The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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A group of Alaskans led by renowned geologist Curt Freeman have created Valhalla Metals Inc., a private Alaska exploration company that has nabbed exciting volcanogenic massive sulfide projects that bookend the Ambler Mining District, one of the richest known undeveloped mineral regions on Earth. Anchored by the Arctic deposit on lands held by Trilogy Metals Inc., this region of Northwest Alaska is celebrated for a 70-mile- (110 kilometers) long belt of world-class VMS...
With initial results from the 2018 drilling at Bornite topping 5 percent copper, Trilogy Metals Inc. and South32 Ltd. have decided to extend this year's program at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. Trilogy has only received partial assay results from one hole drilled this year, but the results are impressive. This hole, RC18-0247, cut 16.4 meters grading 5.34 percent copper and 0.21 percent cobalt to the north of the...
UPPER KOBUK MINERAL PROJECTS: A two-hour flight northwest of Fairbanks, Alaska lies one of the richest known undeveloped mining districts on Earth. This claim is evidenced by the rich deposits of copper, zinc, lead, cobalt, gold and silver outcropping from the Brooks Range mountains where this district is found; the copper-rich ore extracted from an exploration shaft dug by Kennecott in the 1960s; and the copper and cobalt mineralization that is easy for a journalist to...
Northwest Territories may fall behind Canada's two other territories in mining activity in the near-future, but projects underway in the northern jurisdiction hold substantial promise for mid- to long-term gains, especially if many current roadblocks come down. "Optimism is warranted for the territory's mining sector and the broader economy it drives," said Wally Schumann, minister of industry, tourism and investment for the Government of Northwest Territories. But...
Giga Metals Corp. (formerly Hard Creek Metals Corp.) July 11 said it has agreed to sell a 2 percent net smelter return royalty on all future metal production from the Turnagain nickel-cobalt project in north-central British Columbia, to Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. for US$1 million in cash payment and 1.125 million Cobalt 27 shares, valued at US$6.8 million based on the July 11 closing price. Cobalt 27, a leading electric metals investment vehicle offering exposure to metals integr...
The summer field season is in full bloom across Alaska with programs stretching from the Brooks Range to southeastern Alaska, and from the Yukon border to southwestern Alaska. Exploration targets range from grassroots to mine-site, focused on commodities including gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, cobalt and graphite. For Alaska's exploration industry, planned, announced and estimated expenditures are well over the $100 million mark for 2018. This expenditure level is well...
Trilogy Metals Inc. May 28 said it is gearing up for another busy field season at its Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. The US$16.7 million of work programs budgeted for UKMP in 2018 will focus on gathering the data to advance the Arctic project towards feasibility and permitting, as well as drilling to expand and upgrade the large copper resource at Bornite. As crews continue to advance these large and high-grade metals deposits,...
One of the most common complaints I hear from companies and individuals working in the mineral industry in Alaska is our deplorable lack of modern, usable-scale digital geophysical and geologic maps. How bad is it? Consider this: the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that less than 2 percent of Alaska has acceptable geophysical data coverage, and less than 20 percent has been geologically mapped at a scale useful to evaluate the state's mineral resources. Nobody will deny...
Cobalt is an essential ingredient to optimizing the performance of batteries in the growing number of electric vehicles on global highways, yet essentially none of this battery metal is mined in the United States. With at least one advanced stage exploration project in Alaska looking into the potential of producing cobalt alongside its copper, America's 49th State could provide a domestic source for this critical metal. In its annual report, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2018,...
In 2017 Alaska’s mineral exploration industry saw its first up-tick in exploration spending since 2011, an increase that S&P Global Market Intelligence’s “World Exploration Trends” indicates was mirrored on the world-wide level. According to S&P’s data, the worldwide exploration industry spent $8.4 billion in 2017, the first such increase in spending since 2012. S&P also forecast a 15-20 percent increase in exploration spending for 2018 as well. The study also showed that dema...
Seven days of near-continuous rain did nothing to dampen the mood at the recently concluded Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver. The event was buoyed by a realistic optimism we have not seen in over five years. This change from half-empty to half-full glasses is due to a number of things including strong commodities prices, increasing global demand for metals and current or looming supply shortfalls in many of the metals produced by this industry. The event was...
Before color televisions hit the markets in the 1960s, rare earths where a curious group of elements that had the distinction of occupying their own separate section at the bottom of the periodic table but had very few practical applications. Over the ensuing 50 years, however, this group of 15 lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium have been discovered to possess unique properties that make them key ingredients in a wide range of modern products such as terabyte hard-drives...
