The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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On Feb. 22, 2022, Teck Resources Ltd.'s Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska became the largest critical minerals operation in the United States, both in terms of quantity and value of the materials produced at this world-class base, precious, and critical minerals operation. Being catapulted to America's top dog when it comes to critical minerals production is not due to the germanium produced, though this semiconductor metal vital to ultrafast computing and communications is...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (May 10, 2022) – "We truly have a bright future for mining in the state if we are allowed to pursue it," was the message Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy delivered to the more than 250 people that gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Alaska Mining Day. While commemorating the intrepid pioneers that first ventured North in pursuit of Alaska's rich mineral potential and celebrating the mining's current contributions to the state's economy, Dunleavy said t...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. April 28 announced its subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership is preparing crews and equipment for its 2022 field program at the Pebble project site in Southwest Alaska. While disputes over the initial denial of mine permits by the Army Corp of Engineers in November 2020, then leading to the EPA's decision to reinitiate the process of making a Clean Water Act Section 404(c) determination in September 2021, Northern Dynasty has opted to continue...
May 10, 2022, celebrates the ninth annual Alaska Mining Day. Established in 2013, Alaska Mining Day was created through legislation sponsored by Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, "to recognize and honor the intrepid individuals and industry that played an enormous role in settling and developing the territory and the state that continue to contribute to the economy of the state." Why May 10? On this day in 1872, the General Mining Act of the United States was approved – w...
Since World War II there may not be a more urgent time to produce Alaska's rich mineral resources. Our nation's immediate defense needs and commitment to clean energy all require a healthy, vibrant mining industry to give our country the security of domestic critical mineral production and the bridge to future clean energy technologies. Crisis brings clarity, and quickly subordinates ideology to real-world practicality. Today we see our globe reeling under the actions of...
At a time when the state is looking at being infused with billions of federal dollars to invest in upgrading roads, bridges, rails, ports and other infrastructure, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority board has authorized an independent study of the 800-mile trans-Alaska transportation corridor that extends from the Ambler Mining District to ports in and around Anchorage. Sitting roughly 200 miles west of Alaska's limited highway network, the Ambler District...
With its world-class mineral potential and favorable mining policies, Western Australia reclaimed the crown as the best place to discover, permit, and build a mine, according to the mining executives that ranked 84 global jurisdictions for the Fraser Institute's Annual Survey of Mining Companies, 2021. Each year, Canada-based Fraser Institute calls on mining executives from around the world to rank global mining jurisdictions when it comes to mineral potential and a broad...
While hailing President Joe Biden's use of the Defense Production Act to bolster domestic production of critical lithium-ion battery minerals and metals as good news for the Far North State's mining sector, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy says this move contradicts actions taken by the administration to reevaluate a road to the Ambler Mining District. "I fully support the President making the development of these minerals a priority in our nation's interest. But the Biden...
Western Alaska Minerals Corp. March 29 said a new geological interpretation based on 2021 and historical data suggests that the historical and high-grade Waterpump Creek silver-zinc-lead deposit may be part of a belt of similar carbonate replacement deposits along a 6,000-meter-long corridor that extends to the Central Illinois Creek pit. Expanding Waterpump Creek and testing this belt are expected to be the primary targets of an initial 6,000-meter drill program slated to...
On the heels of a productive exploration season in 2021 at the MacMillan Pass Project in Yukon Territory, Fireweed Zinc Ltd. has attracted additional capital from lead shareholders, including Australia-based Ibaera Equity Group and Teck Resources Ltd. The new infusion of capital – C$9.7 million in March and C$5.2 million in December – acknowledges the giant-sized zinc-lead-silver potential of the 940-square-kilometer package of mining claims now emerging in a fertile cor...
On March 18, 2022, Alaska's mining community lost Bill Ellis, a close friend and geologist that was universally loved for his kind spirit and optimism, traits that will live on as a legacy as solid as the Alaska rocks he explored for the better part of half a century. All of us at North of 60 Mining News were blessed to get to know Bill and wish to send our love and condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. In honor of Bill's memory, we would like to republish "Bill...
Graphite One Inc. March 14 announced that it has selected Washington as the location for the processing plant that will upgrade concentrates mined at its Graphite Creek project in Alaska to the spherical coated graphite needed for lithium-ion batteries and other advanced graphitic materials. According to a 2019 calculation, the Graphite Creek mine project about 35 miles north of the Alaska gold mining town of Nome hosts 10.95 million metric tons of measured and indicated...
