The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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White Rock Minerals Ltd. April 5 said that despite the market uncertainty and travel restrictions related to COVID-19, it intends to carry out at least a limited drill program to expand zinc mineralization and test a new gold discovery on its Red Mountain property in Alaska. "As an exploration company, we understand what it is like to operate in uncertain times with uncertain outcomes," said White Rock Minerals Managing Director Matt Gill. "Work is still progressing, and we...
An employee at Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox gold mine near Fairbanks, Alaska has tested positive for COVID-19. Mine management was informed of the positive test on April 9 and informed the other worker at the open-pit gold operation. Fairbanks Gold Mining Inc., the Kinross subsidiary that operates the mine said the employee that tested positive is doing well and has not developed any serious symptoms at this time and is self-isolating at home. The infected employee has not...
Kinross Gold Corp. April 1 continues to implement comprehensive and proactive measures to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the implementation of more than 140 best practice measures at the Fort Knox Mine in Alaska. These new measures that allow employees to practice "social distancing" or "physical distancing" include: • Staggering shift start times and allowing 10 minutes to clock in and out. • Reducing the number of employees on buses at a time and staggering sea...
A true northern pioneer far from his Eastern European home, 'Wise' Mike Stepovich, settles in a new land and leaves behind a historic legacy in Alaska's Golden Heart City. The history of Fairbanks is not unlike many other gold rush settlements, rife with rugged explorers, savvy tycoons and luckless vagabonds. So, the melting pot of happenstance plays its hand again and begets a fascinating tale of a frontier city and a man far from home. It is hard to say whether Stepovich...
Alaska Miners Association March 12 announced that due to health risks associated with COVID-19, it is cancelling the AMA spring biennial mining conference that was scheduled to be held in Fairbanks from March 30 through April 4. "We are deeply disappointed that the event cannot be held as planned. However, the World Health Organization has officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic and the state of Alaska has declared a state of emergency. As an industry that holds health and...
Crashing markets, quarantines, closed offices and cancelled events are reverberating across the North of 60 Mining sector in the wake of the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus strain officially known as COVID-19 a global pandemic. At first, the effects of COVID-19 on mining in Alaska and across Canada's North was being felt mainly by the precipitous drop in the share price of mining companies doing business here – a plunge that is being further fueled by a S...
Rau, an intriguing precious and base metals property at the western end of the 185-kilometer- (115 miles) long Rackla Gold property in the Yukon, will continue to be the primary focus of ATAC Resources Ltd.'s exploration efforts in 2020. Last week, the company published the results from an updated preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for Tiger, a carbonate replacement gold deposit that is the most advanced project on the 660-square kilometer (255 square miles) Rau property....
Canada's provinces and territories have fallen from grace in the eyes of the global mining community, according to the latest rendition of Fraser Institute's Annual Survey of Mining Companies. For the first time in a decade, no Canadian jurisdiction ranks in the top 10 for "investment attractiveness" in the annual survey conducted by the Canadian public policy think-tank. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their...
At just over 200,000 ounces, the 2019 gold production at Fort Knox Mine is the lowest in the 24-year history of this open pit operation a few miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The good news is there are indications that gold output will trend higher during 2020. In its end of 2019 results, released on Feb. 12, Kinross Gold Corp. reported a nearly 22 percent drop in gold produced at its Fort Knox mine during 2019, when compared to the previous year. This operation about 25...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. Jan.28 announced the discovery of a large gold anomaly at Red Mountain, an expansive Alaska mineral exploration project better known for the zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits found there. Two VMS deposits on the Red Mountain property – Dry Creek and West Tundra Flats (WTF) – host 9.1 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource averaging 5.8 percent (1.17 billion pounds) zinc; 2.6 perc...
After being stalled for decades, hardrock gold mine development in Yukon Territory appears to be picking up speed, as one company rockets toward full mine production by mid-2020, while at least two others report exciting new discoveries. The Yukon, legendary for producing millions of ounces of gold dating back nearly 125 years, is still one of the best places on Earth to find the precious metal. Yet few modern gold projects have managed to overcome the constraints imposed by...
Avidian Gold Corp. Jan. 16 provided highlights from the 2019 exploration programs on its Amanita and Golden Zone properties in Alaska. The 3,608-acre Amanita property is on state land boarding the south side of Kinross Gold Corp.'s Kinross Mine. Exploration by Avidian and others have identified one or more oxide gold resources within the Tonsina Trend, a structural corridor on the Amanita property that extends northeast onto the Fort Knox property. Highlights from previous...
Redstar Gold Corp. Jan. 13 reported that recently completed structural mapping on its Unga gold project on the Alaska Peninsula has identified several new priority drill targets along the Shumagin and Apollo-Sitka trends. The Unga project covers roughly 93 square miles (240 square kilometers) of two islands south of the Alaska Peninsula, Unga and Popof islands, that has long been known for its high-grade gold. The Apollo and adjacent Sitka mines, established on Unga Island in...
