The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 376 - 395 of 395
Geology isn't always a fast-moving business, especially when you consider that minerals lie around for billions of years before they're discovered and eventually mined. So the fact that Toronto-based Starfield Resources has recently sprung into action after almost a decade of relative quiescence shouldn't mean too much in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that the company is now taking serious steps towards development of its sole project, the Ferguson Lake polymetallic deposit in Nunavut. Starfield appointed a new...
Ahhhh, the calm before the storm! Over the last month the industry slowed and took a collective breath to enjoy friends, family and the holidays in anticipation of another busy year in the Alaska mineral industry. The last month has already seen another new player enter the Alaska mining scene and behind closed doors drilling, helicopter and personnel contracts are being negotiated. The annual Cordilleran Roundup mining convention in Vancouver is right around the corner and promises to be the most exciting conference in over...
A broad spectrum of Alaskans who support the proposed Pebble mine have formed a non-profit organization to inform the public about Northern Dynasty's copper-gold project in the Bristol Bay region. Truth About Pebble was officially launched at a meeting of the Resource Development Council in Anchorage Jan. 18 with speeches by three of the new organization's board members. Truth About Pebble's chairman, Dick Cattanach, who is executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Alaska, told the RDC that the opposition...
Alaska lawmakers, grappling with a requested $36 million hike in the University of Alaska budget this year, could end up axing about $3 million aimed at training young Alaskans for the thousands of new jobs expected in the state's mining, oil and gas, process and construction industries during the next decade. The sharply higher fiscal 2007 budget proposed in January by UA President Mark Hamilton and later endorsed by Gov. Frank Murkowski reflects unusually high fixed costs. These expenses include an estimated $30 million due... Full story
"Ready, aim, fire" is the traditional litany of any marksman hoping to hit his target. But critics of the Pebble mineral development have confused that sequence, firing aimless broadsides at the project even before a clear target has emerged. Recent efforts to inflame public opinion against the Pebble copper-gold deposit as an inevitable environmental catastrophe ignore two fundamental truths. First, Pebble is not a working mine, nor even a mine under construction. It's a mineral deposit whose owners, though certainly busy... Full story
British Columbia's reputation as a region where the mining industry could flourish hit a low point in the 1990s, but the picture is completely different today. That's how Bill Bennett, the Canadian province's minister of state for mining, sees the situation after returning from a jam-packed Mineral Exploration Roundup event in Vancouver in January. The atmosphere at Roundup this year was "almost elation," Bennett said in an interview with Mining News. "Commodity prices are behind us, but there was also a lot of specific inter... Full story
Over the course of the last several months, a series of new gold and base metal discoveries have been made. Several of these new discoveries were reported in the last month and highlights of these and other activities were presented at the annual Alaska Miners Association convention in Anchorage in early November. The convention was one of the most exciting and up-beat events in nearly a decade. The new discoveries are a trend that, while long in coming, are an inevitable...
Higher prices for precious and base metals, gemstones, coal and other minerals are luring explorers back to the Yukon Territory, and this resurgence in mining activity has government officials grappling with ways to encourage the miners to stay. The number and variety of mining exploration projects under way this year bodes wells for the territory's future and for government's chances of re-awakening what many call a sleeping giant - Yukon's mining industry. "Yukon is coming back," says Ivan Jacobsen, a stockbroker at Canacco...
Canada's mining industry could face a labor shortfall of more than 27,000 workers over the next 10 years - and that is the best case scenario, with no industry growth over the period, according to a report by the Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council. "Prospecting the Future: Meeting Human Resources Challenges in the Canadian Minerals and Metals Industry" is an analysis of the situation that was published Aug. 24. In the worst case, with high growth in Canadian mining, the workforce shortage could reach almost...