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is leveraging its control over federal land along the Dalton Highway corridor to throw up a roadblock on the proposed industrial access to Alaska's Ambler Mining District. On March 11, BLM notified the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority that it has suspended a previously issued 50-year right-of-way that covers 25 miles of the proposed 211-mile road connecting the Ambler District to Alaska's highway system. Despite the receipt...
This past week the Biden Administration released a document ineptly entitled "Fundamental Principles for Domestic Mining Reform." It would have been more accurately called "Eleven Ways to End Mining in America." It is not difficult to understand why an East Coast boy from Delaware (or maybe Scranton) would have no affinity with the American mining industry. Among other things, Mr. Biden probably could not identify three distinctions between a jackleg and a jackass, other than...
From an expected multimillion-dollar exploration program on the hardrock sources of the placer gold discovered by Felix Pedro in the Fairbanks Mining District 120 years ago to preliminary investigations of the Nikolai nickel-copper-cobalt-chromium-platinum group element project recently added to its portfolio, Millrock Resources Inc. is looking forward to a busy year of exploration on the properties it has generated in Alaska. "Millrock is looking forward to a very active...
In a move criticized by a wide swath of Alaska policymakers and trade organizations, the Biden administration has filed a motion to reverse the federal authorizations for a proposed 211-mile road to the mineral-rich Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska. "You would think President Biden would want to improve access to American sources of copper and other strategic minerals that are needed in our combined efforts to increase renewables. Instead, actions like this only...
Alaska mines produced roughly $3.89 billion worth of nonfuel minerals last year, a 23% increase over the estimated $3.16 billion produced in the 49th State during 2020, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022 published by the United States Geological Survey on Jan. 31. The rise in Alaska mine production value is largely due to increased zinc and gold production, along with strong metals prices last year. According to early estimates by the Alaska Division of Geological...
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and Ambler Metals LLC have agreed to equally fund $30.8 million for a 2022 field program to advance the Ambler Access Project, a proposed 211-mile road that serves as an Alaskan epitome of connecting the aspirations of a low-carbon future with the large volumes of minerals and metals required to build the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that will make the green energy future a reality. The World Bank...
Assays are pending, the unofficial slogan of the 2021 mineral exploration season across Alaska and Canada's North, is a phrase that continues to echo in a void left by the lack of drill results going into the new year. "'Assays pending' has become one of the least popular phrases around the industry this year, given the painfully slow turnaround time at the labs," Tectonic Metals Inc. President and CEO Tony Reda penned in a year-end update on the Vancouver, British Columbia-ba...
Engage. Connect. Evolve. – this theme of AME Roundup 2022 is the perfect reflection of a mineral exploration sector that is adapting to a world in which Zoom meetings and webinars must often replace boardroom meetings and live conferences as a means of engaging investors, shareholders, and stakeholders. "As society recovers and evolves from the disruption caused by the global pandemic, so does our industry," said AME President and CEO Kendra Johnston. "At AME Roundup, you w...
Innovation Metals Corp. Jan. 4 reported that the RapidSX rare earths and critical minerals separation technology it developed for use at Ucore Rare Metals Inc.'s planned Alaska Strategic Metals Complex (Alaska SMC) and other applications is on pace to be ready for commercial adoption and implementation via revenue-producing licensing agreements by the end of 2022. This includes the completion of a demonstration plant at its commercialization and development facility in...
Goldman Sachs' declaration that "copper is the new oil" may serve as a foreshadowing of Alaska's economic future, one that is not so heavily reliant on the revenues from petroleum flowing from the North Slope and leans more heavily on the state's rich endowment of precious, critical, and base metals. The investment bank's suggestion that copper is to become the strategically most important commodity on Earth is due to the vital role the conductive metal plays in global...
While copper may be the new oil of the green energy revolution, a wide variety of industrial minerals and metals found in abundance in Alaska will be needed to build the envisioned low-carbon future. In a 2021 report on the minerals and metals critical to low-carbon energy and transportation, the International Energy Agency estimates that a typical passenger electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional internal combustion engine car and an onshore...
Alaska boasts what many consider the most successful aboriginal land claims settlement on Earth – a solution that has not only turned out to be a cultural success but a brilliant business move for the more than 140,000 Alaska Natives and an economic boon for the state that covers the resource-rich lands these industrious and innovative peoples have called home for millennia. Signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon on Dec. 18, 1971, the Alaska Native Claims S...
Vast petroleum reserves underlying what is now the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (ASRC) region, and the need to build a pipeline to deliver this oil to an ice-free port 800 miles to the south and then to global markets that lie beyond, raised the urgency to settle aboriginal land claims in Alaska. This need for a resolution before a pipeline corridor that would bisect the state prompted lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to enact the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, a...