The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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About face; forward; march! The U.S. Department of Defense recently issued this order in the field of rare earth elements. The unique properties of REEs - a group of 17 previously obscure metals that include scandium, yttrium and the 15 lanthanides - are key ingredients in a number of military applications such as guided missiles, lasers, radar systems, night vision equipment and battlefield communications. China is estimated to supply between 90 and 95 percent of the world's...
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is again urging fellow lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to enact legislation that would restore America’s mineral security. “After years of inaction, it is time for Congress to recognize that our mineral policies need to be modernized as soon as possible,” said Murkowski, who is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee CBS newsmagazine, 60 Minutes, provided a timely segue to Murkowski’s critical minerals bill by airing...
While junior miners have not fully healed from the wounds inflicted by the brutal bear market of the recent past, the Canadian branch of PricewaterhouseCoopers sees improved vital signs for the sector. "It's too early to call it a recovery, but there might be light at the end of the tunnel for the Canadian junior mining sector" PWC wrote in "Signs of Life", its 2016 junior mine report. One such promising sign is that the market cap of top 100 junior mining companies on the TSX...
Though lower metals prices weighed on the value of Alaska’s mining sector, the production of minerals, not including coal and oil, in the 49th State topped US$3 billion for the sixth year running. According to the United States Geological Survey’s annual report, “Mineral Commodity Summaries 2016,” Alaska mines produced roughly US$3.09 billion worth of non-fuel minerals during 2015. This reflects roughly a 12 percent decrease compared with the US$3.51 billion that USGS reporte...
KSM, an enormous gold-copper project in northwestern British Columbia, has received a federal license for water management facilities located on Mitchell and Sulphurets creeks, tributaries of the trans-boundary Unuk River system that flows through Southeast Alaska. "This important permit highlights the government of Canada's continued support for the environmental standards incorporated into our design of the KSM project," said Rudi Fronk, chairman and CEO, Seabridge Gold, the company that is advancing KSM. The issuance of...
With a significant deposit of heavy rare earths in the Southeast, the largest domestic graphite deposit in the Northwest, and vast potential in the 1,300-mile expanse between the two, Alaska is a viable alternative to importing many of the strategic and critical minerals vital to national security, green energy and modern technology. "The State of Alaska is blessed with vast mineral potential on its lands," Alaska Department of Natural Resources Deputy Commissioner Ed Fogels t...
Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott spent this week getting a firsthand look at trans-boundary water issues from the British Columbia side of the border, where a number of mines are being proposed on water systems that feed rivers that run through Southeast Alaska. "These rivers are key to Southeast Alaska's way of life, including Native cultures, community economies, recreation and subsistence, and, of course, its profitable seafood and tourism industries that employ thousands of...
The Government of Northwest Territories has implemented a new Mining Incentive Program that was oversubscribed by midyear, with strong interest shown by companies and prospectors in the Northwest Territories and across Canada. "The Mining Incentive Program helps our government support those with the energy, expertise and perseverance that this industry relies on to conduct mineral exploration in an environmentally sustainable way," said GNWT Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister David Ramsay. "I especially look forward...
Scotiabank's Commodity Price Index, having lost steam in late 2013, is expected to bottom out this spring and rally in the second half of 2014 on stronger global growth, Scotiabank Vice President, Economics Patricia M. Mohr told an overflow crowd attending the 2014 Nunavut Mining Symposium in April. Mohr, a commodities market specialist at the Toronto-based international bank, again opened the 17th annual gathering, held April 7-10 in Iqaluit, NU, the northern territory's capital. She said growth in the global manufacturing...
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...
FAIRBANKS - In contrast to the geology, geochemistry and geophysics that dominates discussions at most mining conventions, geopolitics grabbed the limelight at the 2012 Alaska Strategic and Critical Minerals Summit held in Fairbanks Nov. 30. "Countries that control a given element have a way to leverage businesses to come to those countries. They have a way of demanding there are technology transfers," American Elements President Michael Silver informed the more than 200...
Graphite One Resources Inc. has tapped a vast graphite deposit in Northwest Alaska that rivals the top tier of graphitic carbon projects around the globe. Graphite Creek, as this emerging world-class project is aptly named, has long been suspected to host somewhere between six and 20 million tons of crystalline-flake graphite. This assumption was based on a 100-meter thick graphite-rich layer that can be traced for some five kilometers (three miles) along the northern slopes...
A reporter recently asked Greg Johnson, the newly appointed president and CEO of Prophecy Platinum Corp., if he was committed enough to his new role as head honcho of the company's emerging Wellgreen Project in southwestern Yukon Territory to stick around for five years. Johnson, one of the original architects of NovaGold Resources Inc. which built the world-class Donlin gold deposit in Alaska from a few million ounces into a 30-million-ounce-plus resource, chuckled before he responded. "With the caliber of asset that we have...
