The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 20 of 20
Early this summer, Blue Star Gold Corp. launched an exploration program, hoping to identify favorable prospects and advance targets on its landholdings in western Nunavut to drill-ready status for a 2024 discovery program at its Ulu Gold Project. The company's Ulu, Hood River, and Roma properties cover more than 45 kilometers (28 miles) of the High Lake Greenstone Belt. By the first week in August, Blue Star had scoped out several promising areas for drilling next year on the...
Sixty North Gold Mining Ltd. reported July 11 that crews moved onto its Mon Gold property in late June and began mapping and sampling a recent nickel and cobalt discovery situated about a mile (1.5 kilometers) southeast of the mine site. The original discovery of the critical metals occurred in 2021 when a grab sample returned greater than 1% nickel, 0.18% cobalt, and 0.429 grams per metric ton gold. Follow-up grab samples in early 2022 confirmed 0.31% nickel, 0.022% cobalt,...
Cans, cups, roofs, and foil hats are likely the first things that come to mind when thinking about tin – none of which conjure images of a metal that should be considered critical to a modern country like the United States. According to a study carried out by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, however, tin is the metal expected that be most impacted by new technologies. Commissioned by Rio Tinto, the MIT study found that tin beat out more likely technology metals candidate...
Primarily associated with cans, cups and roofs, tin may not be the flashiest metal on the market, but it has been a strategic metal that has defined human progress since the onset of the Bronze Age around 5,500 years ago and is on the list of minerals critical to the security of the United States even today, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. "In a congressionally mandated U.S. Department of Defense study of strategic minerals published in 2013, tin was shown to have...
With more than 100 known tin occurrences, Alaska is considered the best place in America to establish a domestic source of this critical alloy metal that has defined human progress since the dawn of the Bronze Age. "Today, Alaskan tin deposits are known to be widespread, occurring from the central Alaska Range north to the Brooks Range and across Interior Alaska ... Southwest Alaska and the Seward Peninsula," according to the 1997 publication, Mineral Deposits of Alaska. And...
The owners of Alaska’s five large metal mines – Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo, Hecla Mining Company, Kinross Gold Corp, Teck Resources Ltd. and Coeur Mining Inc. – accounted for nearly half the US$92 million of exploration spending in the state during 2014 and similar investments by these companies is providing solid footing for the Far North state’s mineral exploration sector this year. Avalon Development President Curt Freeman said he is seeing more mining majors shopping for d...
Strongbow Exploration Inc. March 7 said it has reached an agreement to purchase Teck Resources Ltd. royalty interest in the Mactung and Cantung tungsten projects located along the border between Yukon and Northwest Territories. Under the terms of the agreement, Strongbow will pay Teck C$1.5 million on closing of the acquisition, and make a further C$1.5 million payment when either there has been a decision to develop Mactung or commercial production resumes at Cantung. "We...
Strongbow Exploration Inc. Sept. 1 reported that Richard Williams has been appointed president and CEO of the company, replacing Kenneth Armstrong who stepped down from the position. Armstrong will remain a director of Strongbow. Williams serves as CEO of Helio Resource Corp., an exploration company with projects in Tanzania and Namibia. He has spent the past 12 years in public company corporate management, and has developed a wide network of business and financial contacts...
Strongbow Exploration Inc. July 24 said it has closed its acquisition of the Sleitat and Coal Creek tin properties in Alaska as well as a C$1 million non-brokered private placement financing. Strongbow acquired the tin properties, from Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. and Strongbow Director Ronald Netolitzky. Netolitzky has been involved with Thor Gold, a former subsidiary of Solomon Resources Ltd., since the 1980s. Osisko acquired an interest in the Sleitat and Coal Creek propertie...
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...
Strongbow Exploration Inc. June 22 reported that it has finalized the terms of its acquisition of the Sleitat and Coal Creek tin properties in Alaska. The transaction will involve Strongbow buying the tin properties, from Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. and Strongbow Director Ronald Netolitzky. Netolitzky has been involved with Thor Gold, a former subsidiary of Solomon Resources Ltd., since the 1980s. Osisko acquired an interest in the Sleitat and Coal Creek properties through the...
The state of the world's exploration industry was recently summarized in SNL Metal & Mining's annual "World Exploration Trends" publication, released at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto. Not surprisingly, it painted a grim picture of 2014, a year we are all glad to have behind us. The statistics indicate that worldwide exploration expenditures declined a further 26 percent to $11.4 billion, compared with $15.2 billion in 2013 and...
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...
Primarily associated with cans, cups and roofs, tin is not the flashiest metal on the market. Despite its lowly ranking, even among base metals, this lackluster commodity fetches around US$8.00 per pound - substantially more than copper, zinc, lead, or even nickel - and Alaska has plenty of it. Strongbow Exploration Inc., a company primarily focused on exploring for nickel in Northwest Territories, is working on a deal that would allow it to acquire two Alaska tin properties...
Strongbow Exploration Inc. March 10 said it has agreed to acquire a 100 percent interest in the Sleitat and Coal Creek tin properties in Alaska through the purchase of Thor Gold Alaska Inc., a private company. The Sleitat property consists of 3,520 acres of State of Alaska mining claims located roughly 85 miles northeast of Dillingham. This tin property was explored by Cominco America Inc. in the mid-1980s and Solomon Resources in the mid-2000s. In 1989, the U.S. Bureau of...
Hampered by a recession-driven drought in capital markets, mineral explorers in the Northwest Territories met the challenges of 2009 with a variety of survival strategies. With significant diamond, precious and base metal projects and prospects at stake, some companies entered a holding pattern in hopes of waiting out the economic storm, while other forged ahead, adjusting to the new cash-strapped environment as the year progressed. Thanks to record commodity prices, the economy of the Northwest Territories has outpaced the...
TSXV: NAR Chairman, President and CEO: D. Grenville Thomas Vice President Exploration: Gordon Clarke North Arrow Minerals Inc., organized in February 2007 by Strongbow Exploration Inc., is a northern-focused exploration company with a diversified portfolio of gold, silver, base metal, rare metal and diamond properties. North Arrow's exploration activities are conducted under the direction of a management team that has extensive and successful experience in northern Canada. North Arrow's current focus is its Phoenix property...
The Northwest Territories has four operating mines: three diamond producers and one long-running tungsten operation. Exploration and development activity was brisk in 2008 with the most advanced projects located in the Slave Province. Here's a look at mining companies active during 2008 in the Northwest Territories: Producing mines BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc. (80 percent) and partners C. Fipke (10 percent) and S. Blusson (10 percent) produced about 3.5 million carats of rough diamonds at the Ekati diamond mine in 2008, making...
The mining industry is concerned about its future in Canada's Northwest Territories in the wake of the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board's decision in May to recommend against a uranium exploration project that was proposed by Manotick, Ontario-based Ur-Energy. The company hopes to explore near Screech Lake in the Upper Thelon River basin. Canada's Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice will now decide whether or not to accept MVEIRB's recommendation. Uranium exploration is quite similar to the dia...
A mention of the world's richest diamond mines conjures images of hot, steamy African jungles. Yet it is the frozen tundra of the Canadian Arctic that is yielding the latest treasure trove of diamonds and sparking a staking stampede that is bringing hundreds of prospectors to the far north. Between 1998 and 2002, 13.8 million carats have been mined in Canada, and the diamonds - precious stones of pure carbon - are worth $2.8 billion. That is roughly a 1.5-kilogram bag of rocks each day for five years, with each bag worth...
