The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The unseasonably, interminably, unspeakably cold spring that is delaying mineral exploration and development work in Alaska this year is being mimicked by a financial chill that is affecting Alaska exploration efforts just like it is the rest of the world. Not to put too fine a point on it, but from a mineral exploration standpoint, Alaska is shaping up to be as dead as a doornail this summer (ever wonder where that saying came from ... but I digress.). How dead? Try this statistic on for size: Of the 49 exploration projects...
Over the past month, the world has been awash in year-end 2013 mining news, ranging from exploration and production statistics to economic impact numbers and mining favorability polls. The Alaska highlights from this wad of info include the results from the annual Fraser Institute political jurisdiction favorability survey where Alaska placed first in the world out of 112 jurisdictions for mineral potential. However, Alaska plummeted to 21st place on the survey's Policy Percep...
NCQ: NYSE/TSX Chairman: Thomas Kaplan President and CEO: Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse Project Manager, Upper Kobuk Mineral Project: Scott Petsel NovaCopper Inc. has nearly reached its preliminary goal of defining 10 billion pounds of high-grade copper at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a long-term partnership between NovaCopper and NANA Regional Corp. The alliance combines Bornite and a number of other mineral prospects on NANA-owned lands with the world-class Arctic deposit and dozens of similar volcanogenic massive sulfide...
In an industry eager for even a scintilla of good news, a recent report from industry analyst SNL Metals & Mining recently gave the good-news-starved industry a bit of hope. SNL's article, titled, "Too early to start celebrating a recovery in the sector," indicated that although the downward trend in mineral exploration has not broken yet, the market has stopped down-grading mining equities, with a modest gain in market capitalization since its most recent low in mid-2013....
At the same time as the EPA is pushing forward on its planned precedent-setting, pre-emptive, pre-permit veto of the Pebble project and the tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia, former Gold Fields Ltd. Chief Geologist Rael Lipson published an eye-opening summary of where porphyry copper-gold projects like Pebble, Mt. Polley and dozens of others around the world fit into the future of gold production. The article, appearing in the July 2014...
Indicative of the state of mineral exploration in Alaska, and around the world, no drills are turning at NovaCopper's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in 2014. Instead, crews crated up 12,918 meters of core from historical drilling at the northern Alaska project and shipped it to Fairbanks where it can more economically be re-logged and readied for re-sampling. At an expected cost of around US$2.7 million, this relatively modest program follows two years of exploration...
As is normally the case in high summer in Alaska, news has started to trickle out of the hills on projects where new work is being conducted, and several properties have changed hands or are in the process of changing hands as mining deals are negotiated and announced across the state. Alaska mines are enjoying slight upticks in metals prices, but recent price volatility has left producers cautious about making long-term capital investments in new or existing projects. Regardl...
The din of mineral industry activity that is normally a part of the summer months in Alaska is decidedly muted this year as the global mining industry attempts to lift itself off the bottom of a plus-18-month-long slump. Some Alaska projects are moving forward but most field budgets are small with commensurately reduced goals attached. Larger mining companies, many under new management, are rapidly shedding non-core assets while revising budgets and timeframes for...
At the recent Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada meeting in Toronto, Dr. Richard Schodde, managing director of MinEx Consulting, presented some key factors which affect the time span between a mineral discovery and start-up of commercial mining. The study reviewed about 3,500 nonferrous metal deposits discovered between 1950 and 2013. Dr. Schodde's findings suggest that only 45 percent of all discoveries made since 1950 have turned into mines. The rate is...
The languishing price of zinc has provided little incentive for investors to embrace companies seeking to explore and develop the next generation of mines that produce this essential metal. However, an expected 1.5 million metric tons of supply being lost to mine closures by 2016 is beginning to galvanize the zinc sector. "In the case of zinc, this is a metal that's been unloved for a long time. As a result there has been very little investment put into the industry. Due to th...
Zinc is at a supply-demand tipping point that has miners and investors looking to cash in on an imminent shortage of this essential metal which has been in oversupply for nearly a decade. "We believe the outlook for zinc is the most favorable of the base metals. With recent and expected closures of a number of zinc mines, we believe that approximately 1.5 million metric tons of current zinc mine production will be closed by the end of 2016 in a 13 million (tpa) market," Teck...
NovaCopper Inc.'s 2013 exploration program has added another 2.6 billion pounds of copper to the resource at the Bornite project in the Ambler mining district, swelling the size of this Northwest Alaska deposit to 6 billion lbs. of the red metal. Bornite is one of many deposits and prospects that make up the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a long-term partnership forged between NovaCopper and NANA Regional Corp. in 2011. The alliance combines Bornite and a number of other...
