The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 151
From breaking ground at Alaska's next gold mine to the advancement of North of 60 projects focused on delivering the metals needed for the transition of low-carbon energy, and an impressive safety milestone at Alaska's only coal mine to a history of the helicopters that make mineral exploration across the North possible, here is a countdown of the 10 most popular North of 60 Mining News articles in 2023: No. 10 - CORE celebrates Manh Choh, Lucky Shot Contango Ore Inc., a...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Dec. 21 announced a nice holiday surprise as it closed US$15 million in convertible notes and roughly C$3.4 million in non-brokered private placement offerings. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the status of Pebble, Kopernik Global Investors LLC out of Florida has purchased convertible notes (basically a loan that gives the option to be paid out as shares) toward the sum of US$15 million, whereas Northern Dynasty also issued and sold 8.56...
Navigating the tumultuous waters of controversy and impassioned discourse, let us take a step back and embark on a journey through the history of an Alaska copper project that has proven to be as divisive as it is essential. Perhaps by exploring the compelling narrative of the Pebble Mine project, where the pursuit of precious resources indispensable for a zero-carbon future intersects with the call for environmental stewardship to safeguard heritage and a very way of life,...
Alaska's unparalleled potential to be a major domestic supplier of the minerals and metals critical to the clean energy transition attracted some of North America's top commodities investors and analysts to Anchorage for the second annual Alaska Sustainable Energy conference. The 49th State's rich mineral resources, however, may remain on lockdown due to a "permitting pandemic" that plagues not only Alaska but the entire United States. "Our country is suffering from a...
The North of 60 Mining area hosts billions of pounds of copper ready to be delivered to a world craving this metal in sky-high demand for wiring the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that would enable the envisioned low-carbon future. Whether enough of these copper-rich projects are developed in time to circumvent a short circuit of the clean energy transition remains to be seen. Global Market analysts such as S&P Global have predicted that copper...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. May 1 said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's decision to reevaluate its decision not to approve permits to develop a mine at Pebble is a strong win for the world-class copper project in Southwest Alaska "We have been saying that the record of decision (ROD) process was not fairly conducted since 2020 and are pleased to see that the review officer has raised similar concerns on many substantive issues," said Northern Dynasty President and CEO Ron...
In what could be the most consequential "pollice verso" for Alaska, in a time when the federal government is seeking to shift the paradigm from more than a century of petroleum dependency to clean renewable energy, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its final determination under the Clean Water Act to help protect Bristol Bay, invariably crippling the more than two decades of effort toward establishing a mine at the world-class copper-gold-molybdenum-silver-rhenium...
An updated preliminary economic assessment for Pebble shows that a US$60 million royalty investment deal between Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and an unnamed investor has a minimal impact on the economics of the proposed mine at the world-class copper project in Southwest Alaska. You can read about the sudden investment at Surprise $60 million investment for Pebble in the July 29, 2022, edition of North of 60 Mining News. "In the updated technical report we have detailed the...
Pebble Limited Partnership presses for withdrawal of preemptive veto As the Environmental Protection Agency closed public input on its 2022 proposed determination, Pebble Limited Partnership calls on the agency to withdraw its preemptive veto of the Pebble copper mine project, ultimately finalizing the permit process undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. About a year ago, the EPA made known its intention to reinitiate the process of making a Clean Water Act Section...
In spite of the current uncertainty regarding a final decision by the Environmental Protection Agency, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and Pebble Limited Partnership has outlined the potential locations and solutions of a tailings pond for the proposed world-class copper-gold-silver-rhenium mine in Southwest Alaska. To alleviate concerns over the environmental impacts a mine like Pebble would have on the surrounding waters, especially the Bristol Bay watershed that supports...
In a move that could help it push the Pebble project across the permitting finish line, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. has entered into an agreement with an unnamed investor for US$60 million over the next two years in exchange for royalties from the gold and silver that would be recovered as a byproduct of the copper produced if a mine is developed at the world-class deposit in Southwest Alaska. With an initial $12 million in good faith, this substantial investment could...