Freegold Ventures Ltd. Jan. 16 announced results from the late-season 2019 drill program at Shorty Creek, a porphyry gold-copper project about 75 miles northwest of Fairbanks. The five-hole (1,542 meters) program was funded by a wholly owned subsidiary of South32 Ltd., which entered into an option agreement with Freegold Ventures to acquire 70 percent interest in Shorty Creek for US$30 million, less any money the Australia-based major invests in exploring the promising...
White Gold Corp. Jan. 9 announced that rotary air blast (RAB) has confirmed robust bedrock gold mineralization at several targets beyond the high-grade Vertigo discovery on the road accessible JP Ross property about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Dawson City, Yukon. The company completed 1,644 meters of RAB drilling in 27 shallow holes that tested outlying prospective areas at Vertigo and several other nearby targets. The targets were generated from the company's...
In November 1996, a little over 23 years ago, I began writing quarterly mining news summaries for the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG). Shortly after that, I began writing monthly summaries for this publication's ancestor, Mining News Alaska, and have continued both monthly, quarterly and annual mining news summaries ever since. With this summary, I have written my last Alaska update for North of 60 Mining News. When I wrote my first summary, Greens Creek was milling only...
As the year winds down, mineral industry evaluations for 2019 are being published at a rapid rate. One of the most interesting such global reviews is EY Global Mining and Metals' annual "risk radar" for mining and metals, outlining what mining companies perceive as the top ten risks facing them in the near future. This publication stated that, for the second straight year, "social license to operate" remains the number one risk facing mining companies in 2020. This was...
One intrepid junior tackled an enticing prospect in western Nunavut in 2019, marking the seventh year of its quest for gold in Canada's far north. Seeking new gold resources on the highly prospective Hood River property in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Blue Star Gold Corp. (formerly WPC Resources) carried out an exploration program of drilling, mapping and sampling. The junior also acquired ownership of the adjacent Ulu gold project in July. The Hood and Ulu properties are...
An abnormally long fall has allowed the Alaska mining industry to extend seasonal work well into mid-October, creating a lot of new information about project work conducted around the state. Exploration efforts, in particular, benefitted from this additional field time. Based on information available to date, 2019 exploration expenditures are expected to be in the $135-140 million range, well ahead of the $120-125 million exploration spending tracked for 2018. In addition,...
Great American Minerals Exploration Inc. is investing roughly US$10 million on exploration this year at its 55,465-acre SAM gold project about 45 miles west of the Pogo Mine. Having staked its first claims in at the SAM project area in 1999, GAME, as the privately held exploration company is commonly known, is no stranger to this emerging gold-rich stretch of the Tintina Gold Belt between the Pogo and Fort Knox mines. GAME's previous land position, however, covered only a...
After nearly 10 years of exploring the Colomac Gold Project in Northwest Territories, Nighthawk Gold Corp. is making progress toward increasing the project's resource in 2020, while strengthening a long-held theory that the project sits in the middle of a potential gold camp that could rival the legendary Timmins Gold Camp of Ontario. Anchored by strategic shareholders Kinross Gold Corp. (9.9 percent), Osisko Royalties Ltd. (8.6 percent) and Northfield Capital (19.1 percent),...
With diamond drills turning at three different properties in west-central Yukon this field season, along with rotary air blast drilling, soil sampling and other activities, White Gold Corp. is one of the busiest mineral explorers in the region, if not the entire territory. The Toronto-based junior, backed by partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp. – each owning 20 percent of the company – said it would spend C$13 million in 2019 exploring a huge land pac...
Kinross Gold Corp. focuses its in-house exploration on high-quality brownfield projects and the discovery of new resources within the existing footprint of several of its mine properties, including extensions of known mineralization, as well as looking at other properties in surrounding districts. The Fort Knox Mine in Interior Alaska is an example of the Toronto-based gold miner's brownfield success. In its 23rd year of operation, this open-pit mine a few miles north of...
Melbourne, Australia-based Nova Minerals Ltd. first looked north to Alaska late in 2017, when it acquired five Alaska properties – Estelle, a gold-copper-silver project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage; Chip-Loy, a nickel-copper-cobalt-gold-silver-platinum group element project; Bowser Creek, a silver-zinc-lead project; Windy Fork, a rare earth elements property; and Ozzna Creek, a gold-silver-zinc-copper-lead property. Nova Minerals' 2019 exploration focused p...
Freegold Ventures Ltd. is focused on exploring for copper and gold on two properties in Interior Alaska – Golden Summit, an advanced stage gold project just north of Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine, and Shorty Creek, an enticing porphyry copper-gold project about 75 miles northwest of Fairbanks. In March, South32 Ltd. entered into an option agreement with Freegold Ventures to acquire 70 percent interest in Shorty Creek for US$30 million, less any money the A...
