associated with America's overreliance on foreign supply chains for nearly every sector of the economy, especially when it comes to minerals. "As states continue to open across the country, we must focus on investing in and establishing domestic supply chains to help speed our economic recovery and make us more resilient to future crises," he penned in a June 9 letter....
Fortune Minerals Ltd. May 7 announced that it continues to make progress on a new mine plan for its Nico cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project in Northwest Territories during the coronavirus pandemic. The company said it is complying with government COVID-19 protocols, including temporary closure of its head office in Ontario, prohibiting non-essential travel and social distancing. Working from home, Fortune employees, with some assistance from engineering consultants, continue...
On April 6, President Donald Trump issued an executive order for the United States government to work with industries on moving forward with space exploration, and the exploitation of minerals and water discovered to further that cause. This of course has raised concerns from other nations, primarily Russia and China, who tout the Moon Treaty drawn up by the United Nations in 1979. This widely unpopular pact states that space resources are "global domain," which means they...
Alaska mines produced roughly $3.13 billion worth of non-fuel minerals last year, down roughly 9 percent from the US$3.44 billion in 2018, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2020, an annual report published by the U.S. Geological Survey on Feb. 6 – the earliest comprehensive source of world mineral production data. The drop in Alaska mine production value is largely due to lower output from the two largest gold mines in the state – Fort Knox and Pogo. According to ear...
USA Rare Earth LLC and Texas Mineral Resources Corp. has made a major advancement toward developing the heavy rare earth separation technology that the U.S. Army is looking to invest in. The Army recently sent memos requesting information on the costs to develop separation facilities that can produce heavy rare earths, which tend to be the least abundant but most highly prized of the 17 elements considered rare earths. Further details on the Army memos and Pentagon's push to...
