The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 197
As the rest of the country suffers through the Dog Days of summer, Alaska is approaching the end of a topsy-turvy summer season that saw unseasonably hot, dry weather in some parts of the state during some parts of the summer, while other parts of the state have seen record rainfall and unseasonably early snowfall. Gold prices have skyrocketed over the $1,500 per ounce mark and silver prices have moved strongly up, now trading at a one-year high. However, copper and zinc are a...
Earlier this month Reuters reported that several agencies within the U.S. Federal government were "rapidly assessing" our domestic ability to mine and refine rare earth elements and utilize those 17 super cool elements in value-added products needed for a wide and ever-growing array of consumer and national defense products. Not surprisingly, mining industry officials demurred when quizzed about supplying information on where rare elements might be mined in the U.S. and how...
Trilogy Metals Inc. July 3 provided an update on the US$18.2 million of activities being carried out this year across its roughly 353,400-acre Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. The largest portion of this program, in terms of dollars spent during 2019, is an 8,000-meter drill program aimed at upgrading and expanding the copper-cobalt resource at Bornite. At a cut-off grade of 0.5 percent, the open-pit portion of Bornite hosts 40.5...
In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot! After seasonally slower news from Alaska's mining industry in March and April, the dam has broken with over two dozen Alaska mining project news releases issued in the last month. Including those projects moving forward that have not released their 2019 plans, Alaska has become a very busy place under the sun. All of our major metal mines reported strong performances in the first quarter, several of Alaska's most...
Trilogy Metals Inc. May 20 reported that permitting for the proposed road to provide surface access to the Ambler Mining District is slated for completion this year. The 211-mile Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Project (AMDIAP), the official name of this transportation corridor, would connect the Ambler Mining District to Alaska's contiguous highway system. This surface access is a key piece of infrastructure needed to begin realizing the vast potential of this...
Trilogy Metals Inc. May 23 named Janice Stairs as the new chair of its board of directors. Stairs, who has been a director of Trilogy Metals since 2011, graduated from Dalhousie Law School and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Queen's University. "Janice is well suited to chair the Trilogy board. With her strong legal background, her many years working in the mining sector and the fact that she has been an active director of Trilogy Metals since its...
As is usually the case this time of year, the mining industry is awash in backward-looking statements designed to allow for more accurate forward-looking statements. Prime among them is one of my favorites, S&P Global's annual "World Exploration Trends 2019", a summary of what happened industry-wide in 2018 and what it may portend for the mining industry in 2019. The study predicts that global exploration budgets will increase again in 2019, although by a smaller amount, with...
Trilogy Metals Inc. March 19 reported that much of the step-out drilling completed over the past two years is still too widely spaced to result in a significant increase in resources at this large copper deposit on the company's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska. At a cut-off grade of 0.5 percent, the open-pit portion of Bornite hosts 40.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.02 percent (913 million pounds) copper; and 84.1 million metric tons...
Freegold Ventures Ltd. March 5 reported that the potentially large porphyry copper-gold-silver-tungsten deposits it has been exploring on the Shorty Creek project in Interior Alaska has drawn the interest of Australia-based South32 Ltd. Under an option agreement with Freegold Ventures, a South32 subsidiary has agreed to fund up to US$10 million of exploration over the next four years, including US$2 million this year. This exploration spending keeps an option open for South32...
Trilogy Metals Inc. March 5 reported promising results from additional copper and cobalt metallurgical results for the Bornite project in the Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska. According to a 2016 calculation, the Bornite project hosts roughly 6.4 billion pounds of copper and 77 million lb of cobalt. These metal quantities, however, are expected to rise when an update resource calculation currently underway is complete. Nine samples from drilling over the past two yea...
When it comes to attracting mining investment, Alaska, British Columbia and all three Canadian territories rank among the top 20 jurisdictions in the world on the Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2018. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their mineral endowment and various policy topics important to mining. "The mining survey-now in its 21st year-is the most comprehensive report card on government...
Those of you that attended the recent Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver can attest to the exuberant, upbeat atmosphere that pervaded the conference and was very much in evidence at the standing-room only festivities at our annual self-hosted Alaska Night meet and greet. But digging down under this veneer of optimism, many of the junior explorers and most of the producers admitted to their expectations of challenging times in 2019. Putting words to this apparent...
