The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 626 - 650 of 922
Splayed across several steep slopes that plunge into the Yukon River some 78 kilometers (48.4 miles) south of Dawson City in Yukon Territory, the early-stage QV Project is beginning to answer some geological questions that surfaced at least four years ago. That's when Underworld Resources Inc. captured international attention with the discovery of the Golden Saddle gold deposit on its White Gold Project nearby and touched off a modern-day gold rush to the Yukon. Underworld since has been acquired by Kinross Gold Corp., and th...
The Alaska Miners Association's annual convention marks the changing of seasons for junior exploration companies with mineral projects in Alaska. As a blanket of snow hides outcropping rocks and the water needed for drilling crystalizes, geologists who have spent the long summer days investigating the vast mineral endowment across the Far North trade in their hammers, backpacks and hiking boots for suits, ties and PowerPoint presentations that show off the achievements of their latest field programs. While the 2013... Full story
Miners in Alaska make good money! How good? Well, a report recently published by the McDowell Group found that the 329 direct employees at the Pogo gold mine averaged a whopping US$116,916 before benefits during 2012. Roughly 217 of these six-figure paychecks were brought home by Alaskans, including about 167 going to employees living in the Interior region of the state where the high-grade underground mine is located. "Mining is good for Alaska and Pogo, specifically, is an... Full story
The ongoing scarcity of venture capital available to junior companies coupled with a retreat in metals prices has landed a one-two blow that sent mineral exploration spending in Alaska plunging for the second straight year. A handful of big-budget projects scattered across Alaska, though, is softening the hit to exploration spending across the Far North State during 2013. Mineral exploration expenditures in Alaska, which were a meager US$23.8 million in 2001, topped US$365...
Coeur Mining Inc., the new brand for Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., is emblematic of the transformations the silver-gold mining company has made since Mitchell Krebs' ascent from chief financial officer to president and CEO in 2011. "We have really taken a major overhaul of the business; this work is ongoing and will continue. The status quo, in our view, is just not acceptable and so we have worked at retooling our business over the past couple of years," Krebs explained during... Full story
Led by a petroleum engineer with a 25-year history in the oil and gas industry, Contango ORE Inc., known as Core, may be the most unconventional mineral exploration company working in Alaska. Yet, while most of the company's more orthodox colleagues were unable to raise the venture capital needed to mount significant exploration campaigns during 2013, the Houston, Texas-based junior topped its coffers with a US$14.2 million private placement that closed in March. Core...
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 growth begins with the first silver production from the Lucky Friday Mine since the Idaho operation was put out of commission for safety and operational upgrades at the end of 2011. With the Idaho operation scaling back up to full capacity in 2013, Hecla is looking...
There is a reason why Nunavut has one of the fastest-growing economies in Canada: mining. With one operating gold mine at Meadowbank, two huge 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 as well as exploration activities continuing across all three regions of the territory in 2013, there's little wonder that Nunavut's "time has come." "Mining has the best potential to create...
With roughly C$216.6 million in the bank at the end of the third quarter, Novagold Resources Inc. is well-positioned to complete permitting at its Donlin Gold project in Alaska and continue exploration at its Galore Creek copper-gold project in British Columbia. "These are turbulent times in the business, but we have got the cash to see us through the permitting," Novagold President Greg Lang told attendees at the Denver Gold Forum. Ahead of the financial tempest that is battering most of the titanic gold producers and... Full story
NIC: TSX-V Chairman: R. David Russell President and CEO: David McPherson Senior Geologist: Jon Findlay Pure Nickel Inc. had drills turning on two Alaska projects in 2013: the Man nickel-copper-platinum group element project situated in the Wrangelia Terrane of the Southcentral region of the state; and the Salt Chuck palladium-gold project on Prince of Wales Island. Itochu Corp., Pure Nickel's partner at Man, has invested roughly US$22.4 million on exploration at the project since 2008. This work has earned the Tokyo-based... Full story
Explorers chasing mineral deposits in British Columbia, Yukon Territory and Alaska are routinely getting expert assistance with their projects from researchers at the Mineral Deposit Research Unit of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. A collaborative venture between the mining industry and UBC, the unit was established in 1989 with support and financial assistance from the mining industry and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The unit is an integrated geologic and geophysical...
Young people working on mining projects in Yukon Territory are nothing new. But young people in charge, running the show at some of the most exciting mining projects in Canada's Far North? That's different and was noticeable in several camps during the 2013 field season. Whether in grassroots exploration, at advanced projects or in producing mines, a new generation of 30-something and even younger professionals, appears to be taking the lead in the Yukon. The trend even extends beyond mining to government, where Currie... Full story
A substantial amount of mining activity continued apace in Yukon Territory this season even though most mining companies are shying away from the anorexic capital markets. Many exploration companies raised funds in other ways, turning out their pockets to return to Yukon in 2013 to explore for Carlin-style gold mineralization in the east-central region of the territory, for more gold-bearing structures in the White Gold and Klondike districts to the west and for other styles and types of mineralization elsewhere in the territ...
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...
Before we take a peek at what is happening across Alaska, I'd like to summarize a superb presentation on the world's exploration industry presented by MinEx Consulting's Richard Shodde at a mining conference in South Africa. He pointed out that since 1990 there has been a very strong correlation between gold price and exploration expenditures. While not earth-shattering in itself, he took the conclusion one step farther: analyst predictions for the gold price through 2020 are...
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... Full story
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...
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...
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...
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... Full story
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... Full story
VANCOUVER, B.C. - British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Territory - the headliners of the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia's 2013 Mineral Exploration Roundup - tallied more than C$1 billion of mineral exploration spending in 2012. This marks the second year running that these neighboring jurisdictions at the northwestern extent of the North American Cordillera topped the C$1 billion mark. But unlike the 2012 Roundup, a year in which explosive exploration... Full story
Lacking the fanfare emblematic of an explorer hot on the trail of a high tenor gold-copper-silver deposit, Contango Ore Inc. recently posted results from its Tetlin project that include a 58.5-meter intercept averaging 14.45 grams per metric ton gold, 0.24 percent copper and 9.1 g/t silver. While this interval from hole TET1218 underscores the potential of this previously undrilled prospect, it is not alone. Some 20 holes sunk into the newly discovered Peak zone tapped broad... Full story
Alaska miners are on the cusp of topping 1 million ounces of gold produced, an annual milestone that has not been achieved since Gold Rush pioneers recovered copious amounts of alluvial aurum at the turn of the 20th Century. "When you think about what a million ounces of production means, it is all the more amazing that it was first accomplished by placer miners and a few lode miners, a few shovelfuls at a time, more than a century ago!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska...
I finally found something I have been thinking about for a long time but had not seen discussed in detail. We have all seen summaries of the declining rate of discoveries for new mineral deposits and have heard about the steadily increasing cost of production, now at a record US$727 per ounce, according to GFMS' Gold Survey 2012. What I really wanted to know was the replacement cost of an ounce or a pound of metal. Let's take gold for example: If I am a producing mine and I just produced an ounce of gold, what is the cost of...
