The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 701 - 725 of 922
With a 20-million-ounce gold discovery embellishing their résumés, International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. co-founders Jeff Pontius and Russell Myers have taken the helm of Corvus Gold Inc., a junior formed in 2010 to explore Tower Hill's non-Livengood assets. During the initial year after the spin-out, Pontius continued to guide Tower Hill and its Livengood project into the transition from advanced exploration to early development and Myers turned his attention to getting C...
Kiska Metals Corp. is not only enduring Alaska's sometimes inclement winter weather but also embracing the ground-freezing conditions as a means to lower the costs of exploring the multitude of porphyry targets across its expansive Whistler copper-gold property about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Anchorage. "Although it is Alaska, winter is one of the most efficient times of the year for us to be working up there," Kiska Metals President and CEO Jason Weber...
Millrock Resources Inc. is artfully implementing the science of making grassroots gold and copper discoveries, proving the promise of these new finds and vending the prospects to other companies to do the heavy lifting of defining a deposit. This business model is paying off for the project generator. Some US$11 million is being spent on exploring its Alaska copper and gold prospects in 2011, with nearly US$10 million funded by its project partners. Senior miners Teck...
From deploying its own geologists to make grassroots discoveries to partnering with junior explorers with strong geological know-how and enticing projects, Teck Resources Ltd. is seeking new high-quality deposits of zinc, copper and gold across Alaska and Canada's North. "In terms of our overall exploration strategy, it has three parts to it: One is doing our own grassroots, regional exploration; the second arena we get involved with is joint ventures with junior companies; an...
Throughout the 2011 field season, explorers pushed the envelope in Yukon Territory, scrambling to target and assess rapidly increasing numbers of deposits of gold, silver and base metals mineralization being identified as the exploration rush that overtook the region in 2009 stretched into its third consecutive year. With gold prices climbing to new highs and a stable investment climate, the lure of the Yukon attracted miners and investors in numbers not seen in a century. "Both Yukon and Nunavut are entering a period of sust...
Frontrunners in the Yukon mineral exploration rush in 2011 spent more than C$12 million each, with at least one company pouring C$25 million into its program. These companies include Atac Resources Ltd., Kaminak Gold Corp., Capstone Mining Corp., Alexco Resource Corp., Golden Predator Corp., Ryan Gold Corp. and Silver Range Resources Ltd. At least another 14 companies shelled out more than C$5 million each to search for precious and base metals, using virtually every modern exploration technique from sampling to drilling....
CEM: TSX-V President and CEO: Garfield MacVeigh Chairman: Wayne Livingstone Vice President, Exploration: Darwin Green While Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. considers Palmer - a volcanogenic massive sulfide project near Haines in Southeast Alaska - its principal asset, the explorer's 2011 focus is on its gold assets in the Yukon Territory and Ontario. Quick to recognize the significance of Atac Resources Ltd.'s discovery of Carlin-style gold mineralization in the Yukon, Constantine formed a joint venture with Carlin Gold...
KGC: NYSE/K: TSX Chairman: John Oliver President and CEO: Tye Burt Director of North America Exploration: Al Kirkham From the humble beginnings of a greenfield copper-gold project in Southwest Alaska to adding years of gold production to its Fort Knox Mine in the heart of the Tintina Gold Belt, Kinross Gold Corp. is spending some US$17 million in search of valuable minerals in the Yukon Territory and the neighboring Far North state. About US$8 million of Kinross' 2011 exploration budget was earmarked for seeking new sources...
As termination dust settles over Alaska, the diversity of mineral exploration, development and production news this month covers the entire spectrum of mining industry activities. The last of the seasonal early-stage exploration projects are reporting in, a major producing company has entered the state for the first time, Alaska finished its first off-shore mineral lease process in more than a decade, several projects reported on resource definition and feasibility studies, a gold deposit was sold, a ballot initiative aimed...
NovaGold Resources Inc. and NANA Regional Corp. have forged a landmark partnership to explore and develop the Ambler Mining District - a region of Northwest Alaska renown for a 110-kilometer- (70 miles) long belt of world-class volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits rich in copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver that sweep across its breadth. The progressive agreement, penned by NovaGold President and CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse and NANA President and CEO Marie Greene Oct. 19,...
A recent article in the Newsletter of the Society of Economic Geologists discussed ways of addressing an arresting trend in the mining industry that affects Alaska's mining future. Authors N. Stephen Enders of the Colorado School of Mines and Cliff Saunders of Too Serious Unlimited, showed that the discovery rate for gold has been dropping steadily since 1999, while the gold mined by operating mines worldwide has remained essentially unchanged at about 80 million ounces per year. The low for ounces discovered coincided with...
YUKON TERRITORY - "There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting; It's luring me on as of old; Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting; So much as just finding the gold." This passage from the "Spell of the Yukon" is as applicable to the contemporary stampede of explorers seeking mineral riches in the home of the Klondike as it was to the prospectors of which Robert Service wrote more than a century ago. It is estimated that the modern rush of prospectors to Yukon Territory...
