The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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As the mining industry booms and companies rush to develop new properties, there is often one major snag in remote northern regions: inadequate infrastructure. This is the case with the Red Chris property in British Columbia, which completed the province's environmental assessment process last August. Vancouver-based bcMetals is champing at the bit to obtain permits and start construction of its proposed copper-gold mine, but everything hinges on whether or not the British Columbia government will build a 37.5-megawatt power...
Mining programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks stand to benefit from the recent creation of an enlarged College of Engineering and Mines, the Alaska Minerals Commission heard at its meeting in Fairbanks Sept. 28. John Aspnes, dean of the college, and Gang Chen, a professor of mining engineering, explained to the commission how UAF is doing its bit to overcome the mining industry's workforce shortage. When UAF's various science, engineering and mathematics departments came together to form the College of Engineering and...
It isn't every day that a junior mining company takes a project all the way to development. In fact, it "rarely" happens, according to Dr. Harlan Meade, president and CEO of Yukon Zinc Corp., the successor company to Expatriate Resources Ltd. But the Yukon Zinc-Silver Project in southeastern Yukon Territory is well on its way to becoming such a rarity. Vancouver, B.C.-based Yukon Zinc filed its environmental assessment report for the Wolverine deposit Nov. 3, setting in motion a permitting and public review process expected...
Full Metal Minerals Ltd. has launched an eight-hole drilling program covering 1,200 meters at the Lucky Shot Gold Project, about 40 miles north of Anchorage. The program - the initial phase of exploration at Lucky Shot by the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company - will target an extension to the Coleman Vein at the Lucky Shot Mine. The mine is in the second largest historic lode-gold producing region in Alaska. From 1908 to 1951 Lucky Shot operated as one of the richest in Alaska, producing 252,000 ounces of gold at an...
Current market conditions favor the three metals uncovered in the Pebble project operated by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. in southwestern Alaska. Not only are gold and copper fetching good prices, but a recent run-up in molybdenum prices could deliver a nice bonus for the project. Little known metal makes big contributions Molybdenum, pronounced "meh-LIB-deh-nem," is mainly a byproduct of copper mining but some standalone molybdenum mines do exist. The element was discovered by Carl Welhelm Scheele, a Swedish chemist, in...
An explosion in demand for nuclear energy in the face of chronically short supplies is sending long-time mining companies and a growing cadre of new players scurrying across North America in search of new uranium hot spots. Annual demand for uranium, used primarily for nuclear power generation, has climbed to more than 160 million pounds. Saskatchewan-based Cameco Corp., the world's largest uranium miner, estimates that even without the potential for higher demand due to rising oil and natural gas prices, global uranium...
What a difference a year makes ... along with a few things like rebounding metals prices, China's voracious appetite for minerals and investors' enduring love affair worldwide with gold. That's the assessment of Alaska officials after reviewing the state's annual report on mining industry activity in 2003, released in late October. The cumulative value of Alaska's mining industry in 2003 dipped slightly to $1.067 billion, down about $6 million from the $1.073 billion reported in 2002, according to the report, the 23rd in an...
Robust metal prices are the most positive factor affecting Alaska's mining industry over the past year, according to Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association. "Metal prices are what drives the industry," Borell said. He said it is a significant fact that prices for base metals such as lead, zinc, copper, nickel and molybdenum are high at the same time as those for gold, silver and platinum. In world metal pricing it is not often the case that base metals and precious metals rise simultaneously....
It's still a few years off, but if NovaGold Resources Inc. turns the Ambler prospect into an operating mine, it could open up a mineral belt with a total of $12 billion in reserves - at 1982 prices. That $12 billion figure comes from a 1982 state report listing 10 major volcano-derived deposits in northwestern Alaska, from the operating Red Dog Mine all the way to the border of Gates of the Arctic National Park. Perhaps the biggest and richest concentration is the Arctic deposit 150 miles east of Kotzebue near the villages...
Canada's junior mining companies are cash rich for the first time in seven years, having led the way in raising C$3 billion in 2003 to signal the revival of exploration plays along with development and acquisitions both overseas and on the domestic front. The industry has not seen such an influx of cash since the 1997 scandal accompanying the collapse of Bre-X Minerals, followed by a prolonged period of low gold and base metal prices that ended in mid-2003. As a result the stage is set for the liveliest exploration program...
Three exploration companies independently and secretively launched major land staking efforts in December, laying claim to more than 300 square miles of state land surrounding the Pebble gold-copper-molybdenum deposit in southwest Alaska. Characteristics of such large, multiple-porphyry deposits and past exploration success at Pebble sparked the substantial interest by prospectors who hope to find similar mineralization. "It's the largest porphyry alteration in the world and a variety of the characteristics of such...
