The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Lying just deep enough into the mining frontier that value of its world-class deposits copper, gold, silver, nickel, and other metals has not been fully realized, yet home to the industrial-grade hydropower, road access, and Pacific Rim ports needed to unlock its vast mineral potential, Northern BC is well-positioned to be a major source of precious, base, and critical metals in the 21st century. This particularly mineral-rich section of the Canadian Cordillera also happens...
Dolly Varden Silver Corp. Dec. 20 announced that it has entered into a deal to consolidate ownership of Big Bulk, a porphyry copper-gold project about 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the company's Kitsault Valley gold-silver project at the southern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle. Big Bulk, which covers what is interpreted to be the northernmost of a string of several porphyry mineralized systems that extend 30 kilometers (19 miles) south to New Moly LLC's...
Blackwolf Copper and Gold Ltd. March 21 announced it has updated its earlier agreement with Dolly Varden Silver Corp. and New Moly LLC to study the viability of building a mill complex on New Moly's Kitsault project in Northern British Columbia with the addition of two new companies interested in partaking in the study – Goliath Resources Ltd. and Coast Copper Corp. At the beginning of February, Blackwolf, Dolly Varden and New Moly reported strong interest in consolidating o...
Capping off a successful year of mine predevelopment activities at its 30%-owned Manh Choh gold mine project in Interior Alaska and acquisition of the historic high-grade Lucky Shot gold mine project in Southcentral Alaska by up-listing its share to the New York Stock exchange, Contango ORE Inc. is well-positioned for 2022 success. "2021 represented another year of COVID, but despite the difficulties of working in a continued pandemic environment, the company achieved its...
Contango ORE Inc. April 29 announced it has staked 52,920 acres of state of Alaska mining claims covering a significant portion of the Richardson Mining District. This property, known as Shamrock, lies alongside the Alaska Highway about 70 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. In addition to excellent access via gravel roads and trails connecting to the paved highway, Shamrock boasts a high-voltage power line that runs along the southern property boundary. Since the discovery...
"Less than a year after the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, there was formed under California law a corporation named the Alaska Commercial Company. Its home office was in San Francisco, but its activities were to center in Alaska, where it soon became a power in the land. Indeed, at sometimes and places it was the only effective power." This an excerpt from a piece written by Frank H. Sloss in July 1977 for The Pacific Northwest Quarterly titled,...
Kinross Gold Corp.'s new long-term strategy for its Fort Knox Mine is a paradigm shift for mineral exploration companies with gold projects on or near the road system within a 300-mile-radius of the iconic gold operation about 20 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Under this new operating plan, Kinross is looking for Alaskan projects that can deliver high-grade ore to the underutilized 14-million-metric-ton-per-year mill at Fort Knox. "There is an economic radius around Fort...
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...
Coeur Mining Inc. Feb. 20 announced that it has successfully grown its companywide reserve base for the fourth consecutive year, largely driven by the initial reserve declaration for its Silvertip Mine in northern British Columbia. Going into 2019, Coeur's five mines – Silvertip, Kensington (Alaska), Palmarejo (Mexico), Rochester (Nevada) and Wharf (South Dakota) – had 289.5 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.01 ounces per ton (2.8 million ounces)...
Underscoring the interconnected nature of the global mining market, not 48 hours after the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law, the mining industry began wondering out loud how they were going to produce rare earth element, tungsten, tantalum and molybdenum in the near future. Why these metals and why the worry now? Because one of the many impacts the Defense Authorization Act will have on the U.S. economy is its ban on the U.S. Department of...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. Oct. 18 reported encouraging results from the rock sampling portion of its summer exploration program at its Richardson gold project about 25 miles northeast of Delta Junction in Interior Alaska. Rock chip channel samples were collected in one-meter intervals across 130 meters of an exposed face in the historically mined Democrat Pit at Richardson. One 32-meter-long sample returned 5.73 grams per metric ton gold and 29.8 g/t silver, including six meters of 18.33 g/t gold and 48.95 g/t silver....
As gold exploration cools globally, the search for the precious metal is once again heating up in the larger Pogo Mine region of Interior Alaska. One of the reasons this region continues to be a hotbed of gold exploration is Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo LLC’s success in finding and expanding new deposits of high-grade gold on its Pogo Mine property, which anchors the Goodpaster Mining District. Another dozen promising prospects found beyond the borders of the Pogo Mine claims a...
Over the last month the inevitable termination dust has begun to show up across Alaska, bringing with it completion of mineral exploration programs and transition of development and production projects to winter operational modes. Explorers, developers and miners will soon be gathering to compare notes at the annual Alaska Miners Association Convention in Anchorage, an event that always overlaps national and local election night. Alaska's mineral industry outlook brightened...
