The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 851 - 875 of 922
Strong markets and solid production powered hardrock mining companies with large operations and investments in Alaska to outstanding performances in 2006. Teck Cominco, operator of the Red Dog zinc-lead mine near Kotzebue and the Pogo gold mine in the eastern Interior near Delta Junction; Kinross Gold Corp., owner of the Fort Knox gold mine near Fairbanks, Hecla Mining Co., part owner of the Greens Creek silver mine in Southeast Alaska; and Coeur D'Alene Corp., developer of the Kensington Gold Project near Juneau, reported...
Okay, the lull is over. It lasted about 25, maybe 30 minutes, after I wrote those prophetic but ill-considered words in late January! Shortly after that point I was in Vancouver for the annual Cordilleran Roundup mining conference, an annual barometer of mining activity in western North America if not the world. What I saw at the 2007 conference was a crowd well in excess of 5,000, populated by two types of people: those who were smiling from ear to ear and those whose terrified eyes reminded me of a whitetail deer in the...
A new resource estimate for Northern Dynasty's Pebble project in southwest Alaska makes it one of the world's most important copper-gold-molybdenum deposits, the company said Feb. 20. Inferred resources in the Pebble East deposit have increased nearly 90 percent, to 3.4 billion metric tons. Pebble East is contiguous to and deeper than the 4.1 billion-ton near-surface Pebble West deposit, and is higher grade. Pebble West was the first area explored and is the potential location for an open pit mine. Geotechnical assessment has...
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...
Copper Ridge Explorations Inc., owner of various precious and base metals-rich properties in the Yukon Territory, British Columbia and Alaska, is venturing into uranium exploration in the Yukon. The Vancouver, B.C.-based junior mining company reached an agreement with Dawson City prospector Shawn Ryan to acquire 100 percent interest in the Borealis uranium property about 30 miles northeast of that city. Under terms of the option, Copper Ridge will pay $5,000 in cash, spend a minimum of $600,000 on exploration at Borealis,...
As 2006 comes rapidly to a close, a glance backward in time seems appropriate. The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys recently released its annual summary of mining in Alaska for 2005 (yes, 2005). This report reveals that the gross value of Alaska's mineral industry in 2005 was $1.8 billion. This was the 10th straight year the value exceeded $1 billion and was the highest value ever recorded for the industry. Zinc accounted for 61.5 percent of the total mineral production, followed by gold (13.6 percent),...
A newly expanded company is making Alaska its exploration target, and it's backed by a mining heavyweight. Vancouver-based International Tower Hill Mines was barely a glimmer on anyone's radar screens until last summer, when South African major AngloGold Ashanti purchased 19.99 percent of ITH's shares and gave the junior its North American exploration manager, Jeff Pontius, as president and CEO. Pontius led the team that acquired a group of Alaska properties for AngloGold, which now belong to ITH. "AngloGold was highly...
An investor attending the Alaska Miners Association convention in Anchorage mentioned that he was listening intently to all the exploration talks because he was looking for the next Full Metal Minerals. In other words, a junior company that breaks out from the bottom of the stockpile, as it were, and builds a reputation for acquiring promising properties and working diligently on them. For Alaskans the rise of Vancouver-based Full Metal is doubly exciting, since all most all of the company's projects are located in the state....
Over the last month the Alaska mineral industry continued to report results from 2006 exploration programs including new acquisitions of projects that have been on the back shelf for over 25 years. The industry watched as the American political scene was drastically changed at both the federal and state levels. And despite the fact that the end of the year is nearing, there is no end in sight yet for a number of exploration and development projects while at the same time contracts for work in 2007 already are being inked. If...
If a company has explored a property for three years and not found any economic mineralization, it will often cut its losses and find a new place to go. The RDN property in northwest British Columbia is in its third consecutive year of exploration. Assay results from this season's drilling could determine whether or not two Vancouver-based companies, Rimfire Minerals and Northgate Minerals, invest any more of their time and money here. Rimfire is a junior mining company with exploration properties in Alaska, the Yukon,...
By most years' standards, the last month has been a barn burner for mining news. By 2006 standards it hardly measures on the Mining Industry Care-O-Meter, a highly subjective, totally unscientific measurement of what is happening in Alaska's mineral industry. In the last month we have seen the state's largest primary gold deposit resources increase to a mind-boggling 32 million ounces, we've seen one new mine begin commercial construction, we've seen one mine under construction receive a partial injunction against part of...
NovaGold Resources Inc. has cleared several important permitting hurdles in its quest to develop the Rock Creek and Big Hurrah gold mines near Nome. The Alaska departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation issued construction permits for the project Aug. 9. NovaGold, owner and operator of the mines, envisions the project becoming its first development-stage venture to begin significant gold production. First gold production at a rate of roughly 100,000 ounces per year at Rock Creek could begin by late 2006...
Higher metals prices contributed to record earnings in the second quarter across the mining spectrum. Three companies heavily invested in Alaska, Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., Hecla Mining Co. and Kinross Gold Corp., posted stronger financial results for the period and noted how their Alaska properties fared. Fort Knox battles escalating costs with high gold output Kinross, owner of the Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks, posted record earnings of $65.6 million, or 19 cents per share for the second quarter of 2006, compared with a...
