The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Worries about the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe, uncertainty about where the U.S. economy is headed and a slowing of growth in China is prompting miners to favor gold over industrial and luxury minerals such as nickel and diamonds. Some 62 percent of mining executives from 802 global mineral exploration and development companies said they expect gold prices to increase by at least 20 percent over the next two years when responding to questions about future... Full story
Avalon Rare Metals Inc. is working to capitalize on the jump it believes it has on competitors. The would-be producer of rare earth elements told investors recently that none of the other companies currently pursuing development of REE mining projects will have all of the highly desirable heavy rare earths ready to market by 2015-2016. Currently, China produces some 95 percent of the world's REEs, and the county will soon consume 60-70 percent of the world supply. Yet in the next five to 10 years, the Asian country could...
A thriving minerals industry is essential for Alaska's economic growth. If Alaska were a country, we would be among the top 10 countries in the world for coal, zinc, copper, lead, zinc, and silver resources. By responsibly developing these resources, we have the potential to support the economies of entire regions of the state and help secure a stable domestic supply of minerals. The Parnell Administration is focusing on ways to advance mining opportunities in Alaska in an environmentally responsible way. A major step in...
Alaska officials are seeking to turn the national challenge of securing domestic supplies of critical minerals into an opportunity. "Alaska has accepted the challenge," Gov. Sean Parnell told participants in the Strategic and Critical Minerals Summit held Sept. 30 in Fairbanks. "Where China has said, 'We're going to curtail exports,' Alaska is accepting the challenge of saying, 'We've got them here, and we want to provide them to our nation and to the world beyond." The Department of Natural Resources organized the...
Leveraging its global dominance in the realm of rare earth elements, China has set in motion a strategy to gain supremacy in manufacturing the vast array of technologically advanced products that depend on these metals. "China can exploit rare earths that they control all the way out to electric cars, wind turbines, whatever it is - and that is the grand strategy," American Elements Chairman and CEO Michael Silver told some 200 participants in the Alaska Strategic and... Full story
China Minerals Mining Corp., formerly Hawthorne Gold Corp., is gearing up to begin its 2011 exploration program at the company's two northern British Columbia gold properties, Table Mountain and Taurus. China Minerals is the result of a fortuitous meeting of Hawthorne principle co-founders Richard Barclay and Michael Beley with a major shareholder, Skyocean Holding Co. Ltd. The two well-known Canadian miners visited Beijing in late 2009 to meet with executives of the private Beijing-based development company and came away a...
Zinc, the fourth most consumed metal in the world, is an essential building block of modern society and the dominant metal mined in Alaska over the past two decades. In 2010, 538,000 metric tons of zinc was mined at Teck Resources Ltd.'s Red Dog Mine and an additional 67,580 metric tons of zinc was recovered as a byproduct at Hecla Mining Co.'s Greens Creek silver mine, accounting for US$1.3 billion, or about 42 percent, of Alaska's US$3.1 billion of mineral production for...
Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan June 3 informed U.S. lawmakers of Alaska's strategic mineral endowment and the role the Far North state can play in assisting the nation in overcoming its critical mineral challenges. Sullivan's testimony was delivered to the U.S. House Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee hearing on H.R. 2011, the "National Strategic and Critical Minerals Policy Act," sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado; and H.R.... Full story
DENVER - China may be poor in natural resources, but the country has enough cash to source its burgeoning need for minerals from foreign lands. This was the message that Mamadou Barry, senior mining specialist in the Sustainable Energy Department of the World Bank brought to participants in the Mining Americas Summit 2011 held here June 13-14. "China is a country of superlatives. In February China overtook Japan to become the second-largest economy in the world, and they are... Full story
As the United States scrambles to fill the rare earth elements supply shortage caused by China's export restrictions on these technologically important metals, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, each have introduced legislation on Capitol Hill that seeks to revitalize domestic production of the minerals most critical to maintaining military security and a robust economy. "It is critical that we have a national policy, and we are behind the...
Growing demand, especially in China and India, is driving intensified diamond exploration, development and mining activities in Northwest Territories. Diamond prices, which plunged during the recession, also have steadily rebounded recently amid healthier demand. The territory's producing diamond mines are pulling out the stops to boost their output, while developers of potentially a fourth large diamond mine reported progress recently in moving their project closer to startup. Output climbs at Diavik Harry Winston Diamond Co...
Can mining and Alaska co-exist? This query was the crux of Anglo American plc CEO Cynthia Carroll's message to Alaskans attending a March 3 gathering in Anchorage sponsored by the Resource Development Council. Carroll, whose company owns a 50 percent stake in the Pebble Project, said economic benefits from developing the enormous copper-gold-molybdenum project would emanate from Southwest Alaska and extend around the world, a message that resonated with the pro-development...
The Fraser Institute recently released its "Survey of Mining Companies, 2010/2011," an annual survey of exploration and mining companies that gauges the pros and cons of working in various countries around the world. This year the survey results came from 494 mining companies working in 79 jurisdictions and representing cumulative exploration expenditures of more than US$2.4 billion in 2010. There was a bit of honey and a bit of vinegar for Alaska in this report. Let's do...
