The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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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...
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,"...
Miners, explorers, suppliers and others interested in Alaska's mining industry got a generous helping of surf and turf during the Alaska Miners Association 2010 Annual Convention and Trade Show, held the first week of November at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel. Mining and Fisheries, the theme of this year's convention, also was the subject of a two-day course held Nov. 1-2. The class provided miners with information on the importance of the fishing industry to the economy and...
Alaska's mining industry is entering the final lap for what has turned out to be a more robust than expected year for exploration, development and production. Strong worldwide demand for mined products has certainly helped push metallic and energy minerals prices up, but all is not rosy for Alaska's mineral industry. A recent CNBC report placed Alaska dead last of all the states in terms of overall business attractiveness. We were a dismal 46th of 50 in terms of cost of doing...
Mining is becoming increasingly important to Alaskans looking for good-paying jobs. Not only does the industry provide high wages, the geographical diversity of the mines provides employment opportunities to oftentimes economically challenged rural regions of the vast state. According to the Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Development, the number of mining jobs in Alaska has jumped 40.3 percent since 2000, almost triple the statewide average employment growth of 14.1... Full story
The Last Frontier, as Alaska has long been labeled, is as applicable a moniker today as it was to prospectors who ventured to the territory at the end of the 19th century. Alaska is considered one of the most mineralized provinces on Earth, but due to an inter-related combination of Arctic weather, rugged terrain, limited infrastructure and high exploration costs, the state's vast mineral potential remains at the edge of exploratory expansion. Though the Far North state...
HL: NYSE President and CEO: Phillips Baker Jr. Senior Vice President and General Counsel: David Sienko Vice President, Exploration: Dean McDonald The US$750 million purchase of Rio Tinto's 70.27 percent ownership stake in Greens Creek Mine near Juneau, Alaska, nearly proved to be the undoing of Hecla Mining Co. Instead, the audacious move catapulted Hecla to rank as the No. 1 silver producer in the United States. Surviving the tumultuous financial markets and low metals prices of the latter half of 2008 and the first half of... Full story
In the last month, several of Alaska's major metal mines reported strong operating numbers; one company released a preliminary economic assessment and three new mineral exploration companies acquired exploration interests in Alaska. While the functions of explorers and producers are quite different, the symbiotic relationship between the two ends of the mining cycle is unequivocal: exploration would not exist without production and production would eventually cease without...
Undaunted, undeterred and poised for growth is the message Hecla Mining Co. brought to its shareholders at the company's annual meeting in May. This mantra reflects the silver miner's perseverance in overcoming the financial challenges it faced after spending US$750 million in April 2008 to buy Rio Tinto's 70.27 percent stake in Greens Creek Mine in Southeast Alaska, an acquisition that has catapulted it to the No. 1 silver producer in the United States. "It was difficult in '...
The annual Fraser Institute "Report on Mining Companies, 2009-2010" was recently released to a thundering silence. Several oddball items may help explain the lackluster response, but Alaska fared well in the survey of 333 companies working in 72 jurisdictions worldwide. Alaska ranked 18th out of 72 under the policy potential index, which measures the regulatory attractiveness of a jurisdiction. Not unreasonably, Alaska was beaten by some mining heavyweights like Chile, Quebec,... Full story
The Alaska Miners Association recently released an economic benefits summary of the Alaska mining industry. This summary indicated that in 2009 the Alaska mining industry provided 3,300 direct jobs along with 5,200 indirect jobs in 120 communities in Alaska with a combined payroll of US$320 million. Average industry jobs came in at US$83,000 per year, which is 85 percent higher than the average Alaska wage and second only to wages in the oil and gas industry. The industry...
I am a great supporter of Alaska's mining industry. How could an Alaskan not be? In 2009, Alaska's mining industry paid a total of US$12.3 million to local governments, US$35 million to the state government in royalties, rents, fees, and taxes, US$48.9 million in other state government-related revenues and US$320 million in direct and indirect payroll to a total of 5,200 industry jobs. Those are also proving to be some of Alaska's highest paid jobs. In my six sessions with the Alaska State Legislature, I have found myself on...
Geologically, Alaska is a terrane wreck, with multiple tectonic plates dumping their mineral payloads over the landscape. Geologists are still sifting through the wreckage in many places across the state to determine which mineral deposits were dumped by which terranes and when - a task not always easily accomplished as pileups have resulted, in many cases, from multiple mineralization events happening in the same geographical regions over time. A terrane is a series of...
Metals markets continue to climb out of the basement as the world demand for metals resumes its upward trend. Fueled by this growing demand, numerous Alaska precious, base and rare metal projects reported results of their 2009 exploration, development and production programs. The recent Alaska Miners Association Convention in Anchorage felt this surge of interest with the highest attendance in more than a decade. The atmosphere at the conference was charged with optimism, a co...
Hecla Mining Co. has repaid the US$380 million it borrowed to buy out Rio Tinto plc's 70.3 percent interest in the Greens Creek Mine. The purchase, which gave the Idaho-based miner 100 percent interest in the Southeast Alaska silver mine, nearly proved to be the company's undoing. "It was frankly a near-death experience for the company," Hecla Vice President of Corporate Development Don Poirier told an audience at the Alaska Miners Association 2009 annual convention Nov. 5....
The financial meltdown of late 2008 and early 2009 was nearly the undoing of some junior exploration companies as well as some major companies. Many of the major mining companies had to drop prospects, lay off employees, institute serious cost-cutting measures, and sell assets to keep their companies viable. A key factor was company size and continued cash flow from operations. Junior exploration companies typically do not have operating cash flows and these companies are just now seeing investments return as metal prices inc...
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. President and CEO Garfield MacVeigh and the Vancouver B.C.-based junior's Vice President of Exploration Darwin Green returned to Southeast Alaska in 2009 to explore the Palmer project. A copper-rich deposit found in the same belt of late-Triassic volcanic massive sulfide that hosts the precious-metal-rich Greens Creek Mine to the south and the enormous copper-laden Windy Craggy deposit about 35 miles to the northwest. Raising C$3 million in...
After spending $750 million to buy out Rio Tinto's 70.27 percent interest in the Greens Creek Mine in April 2008 and then watching base metal prices plummet, Hecla Mining Co. chose to be prudent in its 2009 exploration of the zinc-rich silver mine. Though restrained, the Idaho-based silver miner's US$3.4 million exploration budget for Greens Creek continued the tradition of replenishing the reserves currently being mined as well as drilling a contact zone that could become a...
They say when it rains, it pours, and that is just what is happening with news from field programs all over Alaska. Results from summer 2009 programs are pouring in from the Brooks Range to Prince of Wales Island, from Eastern Interior Alaska to Southwestern Alaska. Commodities of interest range from the expected gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc to the nearly unpronounceable, including praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, thulium, lutetium and yttrium. Go ahead, drop a...
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
Last month we talked about economic impacts of the Alaska mining industry. This month, the world mineral exploration industry is in our crosshairs. Halifax-based Metals Economics Group reported that 2008 worldwide nonferrous mineral exploration reached $13.2 billion, more than 2.5 times the previous peak exploration spending level reached in 1997. Add uranium exploration expenditures, and the total expands to $14.4 billion. Exploration spending would have been even higher...
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...
The plummet in base metal prices in 2008 will be felt across Alaska and Northwest Canada's mining sectors. Miners of the far north reaches of North America enjoyed a bounty when base metal prices reached record values in 2007, carrying into 2008. The escalation of base metal prices was driven by expanding markets in China and India, as well as a building, retail and technology boom in the West. Mines producing the industrial metals enjoyed unprecedented returns from the ore sh... Full story
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...