The annual running of the bulls in Pamplona can't hold a candle to the statewide frenzy that is going on right now across the length and breadth of Alaska. Measure it any way you like - meters drilled, helicopter hours used, geologists or engineers on the payroll, gallons of fuel burned or gallons of peanut butter consumed - it all comes out the same. The Alaska mineral industry is running at or over capacity and there is no sign that that will change any time soon. The last month saw the start of multiple drilling programs...
After staking 25,600 additional acres in the Nyac Gold District earlier this year, Tonogold Resources Inc. has embarked on Alaska exploration it hopes will yield a big payoff. The California-based junior mining company began drilling June 7 at Bonanza Ridge, one of six gold prospects it aims to explore with a drill this summer. "We are very excited to begin drilling operations at Nyac. Our exploration activities of 2005 delineated extensive drilling targets with great mineralization and our 2006 exploration program calls for...
South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti has signed a letter of intent with Vancouver-based International Tower Hill Mines for the sale and option of all of AngloGold's Alaska mineral exploration properties and associated databases to the Canadian company. Under the terms of the agreement, AngloGold will sell ITH a 100 percent interest in six Alaska properties (Livengood, West Pogo, Coffee Dome, Gilles, Caribou and Blackshell) covering a total of 246 square kilometers. In consideration for the sale, ITH will issue to AngloGold 19.99...
Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia have improved their standings in the annual survey of mining companies published by Canada's Fraser Institute, but Russia remained low in the ranking of 64 jurisdictions around the world. This year representatives of 322 exploration, development and mining consulting companies responded to the survey, up from 259 last year. (See related news on the Fraser survey in Curt Freeman 's column on page 13.) Survey participants answered questions about the regions where they work, assessing their...
The sound of boots, hammers, drills and helicopters is starting to drown out the sounds of "we are planning," "we hope to" and "later this year" that we've been hearing for the last few months. Despite a late spring through most of Alaska, a number of projects kicked off recently and more are gathering steam as the short, hectic Alaska summer season approaches. Companies counting on an early spring due to Global Warming have been disappointed and Plan B options are being formulated however, the end result will be the same:...
Northern Dynasty Ltd., would-be developer of the Pebble project, is convinced that the huge copper-gold mineralization in southwestern Alaska can be accessed and brought to market in an environmentally benign manner that promises economic prosperity for the region. Part of its confidence stems from Hunter Dickinson Inc., the management team that guides the Canadian junior mining company. Hunter Dickinson has a track record of working to develop successful, modern copper-gold deposits. One such venture is the Kemess South Mine...
Stephen Hodgson, vice president of engineering for Northern Dynasty Mines Inc., says he often hears people who don't live in Alaska talk about the isolation of his company's Pebble mine prospect, but he doesn't consider Pebble to be isolated at all. "Pebble is probably one of the least isolated major copper projects in the world," he said. "We're at low elevation, about 815 feet above sea level, and only 85 miles from tidewater." Northern Dynasty's Pebble gold-copper-molybdenum deposit, near Iliamna in southwestern Alaska,...
Preparations for exploration and development activities ramped up again in the last month as budgets were approved and committed on projects extending from Southeast Alaska to the Seward Peninsula to Interior Alaska. Commodity and equity markets for the metals mining industry have remained strong in anticipation of continued high demand and restricted supplies. To put things into a global perspective, the Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org) recently published information about the growing demand for goods and services i...
Just because Alaska is nowhere near any of the world's kimberlite provinces, doesn't mean that geologist David Szumigala is giving up hope on finding diamonds in the state. "Thinking conventionally doesn't mean that you are right!" is Szumigala's approach to the problem. Without the presence of kimberlite, he had to draw up an alternative geological model that would explain how diamonds could theoretically be formed here. In what Szumigala calls his eclogite model, carbon-rich sediments get subducted (sucked down a trench)...
In the last month the Alaska mining industry has seen start-up of its first major gold mine in five years (Pogo) and approval of permits for the Nixon Fork copper-gold mine. We also saw announcement of substantial increases in copper, gold and molybdenum resources at two advanced exploration/development projects (Donlin Creek and Pebble). New development plans were offered for heap leaching at the Fort Knox gold mine and initial funding was approved for evaluation of a coal to liquids facility at the Beluga coal deposits....
This summer, Vancouver, British Columbia-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. will spend $20 million on an expanded-scale continuation of its drilling program at the newest discovery in the east zone of its Pebble mine project near Iliamna on the Alaska Peninsula. The drilling budget is twice what the company spent on the project last year. The new find just to the east of the initial discovery made Pebble meaningfully bigger and richer, and the company expects this year's drilling program to tell just how much the east zone...
Metals high: Gold up 77% from January 2002, silver 94%, platinum 87%, copper 206%, nickel 429%, lead 174%, zinc 141% - exploration and development plans for Alaska focused on all of these metals in projects stretching from the Brooks Range to far southeastern Alaska, from the Alaska-Yukon border to the Seward Peninsula n a welcome respite from the madness of most of 2005, the last month has seen a slowing of information from companies and individuals exploring and developing A...
