The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 526 - 550 of 922
Reuters recently reported that the 10 largest gold-producing companies worldwide have steadily increased their near-mine exploration budgets over the past few years to 56 percent in 2015 from 45 percent in 2013. They also reduced their higher-risk greenfields exploration budgets to 21 percent from 25 percent in the same time period. This retrenchment of exploration by the larger producers is occurring, while global gold output is declining with an expected reduction of 9...
Kiska Metals Corp. Oct. 13 reported results from a single hole drilled this year at the Copper Joe porphyry copper-gold project in Southcentral Alaska. This drilling consisted of an 806-meter hole targeting the center of a 1,400-meter-wide geophysical anomaly. This hole did not return any significant assay results but did cut 400 meters of hydrothermal breccia with abundant pyrite is that is believed to be the cause of the conductivity low anomaly identified by geophysics. Kiska said the extent of brecciation and the...
Western Alaska Copper & Gold Oct. 17 reported results from the 2016 drill program at its Round Top copper-molybdenum project in the Illinois Creek Mining District of western Alaska. The goal of this program, which included the first drilling since Anaconda Minerals Co. tested the property in 1981, was to verify historical holes drilled at the east lobe of the Round Top deposit and then step out to test targets identified by recent soil geochemistry and high resolution...
Peak Gold is raising the bar for high-grade gold deposits in Alaska. In fact, the gold grades this joint venture has reported from summer drilling at its Tetlin project in eastern Interior Alaska are so remarkable that near-surface, minable widths of quarter-ounce-per-metric-ton-gold cut at the project's Peak zones are overshadowed by numerous 13-meter-plus intercepts of more than 1.5 oz./t gold. One such example of this eclipsing effect can be found in TET16272, one of 19...
Over the last month the inevitable termination dust has begun to show up across Alaska, bringing with it completion of mineral exploration programs and transition of development and production projects to winter operational modes. Explorers, developers and miners will soon be gathering to compare notes at the annual Alaska Miners Association Convention in Anchorage, an event that always overlaps national and local election night. Alaska's mineral industry outlook brightened...
Anniversary celebrations, golden milestones and rising metals prices are providing Alaska's metal miners with plenty to cheer about in 2016. Roughly 1 million ounces of gold will be mined in Alaska this year, when you tally the amount of the precious metal produced at four of Alaska's large metal mines – Fort Knox, Pogo, Kensington and Greens Creek – and the placer aurum produced at the family-scale operations across the state. Fortunately for all these miners, gold shot up...
Endurance Gold Corp. Oct. 31 reported gold intercepts in the first hole of the 2016 drill program at its Elephant Mountain gold property about 76 miles northwest of Fairbanks, Alaska. This hole, EL 16-14, was drilled on the eastern margin of the South zone soil anomaly at Elephant Mountain. Hole EL 16-14A cut 4.6 meters averaging 4.09 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 18.3 meters. This hole was lost and re-drilled at slightly shallower angle as EL 16-14B, which cut...
After two years of legal wrangling, Pebble Limited Partnership and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have traded the courtroom floor for a negotiating table to resolve differences that would likely influence the viability of developing a mine at the world-class Pebble copper deposit in Southwest Alaska. In 2014, the Pebble Partnership filed a suit action in federal district court in Alaska, alleging that EPA violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act by working...
Kinross Gold Corp. celebrated two milestone events at its Fort Knox Mine in 2016, the seven-millionth-ounce of gold poured and the 20-year anniversary of this Interior Alaska operation. Seeking to extend its current operations with near-mine exploration is one of Kinross' primary objectives. "Kinross' exploration is focused on brownfield projects around existing operations, and we continue to look for ways to further extend our operation," Fort Knox General Manager Eric Hill said. "We believe Alaska is an attractive mining...
Independence Gold Corp. is exploring a growing portfolio of gold projects in Yukon Territory and British Columbia. Boulevard, a gold property that lies immediately south and west of Goldcorp Inc.'s recently acquired Coffee gold mine project, has been a primary exploration focus in recent years. Goldcorp, which acquired Coffee through a C$500-million buy-out of Kaminak Gold Corp., also acquired a 19.99 percent interest in Independence Gold buy purchasing 10.88 million shares of that company through a private placement in...
Like a gong proclaiming the end of the long and arduous bear market for North of 60 mining explorers, the May 12 news that Goldcorp Inc. would buy Kaminak Gold Corp. for roughly C$500 million reverberated from Yukon Territory throughout the North. While the rich lure of developing a mine at Kaminak's robust Coffee gold project lured Goldcorp to the Yukon, it was the exploration potential and the ability to permit and build a mine that convinced the producer to expand into the...
While many of Alaska's mining explorers were riding the brakes on their promising projects going into 2016, Royal Gold and Contango Ore put their figurative foot to the accelerator at the high-grade Tetlin gold project near Tok, an eastern Alaska community at a junction of highways that lead from Canada to Fairbanks and Anchorage. Neither of these companies are your prototypical mineral explorer. Texas-based Contango Ore came to Alaska seeking natural gas and discovered...
Is the impasse between Pebble Limited Partnership and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the potential development of the world-class Pebble copper deposit in Southwest Alaska about to be resolved? Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., currently the sole owner of the Pebble Partnership, believes the standoff will likely be over by January if an ongoing lawsuit between Pebble and the EPA runs its full course, and possibly sooner if the parties come to an agreement outside of...