Ending a streak of robust growth, mineral exploration spending in Alaska during 2012 took a downward turn from the record US$300 million spent a year earlier. "More advanced-stage projects that added ounces or pounds to their resource base had a better go of it than early-stage exploration projects which have taken a hard right cross to the jaw!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska geologist and president of Fairbanks-based Avalon Development, observed in September. This blow de...
Access to critical minerals and metals is vital to America's military strength and economic health. As we move further forward into the technology age, we need a range of non-fuel minerals - from antimony to zinc - for defense technologies that protect the homeland and project American power abroad. These same minerals and metals underpin our manufacturing sector too, and the cost of raw materials impacts everything from productivity and innovation to economic growth and job creation. Without smarter policies that increase...
Location, location, location," the old adage goes, summing up the opportunities and challenges faced by the real estate industry. Well, "infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure," can offer the same insights into the problems of modern mining in remote jurisdictions like Yukon Territory. The relative scarcity of roads, bridges, airports, power and other infrastructure in the Yukon is critical to the outlook for mining, and in many cases, the presence or lack of these important components can spell the difference between...
Capstone Mining Co., Alexco Resource Corp. and Yukon Zinc Corp. have crossed the Rubicon. Unlike other mining companies in Yukon Territory who continue to grapple with the complexities and uncertainties of exploration and development, the operators of the Minto, Bellekeno and Wolverine mines are working to master a new set of challenges - optimizing their mining and milling processes. Going gangbusters at Minto It will be five years in October since Sherwood Copper Corp. (Capstone Mining Corp.'s predecessor) commenced...
Putting Alaska on the map as a domestic source of rare earth elements and other strategic and critical minerals is a priority of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell. During the 2012 budget cycle, Alaska lawmakers approved US$498,000 proposed by the administration to begin a statewide REE evaluation. This year's budget includes US$2.7 million for a three-year project to continue this initiative. "Alaska can become America's source for rare earth elements," Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell...
NyacAU LLC and Goldrich Mining Co. inked a deal in early April to create a joint-venture company to mine rich alluvial gold deposits that blanket the valleys of the vast Chandalar land package some 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Goldrich brings to the newly formed partnership the placer potential of the 22,840-acre Chandalar Mining District, including a quarter-million-ounce drill-tested alluvial gold deposit on Little Squaw Creek and a multitude of...
Graphite traditionally has been regarded as a mundane industrial mineral used in steelmaking, lubricants and pencil lead. Emerging applications such as lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and nuclear power generation are placing increased supply demands on this carbon polymer - a market shift not lost on Cedar Mountain Exploration Inc. "The graphite market is only beginning to open up as green technology takes more precedence in the world today," according to the Edmonton, Albe...
Leveraging its global dominance in the realm of rare earth elements, China has set in motion a strategy to gain supremacy in manufacturing the vast array of technologically advanced products that depend on these metals. "China can exploit rare earths that they control all the way out to electric cars, wind turbines, whatever it is - and that is the grand strategy," American Elements Chairman and CEO Michael Silver told some 200 participants in the Alaska Strategic and...
A March ruling by U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick, which reinstated the so-called "Roadless Rule" in the Tongass National Forest, promised an early end to Ucore Rare Metal Inc.'s 2011 exploration at its Bokan Mountain rare earth elements project on Prince of Wales Island and left several other Southeast Alaska mineral projects needing special permission to carry out planned drilling. "The implementation of the 'roadless rule' in the Tongass National Forest by Judge...
As the United States scrambles to fill the rare earth elements supply shortage caused by China's export restrictions on these technologically important metals, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, each have introduced legislation on Capitol Hill that seeks to revitalize domestic production of the minerals most critical to maintaining military security and a robust economy. "It is critical that we have a national policy, and we are behind the...
NANA Regional Corp. is on the hunt for mineral deposits that will continue to sustain the economic well being of its 12,500 shareholders beyond the life of the Red Dog Mine. "We know that one day we will be done mining at Red Dog, and it is our hope that we will keep finding deposits around the area," NANA Regional Corp. President and CEO Marie Greene told Mining News during an April 11 interview. Aqqaluk, a zinc-rich deposit that NANA and partner Teck Resources Ltd. began...
Can mining and Alaska co-exist? This query was the crux of Anglo American plc CEO Cynthia Carroll's message to Alaskans attending a March 3 gathering in Anchorage sponsored by the Resource Development Council. Carroll, whose company owns a 50 percent stake in the Pebble Project, said economic benefits from developing the enormous copper-gold-molybdenum project would emanate from Southwest Alaska and extend around the world, a message that resonated with the pro-development...