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska hit an apex of US$365 million in 2011, but as venture capital for mining explorers dried these expenditures plummeted 78 percent to US$80 million in 2015. However, rising gold prices and a loosening of venture capital in 2016 seems to have marked an end to a painfully long bear market for mining explorers in Alaska. “After taking head shots for the past four years, the industry suddenly came to life over the past month, with new budgets,...
Earlier in November, the Alaska Miners Association held its annual convention and trade show in Anchorage and as always, the well-attended convention overlapped with election Tuesday. While the lead up to, and results of, the national and state elections were hot topics throughout the week, one comment I heard from a colleague on the morning after the elections distilled the feelings of a lot of people at the conference. When asked what he thought of the election results, he...
If you have ever played or followed sporting events, you are probably familiar with that bizarre and often game-changing event known as the "change of momentum". This is when the team that was on the ropes suddenly comes to life and often roars to victory, putting smiles on the faces of coaches, fans and bookies alike. Well, unless I am mistaken, the Alaska mining industry has been the beneficiary of just such a change of momentum over the past month. After taking head shots...
With metal prices stabilizing, physical stockpiles dwindling and demand again on the rise, things are beginning to look up for the beleagered mining industry. Gold's performance over the past several months is a case in point. The World Gold Council reported that during the first quarter, buying of exchange-traded gold funds rose to its highest level since early 2009, wiping out the deep sell-offs of 2014 and 2015 for this instrument. Uncertainties in the fiscal stability of...
As a follow-up to last month's realization that once again "the game is afoot" in the mining industry, major gold producer Goldcorp recently presented some arresting statistics at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Metals, Mining and Steel Conference. The presentation showed gold discovery and production information for the global mining industry that indicated that peak gold discovery occurred in 1995, this despite three periods between 1995 and 2015 when exploration...
The year just past was many things for the mining industry, but one of the bright spots came from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, an agency not known for awarding happy faces or gold stars. In 2016, the mining industry experienced only 25 deaths in U.S. mines, the lowest level ever recorded. This, despite the industry having more than 330,000 miners working in 13,000 mines across the country. The leading cause of death in both coal and metal/nonmetal mines was...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. Jan. 6 filed a technical report that details recent exploration at the company's Richardson gold project and outlines recommendations for future work at the Interior Alaska property. Roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Delta Junction, Richardson hosts multiple gold targets - Democrat Pit, Shamrock and Northwest Camp. During a summer 2016 program, Northern Empire completed 277 line-kilometers of ground magnetic geophysical surveys and...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. Nov. 7 provided results from the summer exploration program at its Richardson gold project in Interior Alaska. This program included 277 line-kilometers of ground magnetic geophysical surveys and the collection of 1,297 geochemical samples. Northern Empire said the geophysical work confirmed the Richardson lineament, a mineralized structural corridor at Richardson, and identified several north-northeast structures that the company has recently...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. Aug. 29 reported a definitive agreement to sell its Kiyuk Lake gold property in Nunavut to Montego Resources Inc., a Vancouver B.C.-based junior exploration company incorporated in 2012. Under the terms of the agreement, Northern Empire will transfer its 100 percent interest in Kiyuk Lake (subject to a 2 percent net smelter return royalty to the original property vendor) in exchange for 6.68 million Montego shares, or 19.99 percent of that...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. July 11 announced the start of a C$500,000 phase-1 exploration program at its Richardson gold project in Interior Alaska. Expected to take six weeks to complete, this initial 2016 program will include 500 soil samples, 300 meters of trenching, prospecting, 100 line-kilometers of ground magnetic surveying, four line-kilometers of induced polarization surveying;, and re-logging of historical core. Highlights from rock grab samples collected from...
Northern Empire Resources Corp. June 13 introduced Michael Allen as a new director, president and CEO of the company. A geologist by training, Allen graduated from the University of Alberta in 1998 and started his career exploring for diamonds. While exploring for gold at the Hope Bay project in Nunavut, he worked with Adrian Fleming, a director of Northern Empire, after which he joined De Beers to assist in developing the Snap Lake Mine. Over the past six years, Allen served...
Earlier this month, the Alaska Miners Association held its annual convention in Anchorage amid plummeting metals prices and an over-all atmosphere of economic uncertainty now stretching into its fourth year. Individuals from around North America and beyond were present and conversations outside of the technical sessions seemed to gravitate toward how best to climb out of the doldrums that seem to grip the mining industry on a global scale. One individual was heard to say that...