The Red Dog Mine has been a gamechanger for the more than 14,000 Iñupiat shareholders of NANA Corp., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional corporation that owns the world-class Red Dog deposits in Northwest Alaska that are the source of around 5 percent of the world's new zinc supply each year. The revenues from shipping out more than 1 billion pounds of zinc annually, along with healthy portions of lead, silver and minor amounts of germanium, has served...
He who controls battery metals and the evolving energy storage technology controls the world of industrial power in the 21st century auto and energy storage industries. This is the message Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Managing Director Simon Moores delivered to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Moores, a global authority on lithium-ion batteries and the metals that go into them, was invited to testify by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Lisa...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Jan. 6 announced a US$2 million increase to the exploration budget reported last week for the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska, swelling the total expenditures for 2019 to US$18.2 million. Trilogy will contribute US$1 million for this expanded program and South32 Limited will contribute the balance. This additional spending will be used for district-scale exploration across the Ambler Mining District with a focus on identifying and testing...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Jan. 31 announced a US$16.2 million work program this year for the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska, a work program that is expected to result in major milestones toward realizing the world-class mineral potential the Ambler Mining District has to offer. Similar to the previous two years, Australia-based South32 Ltd. will invest US$9.2 million of the 2019 funding, which will go toward infill and resource expansion drilling at the Bornite...
As the year waned, Alaska's mining industry reported some of the last of its 2018 seasonal field results while the University of Alaska and state of Alaska released some current and projected state-wide economics. At the same time, some macro-economic data was released for the global mining industry. Combined, these figures show a mix of encouraging and not so encouraging trends facing the Alaska mining industry. At the global scale, things for the mining industry are looking...
In addition to being a past producer and a future source of most of the 35 minerals and metals considered critical to the United States, Alaska currently contributes a globally significant amount of one of these vital metals – germanium. While not a widely known metal, germanium has optical qualities that make it an important ingredient in fiber-optics, infrared optics, electronics and solar energy systems. "The extensive use of germanium for military and commercial a...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Dec. 13 said results from the final five holes drilled this year at Bornite continue to show the potential to expand the high-grade underground resource at this world-class copper-cobalt project in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska, including toward the open-pit deposit to the south. "The latest drilling results confirm the extent and continuity of the copper and cobalt mineralized system at the Bornite Project, and continue to demonstrate...
WESTERN ALASKA Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. announced that it had finalized a surface right of way agreement with Alaska Peninsula Corporation for use of that latter's lands for the construction and operation of transportation infrastructure associated with the Pebble copper-molybdenum-gold project. Alaska Peninsula Corporation is an Alaska Native village corporation with extensive land holdings proximal to the Pebble site and more than 900 shareholders, many of which live...
Geologists familiar with Alaska already know the Far North State is a great place to explore for critical minerals and metals such as graphite, rare earths, platinum metals, cobalt and tin. A new report published by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that Alaska may be richer in these and other minerals and metals vital to the economy and security of the United States than previously realized. Working alongside the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical...
While copper is not on the United States Geological Survey's list of 35 minerals and metals critical to America, there is no doubt of this metal's importance to both the everyday and avant-garde technologies vital to America's economy and security. "None of the other critical minerals work without copper," Trilogy Metals President and CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse told Mining News. Automobiles are a prime example of how emerging technologies and green energy will drive the demand...
With a melting point of 5,756 degrees Fahrenheit and a heat-stable crystalline structure, rhenium is extremely resistant to both heat and wear. This durability makes it a vital element in superalloys used in jet and industrial gas turbine engines. "The high-temperature properties of rhenium allow turbine engines to be designed with finer tolerances and operate at temperatures higher than those of engines constructed with other materials," the United States Geological Survey...
In addition to being a past producer and a future source of most of the 35 minerals and metals considered critical to the United States, Alaska currently contributes a globally significant amount of one of these vital metals – germanium. While not a widely known metal, germanium has optical qualities that make it an important ingredient in fiber-optics, infrared optics, electronics and solar energy systems. "The extensive use of germanium for military and commercial a...
Cobalt is a critical safety ingredient in the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries powering the ever-increasing number of electric vehicles traveling global highways and a plethora of cordless electrical devices. "Globally, the leading use is in the manufacture of cathode materials for rechargeable batteries – primarily lithium-ion, nickel-cadmium, and nickel-metal-hydride batteries – which are used in consumer electronics, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, energy sto...