The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The U.S. Bureau of Land Management May 8 announced that its Eastern Interior Field Office is considering a proposal to relinquish 709 acres of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration land adjacent to Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox gold mine near Fairbanks. This land is a priority for acquisition by the state. In October, NOAA filed a notice of intent to relinquish this 709-acre parcel that lies about three miles northeast of NOAA's Fairbanks Command and Data Acquisition Station, commonly known as the Gilmore Creek...
Kinross Gold Corp. May 2 reported that its Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks, Alaska, produced 93,038 ounces of gold during the first quarter, a nearly 6 percent increase over the 87,800 oz recovered there during the first three months of 2016. The company attributes the 5,238-oz increase to higher grade ore being fed through the mill. The mill at Fort Knox processed 2.93 million metric tons of ore averaging 0.75 grams per metric ton gold during the first quarter, compared to 3.2 million metric tons averaging 0.66 g/t during the...
Nighthawk Gold Corp. Oct. 13 announced plans to complete a C$10.1 million private placement that includes a strategic investment by Kinross Gold Corp. Following the completion of the financing, Kinross will hold roughly 9.5 percent of Nighthawk's issued and outstanding common shares on an undiluted basis. The offering will consist of up to 6.17 million common shares at C50 cents each and up to 10.77 million flow-through shares at C65 cents each. The gross proceeds from the sale of the flow through shares will be used for expl...
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... Full story
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... Full story
With a goal of bringing more gold into the mine plan for its Eagle Gold project, Victoria Gold Corp. ratcheted up exploration at its Dublin Gulch property in central Yukon Territory. This work focused on Olive-Shamrock, a pair of zones about 2,500 meters northeast of the main Eagle Gold deposit that had no resource estimate going into 2016. The company said Olive and the adjacent Shamrock deposit have the potential to enrich Eagle project economics by adding higher-grade ore, increasing flexibility in mine planning and... Full story
Stakeholder Gold Corp. has nabbed the expertise of renowned Yukon prospector Shawn Ryan to explore the potential of the Ballarat gold project in the Yukon Territory. Ryan, who discovered Kinross Gold's White Gold project and Goldcorp's Coffee project, typically works only on his own properties. However, he made an exception for Ballarat, which lies across the Yukon River from Coffee and just southeast of White Gold. Planned and executed by GroundTruth Exploration Inc., an innovative exploration company founded by Ryan, an...
Independence Gold Corp. is exploring a growing portfolio of gold projects in Yukon Territory and British Columbia. Boulevard, a gold property that lies immediately south and west of Goldcorp Inc.'s recently acquired Coffee gold mine project, has been a primary exploration focus in recent years. Goldcorp, which acquired Coffee through a C$500-million buy-out of Kaminak Gold Corp., also acquired a 19.99 percent interest in Independence Gold buy purchasing 10.88 million shares of that company through a private placement in... Full story
Like a gong proclaiming the end of the long and arduous bear market for North of 60 mining explorers, the May 12 news that Goldcorp Inc. would buy Kaminak Gold Corp. for roughly C$500 million reverberated from Yukon Territory throughout the North. While the rich lure of developing a mine at Kaminak's robust Coffee gold project lured Goldcorp to the Yukon, it was the exploration potential and the ability to permit and build a mine that convinced the producer to expand into the...
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... Full story
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,...
Mining's contribution to Alaska's economy starts with the hefty paychecks being issued to the some 4,350 miners that work in the state, according to recent study completed by the Alaska Miners Association and McDowell Group. The report, "The economic benefits of Alaska's mining industry," found that the average miner working in Alaska during 2016 received a whopping US$108,000 for the year, about double the average income across all sectors in the state. That is nearly US$470... Full story
Kinross Gold Corp. Feb. 15 reported that Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks produced 409,844 ounces of gold in 2015, a slight increase over the mine's output of 401,553 oz in 2015. Some 13.22 million metric tons of ore averaging roughly 0.69 grams per metric ton gold was processed through the mill in 2016; and approximately 25.14 million metric tons of ore averaging about 0.27 g/t gold was stacked on the mine's heap leach pad during the year. Production costs at the Interior Alaska mine totaled US$302.2 million last year, a...
With the opening late last month of a public comment period for the environmental impact statement on the proposed Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Project, I am cautiously optimistic that this time, Sisyphus will get the boulder up the hill. As a lowly graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks back in 1979, I helped a crew from Anaconda Minerals color township-size blocks on a huge paper map of the Brooks Range. At the time, Anaconda and numerous other...