As we transition from 2017 into 2018, the weight of evidence pointing to a long-awaited mining industry up-tick is being trumpeted from every financial institution, brokerage house and mining pundit across the globe. For example, RBC Capital Markets' newly released "2018 New Year Preview" has this to say: "We are in the mid-stages of a stock market recovery and the early stages of an economic cycle recovery. Gold is already in a phase where it out-performs other financial...
The Trump Administration's focus on securing domestic sources of critical minerals could help re-invigorate mineral exploration and mine development in Alaska. At least 15 of the 23 critical minerals identified by the U.S. Geological Survey – antimony, barite, beryllium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite, indium, platinum group elements, rare earth elements, rhenium, tantalum, tellurium, tin and vanadium – are found across the Far North state. Working alo...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Sep. 18 reported high-grade copper results from this summer's exploration drill program at the Bornite project, part of the company's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in the Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska. This 10,000-meter program is focused on expanding upon the more than 6 billion pounds of copper Trilogy has outlined at Bornite. Roughly 2.7 billion lb of this copper is encompassed in an open-pit resource averaging roughly 1 percent copper. The r...
Exploration companies familiar with Alaska already know the Far North State is great place to look for critical minerals such as rare earth elements, platinum group metals, cobalt and tin. A new report published by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that Alaska may be richer in these and other minerals vital to the United States than previously realized. Working alongside the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, USGS developed a new geospatial tool...
While most mining jurisdictions have seen sharp drops in mineral exploration spending, such investments in Northwest Territories has largely held steady at about C$100 million annually during the past five years. As a result, this diamond-rich territory accounted for roughly 7 percent of mineral exploration spending in Canada in 2016, compared with only about 2 percent in 2011. The ultimate measure of mineral exploration success is not the amount of exploration dollars spent...
TSX/NYSE-MKT: TMQ Chairman: Gerald McConnell President and CEO: Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse Exploration Business Manager: Frank Gish While its name has changed, Trilogy Metals Inc.'s goal remains the same - unlock the potential of the world-class base and precious metals deposits at its Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska. The company's former name, NovaCopper, spoke to the some 8.5 billion pounds of copper identified so far at UKMP, but it did not describe the natural diversity provided by the zinc, silver, gold, lead...
What does a name say about a company? Management of NovaCopper Inc. feels that its corporate moniker does not say enough about the diversity of metals present in the high-grade deposits encompassed by its Upper Kobuk Minerals Projects in the Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska. Arctic, the most advanced UKMP deposit, actually hosts more zinc than it does copper. And, while copper remains the dominant metal in terms of value, zinc supply shortages are closing the price...
As some of the world's biggest gold miners nab exciting plays that turned up across Yukon Territory during the past decade, Yukon's mining explorers continue to seek the next generation of mine projects in the northwestern-most Canadian territory. Many of the up and coming mines in Yukon also are getting a boost from C$360 million in upgrades to roads into some of Yukon's richest mining districts. Known as the Yukon Resource Gateway project, the endeavor to modernize...
With two world-class metals deposits and strong partnerships Trilogy Metals Inc. aims to develop the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska into one of the highest grade copper mining districts on Earth. These high aspirations got a boost when South32 Ltd., a coal and base metals miner spun out of BHP Billiton, cut a US$150 million deal with Trilogy to earn up to a 50 percent interest in UKMP, a vast land package that blankets most of the renowned Ambler Mining...
Alaska fell from favor with the 350 mining executives who responded to the Fraser Institute’s Survey of Mining Companies 2016, published on Feb. 28. This group of miners, explorers and consultants ranked the Far North State as the 14th best jurisdiction on Earth to seek and develop a mine. To gather information for its report, the Fraser Institute asks mining executives to rank the mineral potential and mining policies of mining jurisdictions around the globe. The C...
As the first snows of the coming winter began to fall at high elevations across Alaska, results of summer programs likewise began to trickle in from far-flung areas of the state. Meanwhile, second- and third-quarter production data began to show up and mining industry analysts released a series of reports covering a wide range of industry-wide trends. For example, SNL Metals and Mining Research released information on how long it takes to move a new discovery to production....
Fortune Minerals Ltd. April 18 announced the appointment of former Northwest Territories minister David Ramsay to its board of directors. Ramsay has more than 20 years of elected public office experience in the Northwest Territories, which included prominent cabinet positions in the Legislative Assembly. Prior to November, he served as Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, accounting for about 50 percent of Northwest Territories' private sector gross domestic product....
Mineral exploration spending in Northwest Territories dipped sharply in 2015. While the final numbers are not in, Natural Resources Canada predicts exploration and deposit appraisal expenditures in the territory to be around C$43.6 million, or less than half the roughly C$95.8 million invested last year. Industry and government leaders in the territory, however, have come together "to develop a robust mineral industry in the NWT." In January, the government announced the...