In a polarizing announcement, the Environmental Protection Agency released a revised Proposed Determination under Clean Water Act Section 404(c) to prohibit and restrict the use of certain waters in the Bristol Bay watershed. If finalized, the decision would lock out any future for a Pebble mine, and the enormous quantities of copper and other resources it could provide for the global transition to renewable energy. "This is clearly a giant step backwards for the Biden...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. April 28 announced its subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership is preparing crews and equipment for its 2022 field program at the Pebble project site in Southwest Alaska. While disputes over the initial denial of mine permits by the Army Corp of Engineers in November 2020, then leading to the EPA's decision to reinitiate the process of making a Clean Water Act Section 404(c) determination in September 2021, Northern Dynasty has opted to continue...
Goldman Sachs' declaration that "copper is the new oil" may serve as a foreshadowing of Alaska's economic future, one that is not so heavily reliant on the revenues from petroleum flowing from the North Slope and leans more heavily on the state's rich endowment of precious, critical, and base metals. The investment bank's suggestion that copper is to become the strategically most important commodity on Earth is due to the vital role the conductive metal plays in global...
Continued efforts by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. to advance its Pebble project has led to the company filing a motion to the court to set a schedule requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to decide to either withdraw or finalize its 2014 proposed determination for the proposed copper-gold-silver-rhenium mine in Southwest Alaska. With this proposed determination, the federal agency sought to invoke Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act to restrict the use of...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Oct. 4 reports that it has concluded its 2021 field program at the company's Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum-silver project in Southwest Alaska. The principal focus of this year's program entailed: • The continuation of select environmental baseline studies. • Site care and maintenance, including the Pebble project site, and other facilities located within Iliamna. • The demobilization and removal of facilities and equipment no longer requi...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. says the recent 8.1 magnitude earthquake caused substantially less ground movement at the Pebble site than factored in during the designing of the proposed tailings facility for a future mine at this world-class copper project in Southwest Alaska. "We determined the 8.1M earthquake that occurred last month south of the Alaska Peninsula, about 300 miles from our site, create ground acceleration at Pebble that is 20 – 30 times less than the d...
The Environmental Protection Agency Sept. 9 announced its intention to reinitiate the process of making a Clean Water Act Section 404(c) determination to protect certain waters in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska. Providing such a determination is finalized, it would purportedly protect waters that are essential to commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries. Such stringent protections, however, would make advancing the nearby Pebble mine nearly impossible....
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does not subscribe to the idea that it is better for the residents of the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska to have worked and lost than never to have worked at all. In its public interest review for the Pebble project, Army Corps determined that some Bristol Bay residents that become accustomed to increased income and lower living costs from developing Pebble may be forced to move out of the region or lower their standard of living after...
Amongst the rarest of the stable elements on the periodic table and an important ingredient in the emerging thin-film solar panel sector, tellurium embodies what it means to be a metalloid – an element that possesses the properties of both a metal and non-metal – critical to the United States. "Most rocks contain an average of about 3 parts per billion tellurium, making it rarer than the rare earth elements and eight times less abundant than gold," the United States Geo...
Pebble Limited Partnership has submitted a compensatory mitigation plan for Pebble, which is the final piece needed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to finalize a record of decision for the world-class copper-gold-molybdenum-silver-rhenium mine project in Southwest Alaska. Following publication of a Final Environmental Impact Statement for Pebble in July, the Army Corps sent Pebble Partnership a letter that details the need for "in kind" and "in watershed" mitigation for...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that a road and pipelines around the north shore of Iliamna Lake is the most environmentally sound route to access the proposed Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum-silver mine in Southwest Alaska. Referred to as Alternative 3 in the draft Environmental Impact Statement for Pebble, this roughly 85-mile northern land-based transportation route would connect the Pebble mine site to Cook Inlet without the need for a ferry to transport...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. said its Pebble project could provide another source of jobs and revenue to an Alaska economy challenged by an interrelated combination of COVID-19 and low oil prices. Though fewer than 400 cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed in Alaska, placing it among the lowest states in the country on an absolute and per capita basis, the economic impact of the global pandemic on the largest of the United States is both severe and ongoing. As a result of...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Dec. 18 announced that it has raised US$15.5 million, which it will use to continue to advance permitting and outreach at its Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum mine project in Southwest Alaska. The Pebble project is nearing a final decision on an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed mine. The EIS is a lengthy process under the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), that ensures that large projects such as Pebble meet...
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...