There has recently been a great deal of talk about how the hard rock mining industry in Alaska "needs to pay its share." One proposal is that this industry should be singled out for the imposition of a severance tax. In discussing this matter with a friend who is not involved with the hard rock mining industry, I was somewhat amazed by her support for this type of taxation. When I suggested to her that major mines often take more than a decade to go from discovery to... Full story
Yukon Zinc Corp., formerly Expatriate Resources, is rapidly advancing a moderate-size project in southeast Yukon toward development. The Yukon Silver-Zinc Project is centered largely on the Wolverine deposit tucked into the side of a mountain in the Finlayson district about 237 kilometers northwest of Watson Lake. The deposit is estimated to contain a 6.2 million-tonne resource. Yukon Zinc employees and contractors culminated nine months of drilling this year Sept. 19 by punching an underground tunnel through the mountain to...
Where has never been a diamond mine in Alaska, but that may change if Golconda Resources has anything to do with it. The Calgary-based junior, in partnership with Shear Minerals and Shulin Lake Mining, is exploring for diamonds at the Shulin Lake property in central Alaska. Diamonds have been found across the border in Nunavut and Northwest Territories. But in Canada, diamonds are brought to the surface in kimberlite pipes, igneous structures that rise due to their high temperature and the extremely high pressures that exist... Full story
Nearly half a decade after embarking on development of the huge Pogo gold resource in Interior Alaska, operator Teck-Pogo Inc. is eyeing light at the end of the tunnel - first production in early 2006. The company is also gearing up for additional exploration near the known deposit later this year. Pogo, 85 miles southeast of Fairbanks near the town of Delta Junction, is estimated to contain 7.7 million tons of ore that should yield just under a half-ounce of gold per ton. Karl Hanneman, the project's manager of public and...
After seeing his daughter Lisa elected to the U.S. Senate, the first place Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski headed to on Nov. 3 was the Alaska Miners Association convention in Anchorage. Perhaps because of his good mood, Gov. Murkowski promised to request a $700,000 addition to next year's budget for enhanced airborne geophysical surveys. In a speech to the convention two days later, Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin confirmed the state's enthusiasm for the mining industry. "Men and women of the Alaska...
Russia's gold mining industry, once ruled by Stalin's most vicious henchmen, has transformed itself into an attractive prospect for international corporations. Much of the gold mining takes place in the Russian Far East, in Magadan and Chukotka, thousands of miles and several time zones away from Moscow. The industry grew up on the backs of slave laborers, sent here as punishment for imaginary crimes and to carve a nation's wealth out of the permafrost. Gold was crucial to the economy of the Soviet Union, which sold gold to...
For Inco, it is the road to becoming the world's largest nickel producer. For the residents of isolated, depressed Labrador, it holds the rare promise of steady jobs and solid economic gains. For the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, it will be a triumphant end to some of the toughest resource-development negotiations in Canadian history. For now, if all goes as planned, the mine and concentrator at the Voisey's Bay project and a demonstration processing plant at Argentia, Newfoundland, will begin operations in 2006, a...
Gold exploration is being fired up in British Columbia and Canada's three northern territories, rekindled by improved metal prices. "The industry is finally coming back," declared Dan Jepsen, executive director of the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines. The British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines is counting on exploration doubling last year's spending of C$55 million, helped by the provincial government's efforts to reduce bureaucratic delays and introduce tax incentives for mining investments. Optimism has... Full story
Although the traditional Alaska field season has not really arrived yet, three significant developments occurred in March: Teck Cominco and Sumitomo Metal Mining received final permits for the Pogo gold project from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allowing construction to move ahead at flank speed, Anglo American acquired its first U.S. mineral property in years by signing a joint venture option on Nevada Star's MAN nickel-copper-platinum group element project and Nov... Full story
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... Full story
Despite the drop in gold prices since a month ago, exploration activities in Alaska are picking up. Two drill programs have already kicked off in Interior Alaska and more are likely to be completed before the end of March. Contracts for drilling rigs, helicopters and experienced geologists are being finalized at a rate not seen here in half a decade. In addition, Alaska's new political administration is aggressively encouraging infrastructure development and making regulatory...
