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...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has offered the proposal of allowing the Pebble Limited Partnership to apply for permits to develop a less than average-size porphyry mine at the world's largest undeveloped copper-gold-molybdenum deposit. Falling short of an outright ban of building a mine at Pebble, the EPA is proposing Clean Water Act Section 404(c) permit restrictions aimed at limiting the footprint of any mine allowed to be developed at the enormous porphyry...
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 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is drawing fire from lawmakers, business groups, project developers and the state of Alaska over its handling of the Bristol Bay Assessment and associated attempt to prevent the Pebble Mine project from getting the opportunity to have a fair hearing under established permitting regulations in the United States. Mounting pressure from various parties has persuaded the EPA Office of Inspector General to launch an investigation of the...
FAIRBANKS - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency endeavor to use a presumed authority under Section 404(c) of the federal Clean Water Act to pre-emptively ban the permits required to develop the Pebble Mine cast a dark shadow over the Arctic International Mining Symposium, a mining convention held in Fairbanks every other year. "We have a federal government that, as far as I am concerned, contains people that are intent on shutting down our state's economy," Pebble Partner...
GFMS formerly known as Gold Fields Mineral Services) recently announced their outlook for gold prices in the coming months, estimating average 2014 gold prices in the US$1,225 per ounce range. The price forecast is 13 percent less than the 2013 average of US$1,411/oz. Physical demand, including official sector purchases, came in at an all-time high of 4,957 metric tons in 2013, a 15 percent increase over 2012 and some 703 metric tons higher than the supply of new gold and...
When it comes to policies that attract mining investments, Alaska, British Columbia and the Canadian territories all lost ground compared to their global competition, according to the Fraser Institute's Survey of Mining Companies 2013. The 690 mining executives that completed the annual survey, however, consider these northern neighbors among the top-20 places in the world in terms of "pure mineral potential." The policy perception index (formerly referred to as the policy...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said its Bristol Bay assessment provides evidence that the Pebble copper project is too big and the Bristol Bay watershed is too special to risk the outcome of a state and federal permitting process. To circumvent permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act, a rigorous permitting regime over which EPA holds great sway, the environmental regulator Feb.28 initiated a review under Section 404(c) of the federal Clean Water Act...
If you believe what you see in the press, Alaska's mineral industry was recently given a Christmas gift that trumps even the high-grade anthracite coal that most Alaskans were dreaming of during the last 40-below cold snap. The Alaska Dispatch reported on a recent presentation at the fall 2013 meeting of the American Geophysical Union titled, "Critical Metals in Western Arctic Ocean Ferromanganese Mineral Deposits," by James Hein, a senior scientist at the U.S. Geological...
Is Rio Tinto about to take out Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and gain 100 percent of the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in Southwest Alaska? That is among the options management and directors will have to consider as they carry out a strategic review of the company's share holdings in the Vancouver, B.C.-based junior. Rio Tinto, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, owns 18.15 million common shares of Northern Dynasty, representing roughly 19.1 percent of the 95...
The final rendition of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Bristol Bay Assessment does not opine on whether large-scale mining should be allowed in the Bristol Bay watershed; the report does, however, provide "an important tactical resource" for those opposed to developing the world-class copper-gold-molybdenum deposit at Pebble. "The assessment is a technical resource for governments, tribes and the public as we consider how to address the challenges of large-scale...
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...
After spending more than half a billion dollars to take the Pebble Project to the cusp of permitting, Anglo American plc has pulled out of The Pebble Limited Partnership, an alliance it forged six years ago with junior Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. to gain a 50 percent stake in one of the largest copper-gold-molybdenum deposits on the planet. According to the most recent published resource estimate, Pebble contains 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 107.4 million ounces of gold...
Having enjoyed one of the warmest and driest summers on record, most of Alaska is now paying the piper as unseasonably cold and in many areas, snowy, weather takes hold of the state. With the termination dust come news that is both good and bad, a common theme in what is turning out to be a year of significant cutbacks for exploration, development and production plans. Earlier in 2013, I summarized the expected decrease in exploration expenditures this year. Now that the bulk...
After spending more than half a billion dollars to take the Pebble Project to the cusp of permitting, Anglo American plc has pulled out of The Pebble Limited Partnership, an alliance it forged six years ago with junior Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. to gain a 50 percent stake in one of the largest copper-gold-molybdenum deposits on the planet. According to the most recent published resource estimate, Pebble contains 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 107.4 million ounces of gold...
A growing number of Lower 48 lawmakers are weighing in on the potential risks and rewards of building a mine at the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in Southwest Alaska, shifting the frontline of the escalating battle to Washington D.C. With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seemingly positioning itself to exercise unprecedented powers to halt the Pebble project without giving developers the opportunity to have their plans vetted under the current permitti...
Further proof that the mining industry is undergoing fundamental changes can be found in "Mine: A Confidence Crisis," the 10th edition of PricewaterhouseCoopers's annual report on the global mining industry. This recently released report indicates that in 2012 the top 40 global mining companies saw net profits plummet 49 percent to US$68 billion. To make matters worse, after a 25 percent decline in average mining stock value in 2011 and a slower but still downward trend in 201...
Mineral consulting group Behre Dolbear Group Inc. released its 2013 "Ranking of Countries For Mining Investment Where Not to Invest." Since 1999 the group has compiled annual political risk assessments from key players in the global mining industry. Geology and mineral potential are not considered in this survey, since such potential is inherently indicated by the fact that mineral exploration, development, and mining activity are occurring in these countries. The only...
VANCOUVER, B.C. - British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Territory - the headliners of the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia's 2013 Mineral Exploration Roundup - tallied more than C$1 billion of mineral exploration spending in 2012. This marks the second year running that these neighboring jurisdictions at the northwestern extent of the North American Cordillera topped the C$1 billion mark. But unlike the 2012 Roundup, a year in which explosive exploration...
Alaska miners are on the cusp of topping 1 million ounces of gold produced, an annual milestone that has not been achieved since Gold Rush pioneers recovered copious amounts of alluvial aurum at the turn of the 20th Century. "When you think about what a million ounces of production means, it is all the more amazing that it was first accomplished by placer miners and a few lode miners, a few shovelfuls at a time, more than a century ago!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska...
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...
Ending a streak of robust growth, mineral exploration spending in Alaska during 2012 took a downward turn from the record US$300 million spent a year earlier. "More advanced-stage projects that added ounces or pounds to their resource base had a better go of it than early-stage exploration projects which have taken a hard right cross to the jaw!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska geologist and president of Fairbanks-based Avalon Development, observed in September. This blow de...
Millrock Resources Inc.'s skillful execution of the project generator model is allowing it to flourish in an equity market that has not been kind to junior exploration companies. Capitalizing on its exploration expertise and first-hand geological knowledge of Alaska and southeastern Arizona, Millrock pulled together some C$11 million for exploration in 2012. Some 93 percent of this spending was funded by global miners Teck Resources Ltd., Kinross Gold Corp., Vale S.A. and Inme...
The Pebble Limited Partnership is spending some US$107 million to advance the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in 2012, with the objective of initiating permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act in 2013. Work programs include environmental studies focused on fish and marine resources, water quality and groundwater hydrology; continued engineering analysis to finalize a project description; geotechnical and exploration drilling; and workforce and...