With C$2.5 million in the bank and roughly two dozen mineral exploration projects it has generated in Alaska, British Columbia, New Mexico and Mexico, Millrock Resources Inc. is prepared for a stellar 2017 as metals prices rise and a bullish sentiment returns to mining markets. "While we will not under-estimate the work ahead, we continue to carry forward into 2017 with a spirit of optimism," Millrock President and CEO Greg Beischer said. "The cycle seems to have changed, and...
Miranda Gold Corp. and Gold Torrent Inc. have their sights set on opening a high-grade gold mine at the historic Willow Creek property in the Hatcher Pass region of Southcentral Alaska by the end of 2018. Only about 75 miles north of Anchorage, this 8,700-acre property blankets a large portion of the Willow Creek mining district, including the pre-World War II Lucky Shot and War Baby mines. It is estimated that from 1918 until being shut down by the federal War Production Boar...
CopperBank Resources Corp. March 7 said it has hired DOWL, an Alaska-based engineering firm, to provide initial infrastructure planning for Pyramid, an advanced exploration project on the Alaska Peninsula that hosts 172.8 million metric tons of inferred resources, averaging 0.35 percent (1.34 billion pounds) copper, 0.02 percent (74.4 million lbs) molybdenum and 0.09 grams per metric tons (488,000 ounces) gold. “Three very important components of any copper project of merit are geology, location and access to i...
With winter programs winding down and summer efforts rapidly ramping up, it is becoming clear that 2017 will be a much more vigorous year for the Alaska mining industry than the 2013 to 2016 period. For example, my internal estimates are already pushing $75 million for exploration activity alone and a significant number of projects that have announced exploration plans have not yet announced budgets for 2017, so that number is likely to rise. Compare this to estimates of less...
Having outlined 1.26 million ounces of gold, 5.11 million oz of silver and 39.6 million pounds of copper in the measured and indicated resource category at the Peak deposits, Royal Gold and Contango Ore are now looking for new zones of similar high-grade gold mineralization at other prospect across theTetlin gold project near Tok, Alaska. “Having discovered and now defined a substantial body of ore, our drilling plans for the summer of 2017, which commenced in mid- May, are ta...
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. June 13 announced the start of a 7,000-meter drill program with two drills at the Palmer volcanogenic massive sulfide project near Haines, in Southeast Alaska. This is the first program under the newly formed Palmer joint venture between Constantine (51 percent) and Dowa Metals & Mining Alaska Ltd (49 percent). The majority of this year's drilling is dedicated to discovery of new mineral deposits. Palmer is host to numerous high-quality prospects with large hydrothermal alteration zones and...
The summer solstice has come and gone, but the Alaska mining industry has paid little attention to the decreased amount of daylight because it is high summer in the high latitudes, time to be out completing work programs that have been in the planning since last fall. Exploration drilling programs have sprouted in the Brooks Range, Interior, Alaska Range, Southeast, Southwest and the Alaska Peninsula. In addition, the sounds of tire-kicking are being heard over a wide area of...
Year-round placer gold mining in Alaska will be possible starting this winter, at least virtually, if a Poland-based video game developer gets "Gold Rush: The Game" finished on schedule. Based on the wildly popular Discovery Channel show, "Gold Rush," this placer gold mining simulator is set in Alaska and includes four unique gold claim areas based around unique Alaskan inspired stories. The game features realistic looking machinery such as excavators, loaders, dozers and...
Endurance Gold Corp. Dec. 8 reported final results from a four-hole drill program completed this year at its Elephant Mountain gold property in Interior Alaska, about 76 miles northwest of Fairbanks. In late October, the company reported 4.6 meters of 4.09 grams per metric ton gold in EL 16-14A, a hole drilled at the South zone target at Elephant Mountain. EL 16-14, drilled about 1,400 meters to the north, encountered a broad zone of gold mineralization in the North zone....
Freegold Ventures Ltd. Dec. 6 said the 2016 drill program at it Shorty Creek project in Interior Alaska has confirmed the presence of a copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry system with an alteration-mineralization footprint that covers roughly 2,500 acres. The company confirmed the porphyry potential in 2015, when it stepped out from the previous shallow reverse circulation drilling completed by Asarco in 1989-1990 with deeper core drilling. The best hole drilled last year, SC15-03...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. Nov. 7 provided results from the summer exploration program at its Richardson gold project in Interior Alaska. This program included 277 line-kilometers of ground magnetic geophysical surveys and the collection of 1,297 geochemical samples. Northern Empire said the geophysical work confirmed the Richardson lineament, a mineralized structural corridor at Richardson, and identified several north-northeast structures that the company has recently...
Millrock Resources Inc. Sept. 22 said induced polarization geophysical surveys are underway at its Stellar gold-copper project located near the Denali Highway in central Alaska. This IP survey - being carried out by a subsidiary of Vista Minerals Pty Ltd, a private Australian company - covers the Jupiter copper occurrence and on the west flank of the high-grade Zackly gold-copper skarn deposit. Roughly 12,200 meters of drilling in some 85 holes has been completed at Zackly,...