U.S. Sens. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., are up in arms over the U.S. Department of Defense's apparent laidback approach to ensuring it has an ample supply of the rare earth elements critical to many of the weapons systems in the U.S. military's arsenal. "Clearly, rare earth supply limitations present a serious vulnerability to our national security. Yet early indications are the DoD (Department of Defense) has dismissed...
Unlocking Alaska's vast mineral resource has been at the top of Gov. Sean Parnell's agenda since being elected to his first full term as the state's governor in November, a position he reiterated during his Jan. 19 State of the State address. "Without liberty, we cannot have a strong economy. So let's take stock of our economy and what we must do to keep it sound. Of course, there are many topics we could discuss: gasline, the university, fish. All are important, but tonight...
Mining exploration activity in northern British Columbia approached record levels in 2010 with explorers setting a new drilling record and spending about C$168 million in pursuit of a wide range of minerals, including gold, copper, silver, molybdenum, and rare earth elements, according to a top provincial geologist. Paul Wojdak, regional geologist for the Northwest Region of British Columbia's Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, said the major good news mining story in 2010 for central and northern British... Full story
The swift development of Ucore Rare Metals Inc.'s Bokan-Dotson Ridge deposit in Southeast Alaska is vital to providing the United States with a domestic supply of critical rare earth elements. This is the message world-renown REE expert Jack Lifton delivered to attendees of the Alaska Miners Association 2010 annual convention in Anchorage. Beyond just mining the heavy rare earth element-rich ore at Bokan, the technological metal consultant advised the State of Alaska to...
More and more explorers are buying up and/or staking claims in an elongated area of central British Columbia that is emerging as a significant rare earth metals play, while juniors line up to mobilize exploration crews to begin searching the area for economic concentrations of rare earths. All of this attention is focused on a major continental geologic feature known as the Rocky Mountain trench, a southeast-northwest trending swath of mountainous ground that could host numerous potentially economic concentrations of rare met...
Primed for booming exploration for several years, the Yukon Territory appears to have hit big in 2010, both literally and figuratively. Emerging as one of the world's mining hot spots, the Northwest Canada jurisdiction is reporting industry investment exceeding C$120 million. Propelled by record gold prices and key gold discoveries, as well as surging demand in Asia for base metals and a mining friendly government, miners flocked to the territory in growing numbers, bringing generous exploration budgets and fresh theories... Full story
UCU: TSX-V President and CEO: James Mackenzie Vice President, Project Development: Harmen Keyser Vice President and CFO: Peter Manuel At the behest of lawmakers at both the state and federal levels, and with the support of the U.S. Geological Survey, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (formerly Ucore Uranium Inc.) is advancing the heavy rare earth element-enriched Bokan Mountain project located about 37 miles from Ketchikan in Southeast Alaska toward feasibility. The U.S. Bureau of Mines more than 20 years ago estimated the site...
In the last month, several of Alaska's major metal mines reported strong operating numbers; one company released a preliminary economic assessment and three new mineral exploration companies acquired exploration interests in Alaska. While the functions of explorers and producers are quite different, the symbiotic relationship between the two ends of the mining cycle is unequivocal: exploration would not exist without production and production would eventually cease without...
DAWSON, Yukon Territory - Hardrock mining explorers are capitalizing on unprecedented investor interest and going after paying gold, silver, copper-rich porphyry, lead-zinc and other metal deposits here with uncommon gusto this summer. A few years ago, a multimillion-dollar, single-season exploration program would have been a rare commodity in the Yukon. But this year, at least a half-dozen juniors have joined one major, Kinross Gold Corp., and the Yukon's only producer, Capstone Mining Corp., in forking over megabucks to...
Two seminal events related to the Alaska mining industry occurred in the past month. First, in late June, Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. reported the commencement of production at it Kensington gold mine near Juneau. The mine has now joined the ranks of large-scale producers here in Alaska but only after lots of years and lots of dollars, capped by a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court! Hat's off to Coeur for its commitment to Alaska and for its desire to do this job right. Secondly,...
China, which mines the majority of the global supply of rare earth elements within its borders, has, over recent years, increasingly restricted its exports of the unique minerals to non-China-based production facilities. This trend has continued with a July announcement that the Far East country intends to slash its exports of the high-technology metals by an additional 72 percent. Rare earth minerals are made up of 17 elements including terbium, thulium and yttrium. They are...
Chinese companies are doing their homework and investing in base metals projects in northern and western Canada to take advantage of rising prices and to secure a future supply of the minerals for their operations back home. First on the scene were private Chinese companies, Jinduicheng Molybdenum Group and Northwest Nonferrous International Investment Co. In the summer of 2008, they purchased a 100 percent interest in Yukon Zinc Corp., which owns the Wolverine Project and other mineral assets in the Finlayson District of...