With winter programs winding down and summer efforts rapidly ramping up, it is becoming clear that 2017 will be a much more vigorous year for the Alaska mining industry than the 2013 to 2016 period. For example, my internal estimates are already pushing $75 million for exploration activity alone and a significant number of projects that have announced exploration plans have not yet announced budgets for 2017, so that number is likely to rise. Compare this to estimates of less...
Freegold Ventures Ltd. May 9 announced the start of an initial phase of 2017 drilling aimed at expanding the oxide gold resource at its Golden Summit project about 25 miles north of Fairbanks and about four miles north of Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine. During this this phase-one program, the company plans to drill 20 to 25 shallow holes to the north of the current mineral resource where previous rotary air blast drilling has identified the potential for higher grade...
Sparked by the discovery of the White Gold district and fueled by investors' appetite for mining stocks, the Yukon experienced a modern era gold rush in 2007 that included nearly C$1 billion of exploration spending during over six years. This frenzied exploration turned up dozens of gold projects across the northern territory and now some of the world's biggest gold miners are cutting deals on the best of the discoveries made. Kinross Gold Corp. was the first of the major...
Kinross Gold Corp. May 18 said it has cut a deal to trade its White Gold project and other properties in the Yukon to White Gold Corp. in exchange for a 19.9 percent stake in the junior gold explorer. White Gold owns 23 properties covering 2,970 square kilometers (roughly 633,900 acres) of gold prospective lands in the Yukon, most of which were acquired from legendary prospector Shawn Ryan and Wildwood Exploration Inc., a company owned by Ryan and his wife, Cathy Wood. "We...
If there is anyone still on the fence wondering if the minerals industry has started a recovery from the doldrums of the past four years, this month’s mineral industry activity in Alaska should settle the question with authority. During the past month, we have seen two merger/acquisitions occur, one by Solitario Exploration & Royalty Corp., which acquired Zazu Metals Corp. and its interest in the Lik lead-zinc-silver deposit. Then we also had Coventry Resources acquire V...
While the mineral exploration season in Interior Alaska typically runs from the time the ground dries in the spring, usually mid-May, until snow and cold weather make logistics too cumbersome and expensive in October, an increasing number of explorers are carrying out successful winter programs in this especially frigid region of the Far North State. Without a doubt, mounting a successful exploration program in temperatures cold enough to make metal brittle and with only...
Millrock Resources Inc. July 6 announced the start of a sampling and prospecting program at its Liberty Bell gold project in the Bonnifield Mining District of Interior Alaska. In March, Kinross Gold Corp. entered into an option agreement with Millrock on Liberty Bell. To earn a 70 percent joint venture interest in the property, Kinross must fund US$5 million of exploration and maintenance costs over five years; pay up to US$145,000 in fees for any project management carried out by Millirock; and pay advanced royalty payments...
At a recent mining industry panel discussion at the Western States Land Commissioners Association meeting in Anchorage, I was asked if the recent upturn in activity in the Alaska mining industry was a function of commodities prices or a growing worldwide recognition of Alaska's enormous mineral potential. I answered that I thought neither factor was driving the Alaska mineral industry revival: commodities prices have been steady or rising slowly over the last year and... Full story
As the Alaska mining industry prepares for and kicks off exploration, development and production activities for 2017, the question on everyone’s lips at the recent Cordilleran Roundup mining convention in Vancouver, B. C., was the same: “Have we seen the bottom of this down cycle?” While signs of life were seen for short periods during the 2008 to 2015 period, the reality was an overall downward spiral of commodities prices and global demand. However, in a recent editi...
G4G Capital Corp. Dec. 20 announced the appointment of renowned Yukon prospector Shawn Ryan to its board of directors. In recent years Ryan has made a number of important gold discoveries in the Yukon, including the 2.2-million-ounce Golden Saddle deposit at Kinross Gold's White Gold property; Goldcorp's roughly 3-million-oz. Coffee deposit; as well as a number of other prospects and deposits being explored in Yukon's prolific White Gold District. "With the addition of Shawn,...
Strategic Metals Ltd. Dec. 19 announced plans to spin-out three precious metals properties in the Yukon - Eureka, Triple Crown (formerly called OOO) and Treble (formerly called LLL) - and sufficient cash to qualify for a listing on the TSX Venture Exchange to Trifecta Gold Ltd. in exchange for Trifecta shares. Eureka is an orogenic gold project in the legendary Klondike goldfields about 70 miles (110 kilometers) road miles south of Dawson City. Triple Crown and Treble are...
