The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 326 - 350 of 615
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...
Over the past month, the world has been awash in year-end 2013 mining news, ranging from exploration and production statistics to economic impact numbers and mining favorability polls. The Alaska highlights from this wad of info include the results from the annual Fraser Institute political jurisdiction favorability survey where Alaska placed first in the world out of 112 jurisdictions for mineral potential. However, Alaska plummeted to 21st place on the survey's Policy Percep...
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...
To further strengthen neighborly bonds, British Columbia Minister of Mines Bill Bennett met with miners, fishermen, legislators and state regulators during an early November trip to Alaska. "I hope, and I believe, that we will be able to continue to work closely with Alaska on all of the issues that we share," Bennett said during a Nov. 5 presentation at the Alaska Miners Association 2014 Convention. These shared issues are part and parcel of a common border that stretches...
Mineral and coal exploration in British Columbia, which peaked at C$680 million in 2012, retreated to roughly C$476 million in 2013. This drop is on par with the roughly 30 percent decrease in exploration expenditures worldwide. The dynamics that led to the decrease - tight capital markets that continue to challenge the ability of junior explorers to raise money, senior miners keeping tight reins on exploration spending and softer gold prices - have remained in play during...
CZX: TSX-V Chairman, President and CEO: Peeyush Varshney Vice President Exploration: Ken MacDonald Director: Henry Giegerich Canada Zinc Metals Corp. is focused on exploring a band of zinc-lead-silver properties that blankets 79,870 hectares (197,359 acres) of the Kechika SEDEX belt in northeastern British Columbia. The company has divided this land package into two projects - Akie, which hosts the Cardiac Creek deposit, and the Kechika regional properties, a series of property blocks that extend about 140 kilometers (85...
Unlike its neighbors in the North, the Yukon Territory is forecasting a marked increase in exploration in 2014. While well shy of the roughly C$300 million invested in exploration in 2011, the peak of the modern Yukon gold rush, the C$65 million forecast to be invested on exploration in the Yukon during 2014 is roughly a 45 percent leap over last year. This exploration spending is dominated by an aggressive drill program at the Selwyn zinc project, situated in an area of...
MRO: TSX.V President and CEO: Gregory Beischer Chief Exploration Officer: Philip St. George Executive Vice President: Sarah Whicker Millrock Resources Inc. identifies and acquires grassroots mineral prospects and then seeks joint venture partners to help fund the exploration. This project generator model lessens the company's need to raise money in the markets, minimizes the risks involved with grassroots exploration and exposes shareholders to a large amount of exploration expenditure per dollar invested. Since its...
NG: TSX / NG: NYSE-MKT Chairman: Thomas Kaplan President and CEO: Gregory Lang Senior Advisor to President: Gil Leathley With its attention focused primarily on advancing Donlin Gold through the permitting process, Novagold Resources Ltd. dialed back its exploration in 2014. In January, the company released results from a 2013 drill program focused on assessing the extent of the recently discovered Legacy zone at its 50 percent owned Galore Creek copper-gold project in northwestern British Columbia. This program included 22...
TCK: NYSE / TCK.B: TSX Chairman: Norman Keevil President and CEO: Don Lindsay Vice President, Exploration: Alex Christopher Teck Resources Ltd. continued robust zinc exploration in Alaska and British Columbia, while dialing back expenditures at many of its copper exploration and development projects during 2014. The discovery and delineation of high-grade deposits near its Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska continues to be a primary focus of Teck's zinc exploration. Going into 2014, Red Dog had 45.4 million metric tons of ore...
In an industry eager for even a scintilla of good news, a recent report from industry analyst SNL Metals & Mining recently gave the good-news-starved industry a bit of hope. SNL's article, titled, "Too early to start celebrating a recovery in the sector," indicated that although the downward trend in mineral exploration has not broken yet, the market has stopped down-grading mining equities, with a modest gain in market capitalization since its most recent low in mid-2013....
Results from water sampling show that the immediate environmental impacts of an estimated 14.5 million cubic meters of tailings and water released from a facility at Imperial Metals Corp.'s Mount Polley Mine in central British Columbia are isolated primarily to the area immediately below the breached dam. But the extent of the spill's longer term damage to the reputation of the mining sector in B.C. and beyond rests largely on the response of industry and regulators. Leading...
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...
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...
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...
Mineral exploration activity held its own in Nunavut in 2013, despite a tough funding environment and stiff competition from other attractive mining jurisdictions around the world. Of the mineral projects edging closer to development in the territory, the Mary River iron project is likely the closest to startup. For the past two years, the venture, spearheaded by Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., has headlined mining news coming from the Qikiqtani, the territory's easternmost region. The Qikiqtani Region is Nunavut's largest...
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 languishing price of zinc has provided little incentive for investors to embrace companies seeking to explore and develop the next generation of mines that produce this essential metal. However, an expected 1.5 million metric tons of supply being lost to mine closures by 2016 is beginning to galvanize the zinc sector. "In the case of zinc, this is a metal that's been unloved for a long time. As a result there has been very little investment put into the industry. Due to th...
Zinc is at a supply-demand tipping point that has miners and investors looking to cash in on an imminent shortage of this essential metal which has been in oversupply for nearly a decade. "We believe the outlook for zinc is the most favorable of the base metals. With recent and expected closures of a number of zinc mines, we believe that approximately 1.5 million metric tons of current zinc mine production will be closed by the end of 2016 in a 13 million (tpa) market," Teck...
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...
NovaCopper Inc.'s 2013 exploration program has added another 2.6 billion pounds of copper to the resource at the Bornite project in the Ambler mining district, swelling the size of this Northwest Alaska deposit to 6 billion lbs. of the red metal. Bornite is one of many deposits and prospects that make up the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, a long-term partnership forged between NovaCopper and NANA Regional Corp. in 2011. The alliance combines Bornite and a number of other...
The over-all mood at the recent Cordilleran Roundup mining convention in Vancouver, B.C. was more restrained than in previous years, but also more realistic due in large part to the prolonged downturn in risk capital mining markets. It seems the industry has transitioned from the denial stage accompanying the declines of 2013 to an acceptance and determination stage that always precedes a return to market vitality. In a recent public release by financial giant Ernst and...
I recently attended the 119th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Mining Association in Reno and came away feeling better about Alaska than when I arrived. Alaska Miners Association Director Deantha Crockett chaired and spoke in a session that covered everything from small mining operations and new exploration discoveries to advanced exploration projects and operating mines. The 8 a.m. session was surprisingly well-attended, despite the fact that the hotel was host to 1,000 explor...
For those of you that could not attend, the annual Alaska Miners Association Convention and Trade Show was well-attended, with most people pleasantly surprised by the strong turnout. Compared to a year ago, more companies are planning to get back in the field with exploration and development programs in 2014, a sentiment making up one of the few bright spots in a recent IntierraRMG resource sector exploration summary. This report and a similar snapshot of the exploration...
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...
