The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The unseasonably, interminably, unspeakably cold spring that is delaying mineral exploration and development work in Alaska this year is being mimicked by a financial chill that is affecting Alaska exploration efforts just like it is the rest of the world. Not to put too fine a point on it, but from a mineral exploration standpoint, Alaska is shaping up to be as dead as a doornail this summer (ever wonder where that saying came from ... but I digress.). How dead? Try this statistic on for size: Of the 49 exploration projects...
Fire River Gold Corp. has dug a deep hole at Nixon Fork- not only a drift to the high-grade gold for which the mine is known but also a more perilous financial deficit that could result in the Vancouver B.C.-based junior losing the remote Alaska operation. Laden by heavy debt and unable to reach commercial production Fire River, in late June, said it was placing Nixon Fork on care and maintenance "until a revised operating plan has been developed and market conditions improve....
At two metric tons per hour, the mill at WestMountain Gold Inc.'s Terra project is the smallest of the hardrock gold operations in Alaska. But with feedstock exceeding one ounce of gold per metric ton, the electrum recovered from this pilot plant will likely help finance ongoing drilling of the high-grade veins for which the project is known and a much larger deposit believed to be lurking nearby. After completing the set-up of this pilot plant, WestMountain fed 23 metric...
In the best of times, a government-sponsored mining incentives program could be a wise investment of public revenue to stimulate economic development in a mining-intensive jurisdiction like Yukon Territory. In a sustained capital drought like the one currently scorching the industry, funds awarded through the Yukon Mining Incentives Program can be the deciding factor in whether boots even hit the ground on many mineral exploration projects across the territory. Designed to promote and enhance mineral prospecting and explorati...
Novagold Resources Inc. is well-equipped, not only to ride out the financial tempest that is battering most of the titanic gold producers and junior exploration companies, but to take advantage of the inclement market conditions that are forcing others to take shelter. "Notwithstanding the share price and the continued market conditions challenging mining equities, we find ourselves in a better position as a company than we had hoped," Novagold President Greg Lang informed...
Canadian Zinc Corp. in recent weeks has reported significant progress in wading through the final regulatory and financial obstacles that could potentially bar its path to bringing the Prairie Creek Mine Project into production. Prairie Creek Mine is an advanced-staged zinc-lead-silver project located 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Yellowknife in southwestern Northwest Territories. Canadian Zinc is working to develop a 1,000-metric-ton-per-day underground mining operation at Prairie Creek using multiple methods to access...
Among the dozen or so companies that are advancing mineral-rich deposits in Nunavut this year, none has more going on inside and outside of the territory this summer than Glencore Xstrata plc. Xstrata plc, owner of the Hackett River silver-zinc project located in western Nunavut, merged with Glencore International plc in late May to become one of the world's largest mining and trading companies. The US$30 billion deal created a mega-entity that employs nearly 200,000 people in 50 countries around the globe to generate full...
Regardless of having its stock price battered to the point of triggering a delisting review by the Toronto Stock Exchange, Pure Nickel Inc. has mustered resources sufficient to carry out multimillion-dollar mineral exploration programs at both of its Alaska properties in 2013. Due to the low share price of the stock, Pure Nickel's market capital fell below the C$3-million-threshold for mining companies listed on the TSX, which triggered the delisting review. Pure Nickel has...
You say the world's frontiers have all been conquered, and Nature's riddles have all been solved? Don't tell that to Darnley Bay Resources Ltd. The Toronto-based junior is celebrating two decades this summer of working to unravel one of Earth's most intriguing mineral mysteries. The puzzle lies deep beneath the earth's surface in Canada's Far North in what potentially may be the strongest isolated gravity anomaly in the world and certainly, in North America. Located near Paulatuk, Northwest Territories on the Arctic coast,...
With a marketing campaign seemingly designed to send investors and their money running, Contango ORE Inc., also known as Core, may be the most unconventional mineral exploration company working in Alaska. A presentation posted on the company's website in 2011 provides a sense of the explorer's unabashed frankness: "It would be truly exciting if Core owned gold or REEs (rare earth elements) - we sadly do not - we are an exploration company i.e. a pure and simple...
Scotiabank's Commodity Price Index, after losing significant ground in late 2012, started 2013 on a stronger note, climbing 3.8 percent in January before slipping 0.9 percent a month later, Scotiabank Vice President, Economics Patricia M. Mohr told a capacity crowd at 2013 Nunavut Mining Symposium in April. The annual gathering, held April 8-11 in Iqaluit, NU, the northern territory's capital, attracted 500 delegates, matching the record attendance reported for the symposium in 2012. Mohr, a commodity market specialist at...
There is a reason why Nunavut has one of the fastest-growing economies in Canada: mining. With one operating gold mine at Meadowbank, two projects on the verge of startup at Hope Bay and Mary River , five projects advancing through the environmental assessment process at Meliadine, Back River, Hackett River, and the Izok corridor, and exploration activities continuing across all three regions in 2013, there's little wonder that Nunavut's "time has come." That's the word from Matthew Spence, director general of the Northern...
