The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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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...
With two Australian companies making major investments and several exploration companies from Down Under chomping at the bit to get into the field, 2020 is shaping up to be the best year for Alaska's mining sector in a decade. When you add up the investments South32 Ltd. plans to make in the Ambler Mining District and other exploration projects; Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s spending at the Pogo gold mine; and the exploration dollars at least five other Aussie companies are...
Development of the rich mineral resource in Alaska's Ambler Mining District took another major leap forward with the Dec. 19 announcement that Australia-based South32 Ltd. is investing US$145 million to become a 50 percent joint venture partner in Trilogy Metals Inc.'s Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP). This Northwest Alaska project covers a more than 70-mile (115 kilometers) stretch of Earth's crust that is uncommonly rich in a variety of precious, base and critical...
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,...
Calista Corp. and its 31,400 Yup'ik, Cup'ik and Athabascan shareholders are on the cusp of realizing the benefits that will come with the sustainable development of a mine at the 45-million-ounce Donlin Gold project on their land in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Southwest Alaska. With 39 million oz of gold in measured and indicated resources that average 2.24 grams per metric ton, and another 6 million oz in the inferred category averaging 2.02 g/t gold, Donlin Gold is truly a...
If you have watched the metals markets over the last month, you know why Alaska's mineral industry has surged, stalled, swerved, swooped, slowed, shelved and stuttered, sometimes all at the same time! Gold has gone above US$1,500 per ounce; copper pundits are predicting an increasingly dour future; zinc markets are looking to dive below $1.00 per pound; tin markets have marched strongly upward due to supply disruptions; and silver bulls are calling for annual worldwide...
After 15 years of leading the effort to unlock the vast mineral potential of the Ambler Mining District, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse has turned in his resignation as president, CEO and director of Trilogy Metals Inc. Van Nieuwenhuyse, who told Mining News that he needed some time to handle personal matters, will remain as a consultant to the company and will assist with transitional matters and with advancing the company’s interests in Alaska. Jim Gowans – former president and CEO...
As the rest of the country suffers through the Dog Days of summer, Alaska is approaching the end of a topsy-turvy summer season that saw unseasonably hot, dry weather in some parts of the state during some parts of the summer, while other parts of the state have seen record rainfall and unseasonably early snowfall. Gold prices have skyrocketed over the $1,500 per ounce mark and silver prices have moved strongly up, now trading at a one-year high. However, copper and zinc are a...
Earlier this month Reuters reported that several agencies within the U.S. Federal government were "rapidly assessing" our domestic ability to mine and refine rare earth elements and utilize those 17 super cool elements in value-added products needed for a wide and ever-growing array of consumer and national defense products. Not surprisingly, mining industry officials demurred when quizzed about supplying information on where rare elements might be mined in the U.S. and how...
In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot! After seasonally slower news from Alaska's mining industry in March and April, the dam has broken with over two dozen Alaska mining project news releases issued in the last month. Including those projects moving forward that have not released their 2019 plans, Alaska has become a very busy place under the sun. All of our major metal mines reported strong performances in the first quarter, several of Alaska's most...
Alaska Miners Association April 10 released "The economic benefits of Alaska's mining industry," a report put together by the McDowell Group that details roughly $1.26 billion in direct economic benefits from Alaska's mining sector during 2018. Healthy paychecks being brought home to more than 60 communities across Alaska is mining's biggest single economic contributor to the state. Alaska's mines, development and mineral exploration projects paid roughly $459 million to some...
As is usually the case this time of year, the mining industry is awash in backward-looking statements designed to allow for more accurate forward-looking statements. Prime among them is one of my favorites, S&P Global's annual "World Exploration Trends 2019", a summary of what happened industry-wide in 2018 and what it may portend for the mining industry in 2019. The study predicts that global exploration budgets will increase again in 2019, although by a smaller amount, with...
The value of non-fuel metals produced in Alaska and the United States during 2018 were similar to 2017, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2019, an annual report published by the U.S. Geological Survey. Alaska mines produced roughly $3.44 billion worth of non-fuel minerals last year, down nearly 3 percent from the US$3.53 million in 2017. This slight drop is largely due to lower output from the two largest mines in the state – Fort Knox and Pogo. The roughly 1.4 b...
