The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 276 - 300 of 570
On July 13, a fountain of molten gold cascades into awaiting molds at the Fort Knox Mine, which is among the largest and lowest-cost gold operations owned by Kinross Gold Corp. While gold pours such as this one are a regular occurrence at this roughly 1,100-ounce-per-day operation, somewhere in this particular glowing stream was the seven-millionth ounce of gold produced at the iconic mine, located a few miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Fort Knox General Manager Eric Hill wou...
As gold exploration cools globally, the search for the precious metal is once again heating up in the larger Pogo Mine region of Interior Alaska. One of the reasons this region continues to be a hotbed of gold exploration is Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo LLC’s success in finding and expanding new deposits of high-grade gold on its Pogo Mine property, which anchors the Goodpaster Mining District. Another dozen promising prospects found beyond the borders of the Pogo Mine claims a...
Great American Minerals Exploration Inc. has closed a landmark option agreement with Sumitomo Metal Mining that consolidates the Monte Cristo and Uncle Sam gold properties into a single 55,465-acre project about 40 miles west of the Pogo Mine in Interior Alaska. GAME, as the company is commonly known, is no stranger to the Pogo region. In fact, the privately held Nevada corporation staked its first claims there in 1997 and has held onto a position in the area ever since. This...
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...
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...
After raising C$7.3 million in May, Freegold Ventures Ltd. returned to work at its Shorty Creek and Golden Summit projects in Interior Alaska. The company kicked off drilling at Shorty Creek, a 26,000-acre porphyry copper-gold project located near Livengood, in July. Since securing a long-term lease with Fairbanks-based Gold Range Ltd. in 2014, Freegold has carried out systematic geophysics and soil sampling over two target areas - Hill 1835 and Hill 1710. Drilling in 2015 further demonstrated the copper-gold potential at...
The State of Alaska’s mining industry continues to be a bright spot for Alaska’s economy during difficult fiscal times. Thanks to our world-class natural resource endowment, investors continue to be interested in new exploration and development opportunities in Alaska, and our large mines are still running strong. Recently, our new Natural Resources Commissioner, Andy Mack, had the opportunity to visit the Fort Knox mine. This visit was a great opportunity for Commissioner Mack to become familiar with the operations of a lar...
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska hit an apex of US$365 million in 2011, but as venture capital for mining explorers dried these expenditures plummeted 78 percent to US$80 million in 2015. However, rising gold prices and a loosening of venture capital in 2016 seems to have marked an end to a painfully long bear market for mining explorers in Alaska. “After taking head shots for the past four years, the industry suddenly came to life over the past month, with new budgets,...
As tangible buoyancy returns to the mining industry, I began to wonder if any of the multitude of forecasters had actually predicted the recent return of stronger metals prices. Since most "forecasters" are actually "hindsighters," I was drawn to a November 2013 summary of gold mines by Roy Sebag of Natural Resource Holdings. The summary, entitled "Global Gold Mines & Deposits 2013 Ranking," indicated that we were nearing peak gold production because the total in-situ ounces...
The owners of Alaska’s five large metal mines – Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo, Hecla Mining Company, Kinross Gold Corp, Teck Resources Ltd. and Coeur Mining Inc. – accounted for nearly half the US$92 million of exploration spending in the state during 2014 and similar investments by these companies is providing solid footing for the Far North state’s mineral exploration sector this year. Avalon Development President Curt Freeman said he is seeing more mining majors shopping for d...
With metal prices stabilizing, physical stockpiles dwindling and demand again on the rise, things are beginning to look up for the beleagered mining industry. Gold's performance over the past several months is a case in point. The World Gold Council reported that during the first quarter, buying of exchange-traded gold funds rose to its highest level since early 2009, wiping out the deep sell-offs of 2014 and 2015 for this instrument. Uncertainties in the fiscal stability of...
As a follow-up to last month's realization that once again "the game is afoot" in the mining industry, major gold producer Goldcorp recently presented some arresting statistics at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Metals, Mining and Steel Conference. The presentation showed gold discovery and production information for the global mining industry that indicated that peak gold discovery occurred in 1995, this despite three periods between 1995 and 2015 when exploration...
Kinross Gold Corp. July 27 reported that its Fort Knox Mine in Interior Alaska produced 97,221 ounces of gold in the second quarter, down 16 percent from output of 116,061 oz. during the same period in 2015. The company attributed the lower production primarily to lower mill grades and recoveries. The mill at Fort Knox processed 3.47 million metric tons of ore averaging 0.64 grams per metric ton gold during the second quarter of 2016, compared with 3.35 million metric tons at...
Kinross Gold Corp. May 10 reported that its Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks, Alaska, produced 87,800 ounces of gold during the first quarter, compared with 82,673 oz. during the first three months of 2015. The company attributes the 5,127-oz. increase to improved mining and heap leach operations due to mild weather. The per-ounce cost of Fort Knox gold sold during the quarter was US$705, compared with US$672 during the same period last year. Kinross said the five percent cost...
