The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 94
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska will likely struggle to top US$80 million for 2014, a dramatic fall from the US$365.1 million pinnacle reached in 2011. "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," Avalon Development President Curt Freeman opined in a June column written for Mining News. Unlike 2...
When NovaCopper Inc. needed additional funds to advance its copper-rich deposits in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska, the Vancouver B.C.-based junior bypassed typical financing vehicles for such ventures and seized the opportunity to buy Sunward Resources Ltd., a fellow exploration company with roughly US$20 million in the bank but a market cap hovering around US$13 million. "The market had basically discounted the cash they had in the bank, so that provided an...
NovaCopper Inc. Oct. 21 reported that drillers cut zones of high-grade mineralization in all 14 holes drilled during its 2015 summer field program at the Arctic volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit in Northwest Alaska. The Arctic project is part of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects located in the Ambler mining district. Highlights from the 2015 program include: AR15-0145, which intersected four mineralized intervals - 22 meters of 3.86 percent copper, 0.86 grams per metric ton...
NovaCopper Inc. Oct. 8 announced the completion of its 2015 field program, which started the work necessary to advance a pre-feasibility study for Arctic, the most advanced of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a partnership between NovaCopper and NANA Corp., the Alaska Native regional corporation that represents the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska. This work included an in-fill drill program designed to evaluate vertical and lateral continuity of the high-grade polymetallic copper-zinc-lead-gold-silver mineralization in support...
Mining is a notoriously cyclical business that generally ebbs and flows with the overall state of the global economy, and these cycles are amplified for junior mining companies charged with scouring the globe for the next generation of mines. Following a bull market that reached a crescendo at the end of 2010, the current bear market has been especially deep and painful for even seasoned mining sector veterans. "This has been a particularly treacherous bear market," longtime...
Over the past month Alaska's mining industry has suffered a perfect storm of manmade and natural issues that read like something from a pulp fiction novel. On the man-made side of the ledger, gold, silver, copper, and lead prices have all hit 5-year lows and zinc prices continue to slide lower. Mining equity markets are still in severe decline, making it extremely challenging for junior exploration companies to raise the risk capital necessary to explore their Alaska...
NovaCopper Inc. July 10 reported the start of a work program focused on advancing a pre-feasibility study for the development of an open-pit mine at Arctic, the most advanced of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a partnership between NovaCopper and NANA Corp., the Alaska Native regional corporation that represents the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska. The Arctic pre-feasibility work is expected to be carried out over a two- to three-year period. NovaCopper has approved a US$5.5...
NovaCopper Inc. June 19 said it has completed acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Sunward Resources Ltd. To complete the transaction, Sunward shareholders were issued 0.3 of a NovaCopper common share for each Sunward common share held. Sunward is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of NovaCopper. As a result of the buyout, NovaCopper has full ownership of the Titiribi gold-copper project in Colombia and more than US$20 million in cash. The company says...
NovaCopper Inc. June 16 reported that its proposed acquisition of Sunward Resources Ltd. received overwhelming approval by the shareholders of each company at their respective shareholder meetings. Under the terms of an arrangement announced in April, each shareholder of Sunward will receive 0.3 of a NovaCopper share for each common share of Sunward held. Some 99.36 percent of the shares represented at the NovaCopper meeting were voted in favor of the issuance of common...
I recently returned from the Geological Society of Nevada's once-every-five-years Symposium in Reno and was surprised to learn a number of things regarding Alaska, despite the symposium's tight focus on the Great Basin of the western United States. First off, mineral exploration guru Brent Cook presented information suggesting we have reached and are "bumping along" the bottom of the current metals market slump. Reminded me of an overloaded fixed-wing aircraft bumping down the...
In a move that provides the cash needed to advance a feasibility study for the Arctic project in Northwest Alaska, NovaCopper has agreed to purchase Sunward Resources Ltd., a Vancouver, B.C.-based mining exploration company with a copper-gold asset in Columbia and roughly US$20 million in the bank. Over the several weeks leading up to the April 23 announcement of the potential merger, the value of Sunward's stock has hovered at roughly US$13 million, substantially less than...
With a mild winter for most of Alaska behind us and an early spring in progress over much of the state, spring fever has once again laid its grip on the mining industry. A number of exploration and development programs are slated for the summer season, suggesting the mining industry has finally started to rise from the three-year miasma that has gripped it worldwide. A couple of macro-scale items also are pointing toward a more robust industry. The U. S. Geological Survey's...
NovaCopper Inc. April 9 provided an update on its projects and finances for the three months ended Feb. 28. For the quarter, NovaCopper reported a net loss of US$1.5 million, compared with a net loss of US$2.6 million for the corresponding period in 2014. The company said lower expenditures this year are primarily due to a decrease in professional fees, salaries and mineral property expenses offset by an increase in stock-based compensation expense. NovaCopper is currently...