Following a rising chorus of junior companies touting impressive exploration programs on mineral prospects across Alaska that reached its crescendo in 2011, a deafening silence is resonating across the Far North expanse in 2013. And in the junior mining sector, no news is bad news. Mineral exploration expenditures in Alaska, which were a meager US$23.8 million in 2001, climbed to US$347 million by 2008. The "Great Recession of 2008" tightened the equity markets, resulting in...
The Government of British Columbia's push in recent years for mine exploration and development in the northern region of the province is slowly bearing fruit. An early plum is Thompson Creek Metals Co. Inc.'s Mount Milligan copper-gold mine in north-central B.C., which is rolling toward startup in August and commercial production in the fourth quarter. Terrane Metals Corp., a subsidiary of Thompson Creek, reports that construction of the 60,000-metric-tons-per-day open pit mine, which is located 155 kilometers (about 96...
The 28th Alaska Legislature has forwarded a slew of bills to the desk of Gov. Sean Parnell that are aimed at recognizing the Last Frontier's rich mining history and ensuring the industry is a key component of the state's economic future. Senate Bill 1, which designates May 10 of every year as Alaska Mining Day, was the first of these to garner Parnell's endorsement. May 10 was chosen to coincide with the day the General Mining Act of the United States was adopted in 1872....
Mineral consulting group Behre Dolbear Group Inc. released its 2013 "Ranking of Countries For Mining Investment Where Not to Invest." Since 1999 the group has compiled annual political risk assessments from key players in the global mining industry. Geology and mineral potential are not considered in this survey, since such potential is inherently indicated by the fact that mineral exploration, development, and mining activity are occurring in these countries. The only...
Copper Fox Metals Corp. recently completed a positive feasibility study of its Schaft Creek porphyry copper, gold, molybdenum and silver project in northwestern British Columbia that could mark an important turning point for the project. The Calgary, Alberta-based company holds title and a 100 percent working interest in Schaft Creek, which is located due east-northeast of Petersburg, Alaska, about 61 kilometers (38 miles) south of the village of Telegraph Creek. The feasibility study prepared by Tetra Tech in late December...
The Government of Yukon received comments from around the globe during recent public consultation in the prolonged land-use debate over the Peel Watershed, a 77,000 square kilometer mountainous and wild expanse in the northern part of the territory that also extends across the border into central Northwest Territories. The Yukon portion of the watershed, 68,000 square kilometers (26,255 square miles), an area roughly the size of West Virginia and Delaware combined, is undergoing land-use planning in a process laid out in...
In a year that has started off with more than its share of mining industry gloom and doom, this year's Fraser Institute "Survey of Mining Companies, 2012/2013" provided a bit of sunshine for Alaska. The annual survey of exploration and mining companies gauges the pros and cons of working in various political jurisdictions around the world. This year's results came from 742 mineral industry companies working in 96 jurisdictions worldwide and represented cumulative 2012 explorat...
There's nothing like getting an early start, especially when it comes to mining exploration in Canada's Far North. Literally, there's nothing like the 2013 program that Prosperity Goldfields Corp. kicked off in late February at its Kiyuk Lake Project to the east in southern Nunavut nor the 2013 field campaign launched about the same time by Kaminak Gold Corp. at the Coffee Gold Project in Yukon Territory. In a year when many mining companies are having to scrape together enough exploration funds to even mount a field program...
The 6.4 million ounces of low-cost silver recovered from the Greens Creek Mine in Southeast Alaska during 2012 is funding growth aspirations at Hecla Mining Co., including a foray into Canada's mining sector. "This past year, with the Lucky Friday down, Greens Creek generated strong silver production and cash flow to allow record capital investments that are expected to generate not only higher silver production in 2013, but expected organic growth well into the future," said...
The huge Selwyn lead-zinc project in eastern Yukon Territory is one of the latest on a growing list of resource developments attracting mega-investments from Chinese companies to Canada. Selwyn, perhaps the largest undeveloped zinc-lead deposit in the world, is located in the heart of the Yukon's mineral-rich Selwyn Basin. After an aggressive multi-year exploration program, junior miner Selwyn Resources Ltd. attracted a C$100 million investment in June 2010 from Yunnan Chihong Zinc & Germanium Co. Ltd., a fully integrated min...
URU Metals Ltd., a base metals and uranium explorer with interests in Africa and South America, is making a bold foray into Canada in 2013 to investigate the potential of the Nueltin Lake gold-uranium project held by Cameco Corp., one of the world's largest uranium producers. URU has signed an option with Cameco to earn a majority interest in the project, which is located in the Kivalliq region of southern Nunavut about 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the Manitoba border. The Nueltin Lake granite terrane straddles the...
The annual Cordilleran Roundup Mining Convention is held in Vancouver at the end of January each year, and this year's convention was unlike any of the nearly 20 such conventions I have attended. The norm for this convention is a sort of anticipatory excitement that permeates every facet of the event. Mineral exploration is the focus of this gathering, and explorationists are by and large optimistic people. While there was no lack of optimism at the 2013 convention, if you...
NovaCopper Inc. is 2.4 billion pounds closer to reaching its goal of defining a 10-billion-pound copper camp in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. "In our first season of drilling at South Reef, we have defined 2.4 billion pounds of high-grade copper and the mineralized system is wide open for expansion," NovaCopper CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse said. South Reef, with an inferred resource of 43.1 million metric tons of material averaging 2.54 percent copper, is the...