While most fortune-seeking juniors and investors joining the recent stampeded to Yukon Territory are scrambling to acquire properties in the highly prospective White Gold area located in the central Dawson Range and the eastern Selwyn Basin districts, a few canny explorers are quietly staking claims far from the heavy traffic in the southwestern corner of the territory. Solomon Resources Ltd. is one such explorer who has reported making a recent play in the region in a big way. Solomon July 18 reported the acquisition of a...
Tri-Valley Corp., a California-based oil explorer, has cut an exploration-purchase deal with US Gold Corp. on the Richardson gold property, one of Tri-Valley's two mineral exploration properties in Interior Alaska. The agreement, penned July 1, provides US Gold with an option to acquire 60 percent interest in the 55-square-mile Richardson property once the Toronto-based company completes US$5 million in exploration and pays Select Resources Corp., Inc., Tri-Valley's mineral...
The last month has seen a massive transition in Alaska from planning to execution, from getting ready to go to the field to boots on the outcrop and drills in the ground. Each year the hustle and bustle of the Alaska summer exploration season subsumes virtually everything else (except the Stanley Cup) as field programs launch around the state. This year has been no different with base metal programs in the Brooks Range, gold programs in Interior Alaska and the Seward...
The mineral project generator model is paying dividends for Millrock Resources Inc. The junior anticipates exploration on its Alaska gold properties to top US$10 million in 2011, with more than US$9 million to be funded by project partners. Millrock has attracted senior miners Teck Resources Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp. to some of the Alaska gold projects it has generated. Additionally, junior explorers Crescent Resources Corp., Brixton Metals Corp. and Ryan Gold Corp. also...
The Money Knob deposit at International Tower Hill Mines Ltd.'s Livengood Project ranks among the top 2 percent of gold discoveries made globally during the past 20 years - a far cry from the prospect a newly-formed junior inherited from AngloGold Ashanti Exploration Inc. in late 2006. "The Livengood Project from 'Day One' really felt to me like we were on top of a very large gold system, so I was very committed to the project," Tower Hill CEO Jeff Pontius told Mining News...
Some months ago I was talking to a senior exploration manager regarding the lack of new discoveries worldwide in the last few years. The subject came up of just how rare a +1-million-ounce gold deposit really was. Then last week one of our project geologists lays a publication in front of me entitled "How Rare are One Million Ounce Gold Deposits?" by Natural Resources Holdings, Ltd. Although this publication comes at the question from the standpoint of which new deposits are...
Setting aside the textbooks and adopting a new geological model may be the first requirement for the adventurous explorer seeking the source of alluvial diamonds found in Alaska. The precious gems have been found in the workings of placer gold mines in Interior Alaska and rumors of similar discoveries swirl in other regions of the state and neighboring Yukon Territory. But neither of these Far North jurisdictions host the geological conditions required to produce the glimmerin...
Kiska Metals Corp. is navigating exploration of the Whistler gold-copper project toward expanding targets identified during its 2009 and 2010 programs - which were driven largely by Kennecott Exploration Co.'s desire to look at the overall potential of the 203-square-mile, or 557-square-kilometer, property in order to evaluate its back-in rights. After spending the winter months transporting in supplies over a 110-mile, or 175-kilometer, ice road and relocating its camp next...
The Fraser Institute recently released its "Survey of Mining Companies, 2010/2011," an annual survey of exploration and mining companies that gauges the pros and cons of working in various countries around the world. This year the survey results came from 494 mining companies working in 79 jurisdictions and representing cumulative exploration expenditures of more than US$2.4 billion in 2010. There was a bit of honey and a bit of vinegar for Alaska in this report. Let's do...
Relatively little had changed during the past 12 months in how Alaska and Northwest Canada stack up to competing jurisdictions in opportunities for mining investment, according to a widely respected industry survey conducted by a Canadian public policy think-tank. But a worldwide economic turnaround has created optimism in the mining industry, with more than three-quarters of respondents in the Fraser Institute's Annual Mining Survey 2010-2011 saying they expect to increase their exploration budgets this year. "In order to...
From college students seeking their first job in the minerals industry to executives of the world's leading mining companies, a record-setting 7,003 people packed the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver, B.C., Jan. 24-27 to attend the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia's 2011 Mineral Exploration Roundup. "The theme this year is 'Exploring Today for Tomorrow's Resources' - it couldn't be more important a theme, and it couldn't be more important an activity,"...
There are some new stats out regarding mining's impact on Alaska that the McDowell Group Inc. produced for the State of Alaska. For 2010, the Alaska mining industry accounted for 3,500 direct jobs and 5,500 indirect jobs. The industry paid US$350 million in payroll with the average salary totaling US$95,000 per year, which is double the statewide average for all sectors. Mining salaries were higher than all other sectors except for the oil and gas sector. The industry paid...
Anecdotal reports are flowing in to the effect that the 200 placer mining operations in Alaska may expect visits from Mine Safety and Health Administration agents this field season and that operators should "have their checkbooks handy." Rumor has it that the focus on placer mining was spurred, at least in part, by the Discovery Channel's "Gold Rush Alaska" depicting some of the trials and tribulations of a start-up operation on Porcupine Creek near Haines. MSHA is one of those government agencies out to save us from...