The over-all mood at the recent Cordilleran Roundup mining convention in Vancouver, B.C. was more restrained than in previous years, but also more realistic due in large part to the prolonged downturn in risk capital mining markets. It seems the industry has transitioned from the denial stage accompanying the declines of 2013 to an acceptance and determination stage that always precedes a return to market vitality. In a recent public release by financial giant Ernst and...
For those of you that could not attend, the annual Alaska Miners Association Convention and Trade Show was well-attended, with most people pleasantly surprised by the strong turnout. Compared to a year ago, more companies are planning to get back in the field with exploration and development programs in 2014, a sentiment making up one of the few bright spots in a recent IntierraRMG resource sector exploration summary. This report and a similar snapshot of the exploration...
The ongoing scarcity of venture capital available to junior companies coupled with a retreat in metals prices has landed a one-two blow that sent mineral exploration spending in Alaska plunging for the second straight year. A handful of big-budget projects scattered across Alaska, though, is softening the hit to exploration spending across the Far North State during 2013. Mineral exploration expenditures in Alaska, which were a meager US$23.8 million in 2001, topped US$365...
As NovaCopper Inc. continues to adds to the more than 5.5 billion pounds of copper it has identified at the highly prospective Ambler mining district, the explorer is beginning to formulate a plan to develop the first of three ultra-high-grade deposits in this highly prospective but remote region of Northwest Alaska. The Vancouver B.C.-based junior launched into 2013 with the February release of a maiden NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource estimate for South Reef, one of two...
TCK: NYSE/ TCK.B: TSX Chairman: Norman Keevil President and CEO: Don Lindsay Vice President of Exploration: Alex Christopher From grassroots discoveries to brownfields expansions, Teck Resources Ltd. is involved in a broad spectrum of exploration across Alaska, British Columbia and Yukon Territory. The Vancouver, B.C.-based mining company had drills turning at three copper-gold exploration projects in northwestern British Columbia during 2013. Galore Creek Mining Company, a 50-50 partnership between Teck and NovaGold...
From Kotzebue to Ketchikan, Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is using its financial muscle and its ability to build and operate large infrastructure projects to help mining companies overcome the challenges of developing the often remote mineral riches that the Last Frontier has to offer. "We are working with local communities and mine developers on infrastructure projects throughout Alaska, including port facilities and energy supply," said AIDEA external...
A new preliminary economic assessment has stripped away the idea of underground mining as the only means to recover the copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold from the volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit at the Arctic deposit. Instead, the scoping study has encouraged NovaCopper Inc. to favor an open-pit mine scenario as it advances the Northwest Alaska project towards a pre-feasibility study. "We think this (PEA) demonstrates that the open-pit is a viable alternative; and I...
This month's mining news is a smorgasbord to delight the appetites of explorers, developers and miners alike. We had quarterly reports out from Teck, Kinross, Hecla and Coeur d'Alene discussing their respective results from operating mines around the state. We had one preliminary economic analysis by NovaCopper on its Arctic massive sulfide project and one feasibility study announced by International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. on its Livengood gold project. We had Freegold and...
Following a rising chorus of junior companies touting impressive exploration programs on mineral prospects across Alaska that reached its crescendo in 2011, a deafening silence is resonating across the Far North expanse in 2013. And in the junior mining sector, no news is bad news. Mineral exploration expenditures in Alaska, which were a meager US$23.8 million in 2001, climbed to US$347 million by 2008. The "Great Recession of 2008" tightened the equity markets, resulting in...
The annual Cordilleran Roundup Mining Convention is held in Vancouver at the end of January each year, and this year's convention was unlike any of the nearly 20 such conventions I have attended. The norm for this convention is a sort of anticipatory excitement that permeates every facet of the event. Mineral exploration is the focus of this gathering, and explorationists are by and large optimistic people. While there was no lack of optimism at the 2013 convention, if you...
NovaCopper Inc. is 2.4 billion pounds closer to reaching its goal of defining a 10-billion-pound copper camp in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. "In our first season of drilling at South Reef, we have defined 2.4 billion pounds of high-grade copper and the mineralized system is wide open for expansion," NovaCopper CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse said. South Reef, with an inferred resource of 43.1 million metric tons of material averaging 2.54 percent copper, is the...
I finally found something I have been thinking about for a long time but had not seen discussed in detail. We have all seen summaries of the declining rate of discoveries for new mineral deposits and have heard about the steadily increasing cost of production, now at a record US$727 per ounce, according to GFMS' Gold Survey 2012. What I really wanted to know was the replacement cost of an ounce or a pound of metal. Let's take gold for example: If I am a producing mine and I just produced an ounce of gold, what is the cost of...
A recent letter distributed to the minerals industry by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys and the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development's Division of Economic Development is seeking faster and more efficient ways to gather, collate and publish Alaska's Annual Minerals Industry Report. The agencies are looking for feedback regarding what items the industry thinks is important to retain in the report, what items are not in the report that should be...
