The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The stock symbol "NCQ" lit up the boards on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges May 2, marking the official launch of NovaCopper Inc. as an independent mineral exploration company under the leadership of NovaGold Resources Inc. founder Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. "Now that we are a public company independent of NovaGold, we are looking forward to unlocking great value from the exceptional assets we have in the Ambler mining district," said NovaCopper President and CEO Van Nieu...
The Nunavut Mining Symposium, held April 16-19 in Iqaluit, NU, the northern territory's capital, drew more than 500 delegates, a record for the annual gathering. Patricia M. Mohr, vice president of Scotiabank, delivered the keynote address, outlining the financial institution's 2012-13 outlook for metal prices, currencies and global growth. Mohr, a commodity market specialist at the Toronto-based international bank, said price increases in the bank's widely respected Metal & Mineral Index at 11.1 percent per annum during the...
Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emphatically denies it has predetermined whether to exercise its authority under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act to prohibit or restrict large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed, a draft assessment published by the regulatory agency surmises that development of Pebble and other promising copper deposits in this vast expanse of state-owned land in Southwest Alaska may pose a threat to a world-class salmon fishery...
The winds of change are once again blowing across Alaska's mineral industry, not only because the industry is gearing up for another busy summer season, but also because the mining investment climate has turned from cautiously optimistic to decidedly undecided. The sea change occurred steadily and without a lot of fanfare between mid-January and mid-March. As is always the case, good projects continue to advance with those that are drilling and adding resources or moving throu...
When geologists talk about the exciting gold deposits recently discovered in Canada's Yukon Territory, they use terms like "structurally controlled, intrusion-related" and "Carlin-style." Attentive laymen soon catch on, recognizing that "structural" often characterizes the non-glaciated hydrothermal deposits found in the White Gold district of west-central Yukon and "intrusive" commonly refers to impressive finds in mountainous central Yukon, while some discoveries to the east have been labeled "Carlin-style" because of...
David Mate, chief geologist for the Canada Nunavut Geoscience Office, is part of a team of scientists venturing this field season into relatively unknown territory. Mate refers to the Hall Peninsula where he will be working this summer as "white space" on modern geological maps. "This is very exciting for a geologist. It's also interesting because it's in my backyard," Mate told Mining News April 22. Nunavut is Canada's northernmost and least-explored territory. About 1 ½ times the size of Alaska it is generally regarded as...
The Fraser Institute's "Survey of Mining Companies, 2011/2012" was recently released to the public. This annual survey of exploration and mining companies gauges the pros and cons of working in various countries around the world. This year's results came from over 800 mineral industry companies working in 93 jurisdictions and representing cumulative 2011 exploration expenditures of over US$6.3 billion. The perception of Alaska from the companies that work here was about the...
As Northern Freegold Resources Ltd. heads into a fifth season of exploration on the Freegold Mountain Project in central Yukon Territory, a picture is slowly emerging of yet another large natural repository of precious and base metals in the prolific Tintina Gold Belt. Not only does the district-scale property loom above still-producing placer gold creeks in the heart of a proven gold and copper mining belt in central Yukon, its sprawling 198 square kilometers (75 square miles) lie just 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of...
More than 30,000 people attended the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention held in Toronto March 4 - 7, breaking last year's attendance record of 27,714 participants from 120 countries. The annual convention, currently in its 80th year, attracts investors, analysts, mining executives, geologists, prospectors and international government delegations from all over the world and represents a tremendous networking and educational opportunity for the industry. The gathering's Trade Show and Investors...
There are some new statistics just out from the Alaska Miners Association that I thought you might like to see. For 2011, the Alaska mining industry accounted for 4,500 direct jobs and 9,000 indirect jobs. The industry paid US$620 million in payroll with the average salary totaling US$100,000 per year, which is double the statewide average for all sectors. The industry paid US$148 million in rents, royalties, taxes and other fees to the State of Alaska (up 170 percent over...
British Columbia, Yukon Territory and Alaska - the headliners of the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia's annual Mineral Exploration Roundup - tallied more than C$1 billion of mineral exploration spending and some C$12.7 billion in mine production in 2011. "We are going to talk in the next three sessions about the wrinkly parts of western North America - B.C., Yukon and Alaska. The geological phenomena that has created these mountain chains that we have in...
One year after going public, Chieftain Metals Inc. is blazing a trail through roadblocks that impeded past efforts to re-open the historical Tulsequah Chief Mine, a precious metals-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide project on British Columbia's western border about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Alaska's capital city of Juneau. A C$20 million initial public offering that closed in December 2010 provided Chieftain with the funds needed to put the project back on the...
After an extremely busy, productive year, the final weeks of 2011 and the first few weeks of the New Year were remarkably quiet for Alaska's mining industry. But not to worry, it appears to be just a pause, while everyone catches their breath before heading into what promises to be another eventful year. While reading the plentiful (and sometimes bizarre) end of year reviews and forecasts, I came upon one that surprised me. In a Dec. 30 news release, Reuters noted that gold...