When it comes to attracting mining investment, Alaska, British Columbia and all three Canadian territories rank among the top 20 jurisdictions in the world on the Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2018. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their mineral endowment and various policy topics important to mining. "The mining survey-now in its 21st year-is the most comprehensive report card on government...
Those of you that attended the recent Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver can attest to the exuberant, upbeat atmosphere that pervaded the conference and was very much in evidence at the standing-room only festivities at our annual self-hosted Alaska Night meet and greet. But digging down under this veneer of optimism, many of the junior explorers and most of the producers admitted to their expectations of challenging times in 2019. Putting words to this apparent...
The Red Dog Mine has been a gamechanger for the more than 14,000 Iñupiat shareholders of NANA Corp., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional corporation that owns the world-class Red Dog deposits in Northwest Alaska that are the source of around 5 percent of the world's new zinc supply each year. The revenues from shipping out more than 1 billion pounds of zinc annually, along with healthy portions of lead, silver and minor amounts of germanium, has served...
Teck Resources Ltd. Feb. 12 reported that the Red Dog zinc mine in Northwest Alaska produced 583,200 metric tons (1.29 billion pounds) of zinc during 2018, a roughly 8 percent increase over the 541.9 metric tons (1.19 billion lb) of the galvanizing metal produced in 2017. The operation also produced 98,400 metric tons (217 million lb) of lead last year, which is down about 12 percent from the previous year. During the fourth quarter, Red Dog produced 160,100 metric tons (353 m...
NANA Jan. 19 announced the hiring of two key executives heading into the new year – Sarah Lukin now serves as senior vice president and chief administration officer at NANA Regional Corp., and Kevin Aubertin joins NANA's Commercial Group as the president of Tuuq Drilling. Lukin, who officially began her tenure at NANA on Jan. 7, will provide strategic leadership in a broad range of functions, including leading external and government affairs, corporate communications, c...
Alaska boasts what many consider the most successful Aboriginal land claims settlement on Earth – a solution that has not only turned out to be a cultural success, but a brilliant business move for the more than 140,000 Alaska Natives and an economic boon for the state that covers the resource-rich lands these industrious and innovative peoples have called home for millennia. Signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, comm...
As the year waned, Alaska's mining industry reported some of the last of its 2018 seasonal field results while the University of Alaska and state of Alaska released some current and projected state-wide economics. At the same time, some macro-economic data was released for the global mining industry. Combined, these figures show a mix of encouraging and not so encouraging trends facing the Alaska mining industry. At the global scale, things for the mining industry are looking...
WESTERN ALASKA Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. announced that it had finalized a surface right of way agreement with Alaska Peninsula Corporation for use of that latter's lands for the construction and operation of transportation infrastructure associated with the Pebble copper-molybdenum-gold project. Alaska Peninsula Corporation is an Alaska Native village corporation with extensive land holdings proximal to the Pebble site and more than 900 shareholders, many of which live...
When it comes to mineral exploration incentives, currency exchange and infrastructure, Alaska is at a disadvantage in the realm of attracting exploration investments from Canada and Australia, countries that are home to the majority of mining companies. The Far North State's vast and underexplored mineral potential, however, trumps these handicaps in the minds of a growing number of miners and mineral explorers. Mining executives from around the globe perennially rank Alaska...
With a melting point of 5,756 degrees Fahrenheit and a heat-stable crystalline structure, rhenium is extremely resistant to both heat and wear. This durability makes it a vital element in superalloys used in jet and industrial gas turbine engines. "The high-temperature properties of rhenium allow turbine engines to be designed with finer tolerances and operate at temperatures higher than those of engines constructed with other materials," the United States Geological Survey...
Cobalt is a critical safety ingredient in the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries powering the ever-increasing number of electric vehicles traveling global highways and a plethora of cordless electrical devices. "Globally, the leading use is in the manufacture of cathode materials for rechargeable batteries – primarily lithium-ion, nickel-cadmium, and nickel-metal-hydride batteries – which are used in consumer electronics, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, energy sto...
Despite over four decades of working with the mining industry in Alaska, my travels rarely brought me to the northwest part of the state and my opportunities to interface with residents have been embarrassingly few and far between. Recently, however, I have had occasion to pay a lot more attention to that part of the world. As a part of my remedial experience, I have had occasion to immerse myself in Willie Hensley's beautiful memoir about his life and the Iñupiaq of Kotzebue....
