The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 426 - 450 of 570
Alaska's mining industry captured the attention, not only of Alaskans but also the country during the past year when a controversy over the proposed Pebble Project in Southwest Alaska bubbled to the surface. Supporters and opponents of a ballot initiative aimed at blocking the mining venture squared off in a vocal and often strident campaign that made headlines nationwide. Alaska Miners Association director Steve Borell cited the contest over development the world-class...
A gold mining group looking north from Nevada where it has been focused in recent years is seeing what many other explorers have noticed before them - the Tintina Gold Belt that stretches across Interior Alaska and Yukon Territory offers the handsome prospect of a major gold discovery. But the difference for Golden Predator Royalty & Development Corp. is that it is prepared to back up its conclusions with the hard work and financial capital necessary to not only find the gold but bring it into production in short order.... Full story
A stroll through the "Gold" exhibit at the Anchorage Museum of Art and History can transport visitors through six millennia of man's captivation with the brilliant metal. The journey explores the unique characteristics of this precious and rare element that made it the prize of ancient civilizations, a standard of wealth and an invaluable metal to modern technology. The more than 300 golden objects on display include examples of the first gold coins minted in ancient Lydia...
Underworld Resources Inc. began what promises to be a long, exciting summer by reporting results Memorial Day from the first three holes of its 2009 drilling program, currently under way at the White Gold Property in west-central Yukon Territory. Two weeks later, the aggressive junior churned out additional drill results for one of the three holes, this time identifying deeper gold mineralization that is also rich in silver. A week later, Underworld closed several private placements that generated C$16.55 million in gross... Full story
Spring has arrived in Alaska and the mining industry is heading to the hills to do its work. Compared to last year, the state is a quiet place in the sun due to drastically reduced exploration and development budgets. Alaska's mines continue to benefit from the sharply reduced costs of power, diesel fuel, labor and other goods and services, but worldwide economic uncertainties have dried up the availability of venture capital for smaller exploration companies and have made... Full story
If it were entirely up to Copper Ridge Explorations Inc., the project generator would explore most of its mineral properties in Yukon Territory, northern British Columbia and Alaska this summer. But tough economic times have forced the Vancouver, B.C.-based junior to pick and choose among its 12 key projects, betting precious dollars on a handful of ideas that could pay off with additional exploration by catching the eye of future partners or investors. Fortunately, some of Copper Ridge's projects have already hit that magic...
Copper Ridge Exploration Inc. got its start 10 years ago when Gerald Carlson and Mark Fields organized the company. Prior to forming Copper Ridge in 1999, Carlson was president and CEO of La Teko Resources Ltd., which held gold claims near the Fort Knox Mine in Interior Alaska. Fields also worked for La Teko until Fort Knox owner Kinross Gold Corp. acquired that junior. The geologist also was involved in the acquisition and development of the Diavik diamond mine for Rio Tinto Ltd., and has since moved on to other ventures....
In its largely misunderstood and frequently misrepresented Toxic Release Inventory report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ranked the Red Dog zinc mine in Northwest Alaska as the largest entity in the nation in releases of TRI reportable materials. The EPA report, released in March 2009, reported that the world's largest zinc mine released 533.4 million pounds of primarily zinc and lead compounds into the environment in 2007 (the latest figures available), down 81.9...
Nunavut Territory's next mine appears to be a winner. On track to begin initial gold production in early 2010, the Meadowbank Project promises to deliver the best of what those who pressed for the creation of the territory had in mind - a mining venture capable of doing the heavy lifting needed to improve the local standard of living by providing steady, good-paying jobs along with significant public revenue. The Meadowbank property is located in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut and lies in the Third Portage Lake area, about...
There are some new stats out from the State of Alaska that I thought you might like to see. For 2008, the Alaska mining industry accounted for 3,500 direct jobs and 5,500 indirect jobs. The industry doled out US$350 million in payroll with the average salary totaling US$82,600 per year, which is 90 percent higher than the statewide average for all sectors. Mining salaries were higher than all other sectors, except for the oil and gas sector. The industry paid US$105 million in...
Australian Mineral Fields believes it is onto a world-class gold discovery in Interior Alaska. The Perth, Australia-based junior considers its innovative exploration techniques, used to uncover high-grade gold deposits in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, uniquely suited for locating high-grade mineralization at the Tushtena gold project about 20 miles west of Tok. The Western Australia-focused exploration company was not looking to expand its operations to the...
Alaska is rich with minerals and considered a safe place to do business. As a result, investment has flowed into the state. Today, a variety of mines and mining projects are scattered across the vast Alaska landscape, from the Greens Creek silver mine and Bokan Mountain uranium project in Southeast Alaska to the world-class Red Dog zinc-lead mine and Northwest Arctic Coal Project in Northwest Alaska; and from the giant Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project and the Donlin... Full story
Alaska saw robust mining activity in 2008 across the full spectrum of the industry, from small placer operations to major producers, and from exploration programs to advanced development projects. Here is a look at companies reporting significant progress during the year. Placer mining Silverado Gold Mines Ltd. has recovered 26,879 ounces of placer gold from channel and bench deposits in the Nolan Valley through 2007. The largest nugget recovered from the property, located about 280 miles north of Fairbanks, weighed 41.35...