In the shadow of two new producing mines and startup of a gold mine on the near-horizon, a mega-mine project is quietly taking shape in a remote area of central Yukon Territory. The sprawling Casino property, where Western Copper and Gold Corp. has spent the past five years aggressively exploring and defining a huge copper-gold-molybdenum-silver resource, is proving to be an attractive venture that could transform the territory's mining industry, delivering within the next few years 1,800 construction jobs over four years...
One byproduct of the recent revival of the mining industry in Yukon Territory is the ongoing success of the rehabilitated Skagway Ore Terminal at Alaska's Port of Skagway. Originally built in 1968 to accommodate ore shipments form Yukon's Faro lead-zinc mine, the terminal closed in 1997 after the Faro Mine ceased operations due to unfavorable market conditions. Purchased by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority from White Pass Railway in 1993, the terminal, after substantial renovation, resumed shipping ore...
The value of mineral production in Yukon Territory is expected to soar in 2013 to more than C$1 billion when the third of three producing mines hits its stride with commercial output of about 1,700 metric tons per day. The territory, meanwhile, is enjoying the economic benefits of having three high-paying and big spending mines in operation. In 2011 the value of mineral production at Capstone Mining Corp.'s high-grade Minto copper-gold-silver mine, Alexco Resource Corp.'s Bellekeno silver-lead-zinc mine and Yukon Zinc...
It is still early days in the exploration play for gold in eastern Yukon Territory, but a score of companies got a jump on competitors in 2011 by targeting promising occurrences of gold and pathfinder elements in a frenzy of unprecedented claim staking and reconnaissance. The early explorers rushed to the region following a report by Atac Resources Ltd. in September 2010 that it discovered unusual mineralization in the rocky eastern ridges of its 1,600-square-kilometer (618 square miles) Rackla Project. Atac posted high-grade...
I was tempted to make a few 2012 predictions now that 2011 is nearly gone, but I decided not to when I came across the following lines and was struck by how closely they mimic our current mining climate: "On a more local level, several old Alaska properties have been rejuvenated by new players to the Alaska mineral scene. Reserve announcements have touched off renewed land acquisitions and property negotiations. Contracts for technical personnel, drill rigs, helicopters and...
NovaGold Resource Inc. has made tectonic shifts in its leadership and corporate structure. Shedding all of its assets except for the Donlin Gold project in Southwest Alaska, the restructured company is singularly focused on bringing this 40-million-ounce gold deposit into production by the end of the decade. Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse - who founded NovaGold and guided the exploration company through 15 years of trials and triumphs - is relinquishing NovaGold's top executive office...
Much of Alaska's resource wealth is locked up in more than 350,000 square miles (906,000 square kilometers) west of the state's contiguous road system. Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell has included some US$50 million in his fiscal 2013 state budget proposal to support measures aimed at gaining access to much of the state's abundant oil, gas and minerals resources including three roads that would trek westward. "Better transportation corridors will open up petroleum and mining...
Stretching some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) off Southwest Alaska into the Pacific Ocean, the Alaska Peninsula and trailing Aleutian Islands host among the oldest gold discoveries ever made in Alaska, yet it is the only island arc environment in the Pacific Ring of Fire without a major producing mine. Though no mines are currently operating in this region rich with epithermal gold, and porphyry copper-gold mineralizing systems, the arc has a prominent entry in the annals of...
As a busy year in the Alaska and global mining industry starts to slide closer to its end, I figured now was a good time to gaze into my crystal ball (rutilated quartz, of course) to see what next year might bring. While strong metals prices promise another busy year for Alaska, a dose of global reality was provided by the financial giant Ernst & Young, who recently published a list of the top 10 business risks for the mining and metals industry for the coming year. Resource n...
As cold weather wraps up the 2011 field season, mining in Yukon Territory appears to be getting hotter, with exploration and development activities throughout the year living up to all of the pre-season hype and then some. Early in the year, explorers laid the groundwork for grassroots exploration seemingly in every corner of the territory. No sooner than the meeting rooms emptied at Roundup in Vancouver in late January, than a frenzy of claim staking erupted in the Yukon. Golden Predator Corp. snatched up all of the...
Droves of exploration companies have rushed to Yukon Territory in recent years to hunt for sizable deposits of gold, silver, copper, rare earth elements and base metals. Employing the most advanced geophysical and geochemical techniques available, along with their best hunches, these explorers, like others around the globe, are pulling out all the stops to find commercial quantities of the minerals currently riding the winds of strong demand and high prices. But noticeably absent from the list of lucrative commodities being...
Is the "Yukon Gold Rush" about to spill into Alaska? Since the 1896 discovery of gold on the aptly named Bonanza Creek sparked a stampede of fortune seekers to the rivers and streams of the Klondike, these world-class mining jurisdictions that share a common geological and mineralization history have been engaged in a cross-border rivalry of drawing prospectors and miners to their mineral-rich deposits. While 19th Century miners seeking their fortunes in Alaska's Fortymile...
