The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 26 - 39 of 39
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska will likely struggle to top US$80 million for 2014, a dramatic fall from the US$365.1 million pinnacle reached in 2011. "The din of mineral industry activity that is normally a part of the summer months in Alaska is decidedly muted this year as the global mining industry attempts to lift itself off the bottom of a plus-18-month-long slump," Avalon Development President Curt Freeman opined in a June column written for Mining News. Unlike 2...
Endurance Gold Corp. June 11 said the summer 2015 exploration program at its Elephant Mountain gold property in Interior Alaska has begun. Previous exploration has confirmed an intrusive-hosted target encompassing two gold-arsenic soil and rock sample anomalies (the North and South Zone targets) and an induced polarization chargeability anomaly (the Central Zone target) lying between the two soil anomalies that has never been drill tested. Elephant Mountain is located in an...
Endurance Gold Corp. April 20 said the 2013 and 2014 summer programs at its Elephant Mountain gold property in Interior Alaska confirmed an intrusive-hosted target area measuring at least 1,800 by 600 meters. This area includes an untested induced polarization chargeability anomaly, the Central Zone target, located between two gold-arsenic soil and rock sample anomalies, the North and South Zone targets. In 2014, Endurance completed 36 power-assisted auger soil samples at...
Valued at US$4 billion per year, Alaska's mining industry is as healthy as it has ever been. Much of this success is owed to the Alaska Miners Association, which celebrated its 75th anniversary during its annual convention and trade show held in Anchorage Nov. 3-9. The anniversary event also highlighted many of the challenges the association and its constituents face going forward. Under the stewardship of AMA, Alaska boasts six large-scale operating mines churning out gold,...
At the same time as the EPA is pushing forward on its planned precedent-setting, pre-emptive, pre-permit veto of the Pebble project and the tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia, former Gold Fields Ltd. Chief Geologist Rael Lipson published an eye-opening summary of where porphyry copper-gold projects like Pebble, Mt. Polley and dozens of others around the world fit into the future of gold production. The article, appearing in the July 2014...
If you believe what you see in the press, Alaska's mineral industry was recently given a Christmas gift that trumps even the high-grade anthracite coal that most Alaskans were dreaming of during the last 40-below cold snap. The Alaska Dispatch reported on a recent presentation at the fall 2013 meeting of the American Geophysical Union titled, "Critical Metals in Western Arctic Ocean Ferromanganese Mineral Deposits," by James Hein, a senior scientist at the U.S. Geological...
Mineral consulting group Behre Dolbear Group Inc. released its 2013 "Ranking of Countries For Mining Investment Where Not to Invest." Since 1999 the group has compiled annual political risk assessments from key players in the global mining industry. Geology and mineral potential are not considered in this survey, since such potential is inherently indicated by the fact that mineral exploration, development, and mining activity are occurring in these countries. The only...
While the frenzy of activity that engulfed the Yukon Territory in 2011 did not re-emerge this season, scores of players, from upstart juniors to global mining firms mounted impressive mineral exploration campaigns throughout the territory. Gold was the primary metal sought in the Yukon in 2012, but some explorers chased silver, copper, zinc-lead, iron and other minerals. Based on the spending plans of mining companies in March, Natural Resources Canada projected C$285 million planned spending across the Yukon, a decrease of...
Over a year ago, Natural Resource Holdings published a report entitled "How Rare are One Million Ounce Gold Deposits?" At that time, the publisher ranked 296 gold deposits that have more than 1 million ounces of gold in all resources categories. The same firm recently published a follow-up report titled, "Global Gold Mines & Deposits 2012 Ranking." The report ranks gold deposits above 1 million ounces, whose numbers have increased to 439 deposits with total resources of...
Although spring took its good old time in arriving across much of Alaska, the mining industry's busy summer exploration and development season has arrived. Five of Alaska's major mines reported strong first-quarter operating results, and two new companies acquired exploration properties in Alaska in the last month. These new acquisitions are not expected to be the last, as the prolonged venture capital drought continues with no end in sight. The news this month is sparse, prim...
The Fraser Institute's "Survey of Mining Companies, 2011/2012" was recently released to the public. This annual survey of exploration and mining companies gauges the pros and cons of working in various countries around the world. This year's results came from over 800 mineral industry companies working in 93 jurisdictions and representing cumulative 2011 exploration expenditures of over US$6.3 billion. The perception of Alaska from the companies that work here was about the...
After an extremely busy, productive year, the final weeks of 2011 and the first few weeks of the New Year were remarkably quiet for Alaska's mining industry. But not to worry, it appears to be just a pause, while everyone catches their breath before heading into what promises to be another eventful year. While reading the plentiful (and sometimes bizarre) end of year reviews and forecasts, I came upon one that surprised me. In a Dec. 30 news release, Reuters noted that gold...
Despite the abundance of good news from the Alaska mining industry this month, there is an unusual black cloud hanging over the industry that threatens to rain on our parade of projects. Domestic and international markets got a severe case of the jitters during the recent United States debt crisis. The resulting economic uncertainty contributed to significant metal price volatility. For example, the London gold price jumped 20 percent, from about US$1,480 to US$1,770 during the month prior to the debt deferral and has since d...
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...