Long, grueling, arduous, treacherous and painful are among the many adjectives, and sometimes expletives, used to describe the mining sector's nearly four-year bear market that is showing signs it is ready to hibernate. While Alaska's metal mines have not emerged from this enduring downturn unscathed, the sector remains largely intact and ready to ride metals prices higher. Together, Alaska's mines produced roughly US$2.76 billion of precious and base metals during 2015, down...
BCGold Corp. March 28 said it will not be acquiring the Wels gold property in western Yukon Territory. In January, BCGold had entered into an agreement with Gorilla Minerals Corp. to acquire full ownership of Wels, subject to a 3 percent net smelter return royalty. To acquire the Wels property, BCGold was to pay C$60,000 in cash and issue 8 million of its shares to Gorilla, following a 5-1 consolidation of BCGold shares. After consolidation its shares on Feb. 29, BCGold has...
Although there is plenty of Alaska mining industry news this month, the big dog in the pen is the dramatic and unexpected run-up in the price of gold, which moved from a low of $1,078 per ounce to a high of $1,246/oz., most of which occurred after Feb. 1. Although profit-taking and other factors have caused the price to back off a bit, the move was both dramatic and unexpected. As you might guess, the ether is full of talking heads telling us why it went up, why it either won'...
Kinross Gold Corp. Feb. 11 reported that Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks produced 401,553 ounces of gold in 2015, a six percent increase over the mine's output of 379,453 oz. in 2014. Some 13.5 million metric tons of ore averaging roughly 0.76 grams per metric ton gold was processed through the mill in 2015; and approximately 25.2 million metric tons of ore averaging about 0.7 g/t gold was stacked on the mine's heap leach pad during the year. Production costs at the Interior...
BCGold Corp. Jan. 25 said it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase full ownership, subject to a 3 percent net smelter return royalty, of Gorilla Minerals' Wels gold property in western Yukon Territory. A pre-condition for this acquisition will be a corporate restructuring and the completion of a C$600,000 financing. Insiders and major shareholders from BCGold and Gorilla are expected to participate in this financing. To acquire the Wels property, BCGold will pay...
The Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska is highly regarded as an example of a mining company and local aboriginal interests sitting down at the negotiating table and working out a deal that serves the economic and social interests of both. A steep tax hike, however, threatens to shorten the life of the world-class zinc mine and thereby the partnership forged between Teck Resources Ltd. and NANA Regional Corp. The tax increase was introduced recently by the Northwest Arctic...
Earlier this month, the Alaska Miners Association held its annual convention in Anchorage amid plummeting metals prices and an over-all atmosphere of economic uncertainty now stretching into its fourth year. Individuals from around North America and beyond were present and conversations outside of the technical sessions seemed to gravitate toward how best to climb out of the doldrums that seem to grip the mining industry on a global scale. One individual was heard to say that...
Kinross Gold Corp. Nov. 10 reported that its global operations produced 680,679 gold-equivalent ounces during the third quarter of 2015. This is down slightly from the third quarter of last year, due to heavy rains hampering production at its Maricunga Mine in Chile. The company said strong production at its Fort Knox Mine in Alaska, Kupol-Dvoinoye operation in Russia and Round Mountain Mine in Nevada helped offset some of this loss. In terms of operational excellence, we saw...
A four-year rout in metals, coal and oil prices left Alaska's mining community digging deep for reasons to be optimistic during their annual gathering at the Alaska Miners Association convention in Anchorage. While depressed metals prices naturally cut into the bottom lines of those companies mining gold, silver, zinc, lead and coal in Alaska, the effects reverberate across the entire mining community. In order to adjust to lower metals prices, the producers have cut back on...
FVL: TSX President and CEO: Kristina Walcott VP, Exploration and Development: Alvin Jackson In recent years, Freegold Ventures Ltd. has focused its exploration primarily on Golden Summit, a 6-million-ounce bulk-tonnage gold project located roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Fairbanks and four miles (seven kilometers) from Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine. In 2015, the company turned its attention to Shorty Creek, a copper-gold project in the Livengood region of Interior Alaska. For at least three decades,...
KGC: NYSE/K.TO: TSX Chairman: John Oliver Chief Executive Officer: Paul Rollison Chief Operating Officer: Warwick Morley-Jepson Kinross Gold Corp. continues to carry out robust exploration at and around its Fort Knox gold mine in Interior Alaska, while quietly investigating other prospects around the state. When Kinross began mining at Fort Knox in 1996, the deposit had 4.1 million ounces of proven and probable gold reserves; going into 2015, the mine boasts 2.4 million ounces of gold contained in 263.8 million metric tons of...