Yet another junior exploration company prospecting for precious and base metals in the mountains of central Yukon has come home with a shiny new prize. ATAC Resources Ltd. struck gold last summer in the mineral-rich hills of the Tombstone Mountains. In August ATAC reported a significant discovery on the Rau property in the Keno Hill District at the northern edge of the prolific Tintina Gold Province, a banana-shaped belt of mostly intrusion-related gold deposits that stretches more than 1,000 miles across Yukon and Alaska....
Let me start this month's mining update by saying I am not a chartist nor do I believe economic cycles are controlled by cosmic forces known only to the mystics. That said, I do believe in cycles because I have lived and worked through more cycles in the mining industry than I care to remember. So a couple of observations seem in order as we plummet down the slope off another peak into what looks to be a pretty deep, chilly valley. First off, what goes up, must come down with...
Alaska's mineral industry set a new spending record of about $4 billion in 2007, up 13.3 percent from the value of the industry's expenditures in 2006, according to an 89-page report released Nov. 5 by the Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys and the Office of Economic Development. The industry's reported value, according to DGGS, is calculated by combining the amount spent on exploration and development with the production value of mines in Alaska. While 2007 was a... Full story
Full Metal Minerals Ltd. has 11 exploration projects spanning Alaska. The company's two primary projects are the Lucky Shot high-grade gold property about 90 miles north of Anchorage, and the LWM zinc-lead-silver prospect at its 40 Mile property in eastern Alaska. In a joint venture with BHP Billiton, Full Metal is exploring multiple copper-gold porphyry targets on 88,675 acres of Doyon Ltd. land in eastern Alaska. Full Metal has joint venture agreements with both major and junior mining companies, including Kinross Gold,...
NovaGold Resources Inc.'s Rock Creek gold mine began production Sept. 19. Crews began feeding the 6,500-metric-ton-per-day-mill at 25 percent capacity with a ramp-up to full production targeted for year's end. Once in full production, the operation is expected to turn out 100,000 ounces of gold per year. The main pit at Rock Creek has a resource of 500,000 ounces. The company's objective is to increase the resource to 1 million ounces over the next year. The Usibelli Coal Mine is a fourth-generation family-owned business...
FREEGOLD MOUNTAIN, Yukon Territory - Bill Harris, chief executive and chief operating officer of Northern Freegold Resources Ltd., is pursuing an exploration adventure of a lifetime, literally. Harris, who was born and raised just 10 miles from Freegold Mountain, began prospecting for gold in the Dawson Mountain Range as a young child, tagging along behind his father, Glen, and their good friend Fritz Gruder in the 1960s. Nearly four decades later, his intimate knowledge of the area's geology is paying off with eye-popping... Full story
The face of the geology profession is changing and no where is the trend more evident than in the Yukon Territory, where a mini-boom in exploration brought scores of women rock hounds trooping to mining camps across the northern wilderness this summer. "We've had women geologists in the industry all along, but nothing like the numbers we've been seeing lately," said Mike Burke, a senior geologist with the Yukon Geological Survey. Women are increasingly populating mining teams as high mineral prices has spurred exploration...
Several drilling programs started in the last month and several others began reporting initial results from programs commenced earlier in the summer. Two of Alaska's operating mines reported strong operating results and two new mineral resource estimates have been released. Alaska's seasonal exploration efforts are entering the second half of the season, while commodities prices continue to slide, inflation rates increase and operating costs increase. While nobody likes to admit it, there is mounting evidence that the mining... Full story
DAWSON CITY, Yukon - Atop a wooded peak in this land of mountains and deep valleys near the confluence of the White and Yukon rivers, a New Zealand-based miner is hard at work exploring for gold. Underworld Resources Inc., a junior organized in 2007, has come to the Far North in hopes of making a commercial discovery at the White Gold and Black Fox Gold properties in west central Yukon Territory, about 95-123 kilometers, or 59-76 miles, by air south of Dawson City. Organized with an initial public offering in March 2007, Unde...
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has come under criticism from a coalition of environmental group representatives and former state officials, who say the state agency's oversight is not enough to police the effects of exploration and possible development of the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in the Bristol Bay Region of Southwest Alaska. In an article titled, "Pebble Mine: Fish, minerals and testing the limits of Alaska's large mine permitting process," the... Full story
Kinross Gold Corp., owner of the Fort Knox Gold Mine near Fairbanks, is accelerating work on an expansion project now under way at the mine to boost gold production at Fort Knox as much as six months sooner than originally planned. Based on the revised schedule, production from the project is now expected to begin in mid-2009 instead of at the end of 2009, as reported in its fourth-quarter 2007 and year-end reports. The accelerated schedule will result in the advancing about $35 million of capital spending from 2009 to 2008....
The game is afoot all across Alaska with the drills turning to the right on projects all across the state. The operating mines turned in strong first-quarter results and several new acquisitions, joint ventures and new players were announced in the last month. Western Alaska Teck Cominco American announced first quarter results from its Red Dog Mine. In the first quarter, the mine produced 138,500 metric tons of zinc in concentrate. Zinc ore grade increased to 21.3 percent while mill recoveries remained steady at 83.8...