Slipping metals prices and investors' ongoing reluctance to risk venture capital in the junior mining sector is hitting Alaska's mineral exploration sector hard; and the Far North state is not the only mining jurisdiction reeling from this one-two punch. "After another year of strong headwinds in 2014, and with lower demand and overproduction continuing to depress metals prices, the mining industry's outlook for 2015 is unpromising at best," SNL Metals & Mining wrote recently...
American billionaires John Paulson, Seth Klarman and Thomas Kaplan have taken a keen interest in Alaska's next generation of gold and copper mines. While it is natural for hedge fund managers such as Paulson and Klarman, and resource investors such as Kaplan, to hold mining stocks in their portfolios, this trio holds major positions in three of the top Alaska-focused mineral exploration and development companies. In fact, the companies founded and managed by these...
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is asking state lawmakers whether it should move ahead with the Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Road, a proposed 200-mile transportation corridor that would link the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska, with the Dalton Highway to the east. This question comes under the auspice of Administrative Order No. 271, a temporary suspension of all "mega-projects" being funded by the state, signed by Gov. Bill...
Amid the volatile metals markets that have become the norm in the past year, miners, developers, explorers, prospectors and investors met in Vancouver at the end of January for the annual Cordilleran Roundup mining convention. The mood was decidely positive, and having seen a lot of "whistling in the cemetary" at this convention in the past, I know the difference between false bravado and contagious optimism. Perhaps it was the stabilization of copper prices after a nine month...
NovaCopper Inc. plans to invest roughly US$20 million over the next two to three years on finalizing a feasibility study for its Arctic deposit, the next step toward the exploration company's vision of developing mines at the world-class copper projects found in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. Arctic is the most advanced of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a venture formed by NovaCopper and NANA Corp., the Alaska Native regional corporation that represents the...
Plummeting oil prices have put Alaska residents and Alaska miners in the same boat. Suddenly, it's less expensive to top off the tank of an SUV or a haul truck, but the state budget, fueled by oil revenue, is teetering on the edge of an estimated $3.5 billion deficit. That's $10 million a day for 2015. "We know Alaska is experiencing a significant drop in revenue - the price of oil has dropped more than 50 percent over the past six months," Alaska's new governor, Bill Walker,...
As the year winds down, financial information has begun to trickle in quantifying just how tough 2014 was on the mining industry. Industry analyst SNL Metals & Mining announced that the total estimated global budget for nonferrous metals exploration dropped another 25 percent in 2014, to US$11.36 billion, from US$15.19 billion in 2013. Perhaps even more arresting is the precipitous fall in just the past two years from an all-time high of US$21.5 billion in nonferrous metal exp...
NCQ: NYSE/TSX Chairman: Thomas Kaplan President and CEO: Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse Project Manager, Upper Kobuk Mineral Project: Scott Petsel NovaCopper Inc. has nearly reached its preliminary goal of defining 10 billion pounds of high-grade copper at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a long-term partnership between NovaCopper and NANA Regional Corp. The alliance combines Bornite and a number of other mineral prospects on NANA-owned lands with the world-class Arctic deposit and dozens of similar volcanogenic massive sulfide...
At the same time as the EPA is pushing forward on its planned precedent-setting, pre-emptive, pre-permit veto of the Pebble project and the tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia, former Gold Fields Ltd. Chief Geologist Rael Lipson published an eye-opening summary of where porphyry copper-gold projects like Pebble, Mt. Polley and dozens of others around the world fit into the future of gold production. The article, appearing in the July 2014...
Indicative of the state of mineral exploration in Alaska, and around the world, no drills are turning at NovaCopper's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in 2014. Instead, crews crated up 12,918 meters of core from historical drilling at the northern Alaska project and shipped it to Fairbanks where it can more economically be re-logged and readied for re-sampling. At an expected cost of around US$2.7 million, this relatively modest program follows two years of exploration...
As is normally the case in high summer in Alaska, news has started to trickle out of the hills on projects where new work is being conducted, and several properties have changed hands or are in the process of changing hands as mining deals are negotiated and announced across the state. Alaska mines are enjoying slight upticks in metals prices, but recent price volatility has left producers cautious about making long-term capital investments in new or existing projects. Regardl...
Alaska's natural gas is increasingly replacing diesel as the fuel of choice for mines and mining projects across the Far North State and Yukon Territory. At roughly 37 trillion cubic feet, Alaska is awash in natural gas; however, some 35 tcf of these known reserves are isolated in the Arctic oil and gas fields of the North Slope. The balance, located in the Cook Inlet basin that stretches southwest from Anchorage, has been developed primarily to serve consumers in the...
