The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 476 - 500 of 545
It is high summer in Alaska and the wheeling and dealing are nearly as frenetic as the exploration, development and production going on all around the state. New deals continue to be cut on old and new projects while more established projects are being subjected to the "truth machine," otherwise known as the drill. This time-tested application has proven many a cock-sure geologist or engineer dead wrong but that doesn't stop anyone in the industry from picking himself up,...
Alaska's summer exploration season is in full swing with strong budgets on a number of projects around the state. Alaska's mines also weighed in with strong quarterly results as metal prices remain strong. The hot spots in the state this month include Southeast Alaska, Interior Alaska and the Alaska Range but don't think that silence means there is nothing going on! We are entering the period where everyone has his nose to the ground and has little time for news releases or...
The exploration season has started but not before a bevy of new corporate competitors have entered the Alaska mineral scene and not before a number of past producing mines have been dragged into the 21st century. During the last month, three new companies have acquired properties in Alaska and two old Alaska producers have been brought out of mothballs to have new exploration done on them. This month's commodities of interest include gold, copper, lead, zinc, silver, uranium,...
Vancouver-based New Gold plans to develop its New Afton copper-gold project into an underground block cave mine, based on a feasibility study the company released April 2. New Afton is located six miles west of Kamloops in south-central British Columbia, at the site of the former Afton open pit mine. That mine operated from 1978 to 1987, producing approximately 500 million pounds of copper, 500,000 ounces of gold and 3 million ounces of silver. New Afton's reserves contain almost 1 billion pounds of copper, more than 1...
The trials and tribulations of Alaska's mining industry continued in the last month with one challenged mine given the green light to proceed, the other halted in midstride by the same legal system. In the background, exploration programs quietly began at several locations across the state as the busy 2007 mining season started in earnest. Alaska's global rank dropped from 13th to 24th position in the most recent Fraser Institute survey of mining jurisdictions worldwide. At...
Vancouver-based NovaGold Resources got some encouraging news on all three of its major projects recently. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued its permit for Rock Creek; Galore Creek received its British Columbia Environmental Assessment Certificate; and Donlin Creek expanded its resources by an impressive amount. But progress has come at a cost: the company had a net loss of $30.5 million in 2006, compared with a net loss of $5.8 million in 2005. Most of the additional expenditures - $21 million - went to fighting off...
Okay, the lull is over. It lasted about 25, maybe 30 minutes, after I wrote those prophetic but ill-considered words in late January! Shortly after that point I was in Vancouver for the annual Cordilleran Roundup mining conference, an annual barometer of mining activity in western North America if not the world. What I saw at the 2007 conference was a crowd well in excess of 5,000, populated by two types of people: those who were smiling from ear to ear and those whose terrified eyes reminded me of a whitetail deer in the...
Ahhhh, the calm before the storm! Over the last month the industry slowed and took a collective breath to enjoy friends, family and the holidays in anticipation of another busy year in the Alaska mineral industry. The last month has already seen another new player enter the Alaska mining scene and behind closed doors drilling, helicopter and personnel contracts are being negotiated. The annual Cordilleran Roundup mining convention in Vancouver is right around the corner and promises to be the most exciting conference in over...
As 2006 comes rapidly to a close, a glance backward in time seems appropriate. The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys recently released its annual summary of mining in Alaska for 2005 (yes, 2005). This report reveals that the gross value of Alaska's mineral industry in 2005 was $1.8 billion. This was the 10th straight year the value exceeded $1 billion and was the highest value ever recorded for the industry. Zinc accounted for 61.5 percent of the total mineral production, followed by gold (13.6 percent),...
A plan to expand the remote Kemess copper-gold mining operation in northern British Columbia has met with significant opposition from members of First Nations communities in the area. The protests surfaced during a series of public hearings held by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency between Oct. 30 and Dec. 7. The hearings are part of the provincial and federal environmental assessment process. Northgate Minerals Corp., operator of the Kemess South Mine, wants to extend the life of its mining operation by developing...
A newly expanded company is making Alaska its exploration target, and it's backed by a mining heavyweight. Vancouver-based International Tower Hill Mines was barely a glimmer on anyone's radar screens until last summer, when South African major AngloGold Ashanti purchased 19.99 percent of ITH's shares and gave the junior its North American exploration manager, Jeff Pontius, as president and CEO. Pontius led the team that acquired a group of Alaska properties for AngloGold, which now belong to ITH. "AngloGold was highly...
Over the last month the Alaska mineral industry continued to report results from 2006 exploration programs including new acquisitions of projects that have been on the back shelf for over 25 years. The industry watched as the American political scene was drastically changed at both the federal and state levels. And despite the fact that the end of the year is nearing, there is no end in sight yet for a number of exploration and development projects while at the same time contracts for work in 2007 already are being inked. If...
Normally at this time of year the mining industry's seasonal peak of activity is over and the paucity of news coming from the bush is a function of the dwindling volume of work going on out there. While there has been the anticipated lull in mining results released to the public in the last month, I can almost hear the deep, slow collective inhalation of breath being taken by the industry as it catches its second wind and launches an unusually diverse series of fall and winter programs. These efforts span the gamut from...
By most years' standards, the last month has been a barn burner for mining news. By 2006 standards it hardly measures on the Mining Industry Care-O-Meter, a highly subjective, totally unscientific measurement of what is happening in Alaska's mineral industry. In the last month we have seen the state's largest primary gold deposit resources increase to a mind-boggling 32 million ounces, we've seen one new mine begin commercial construction, we've seen one mine under construction receive a partial injunction against part of...
Drop by Galore Creek camp this summer and you're sure to be well fed. A lively bunch of young people load up their plates with steak, shrimp, potatoes, salads and cakes, refueling after another rainy day in the field. The only slight problem for the casual visitor is getting here. There is no way into this temporary town up in the mountains of British Columbia other than by helicopter. From Wrangell in southeast Alaska a group from the Alaska Miners Association took a five-seater plane to Bob Quinn airstrip across the border...
BHP Billiton, the huge international mining company that Arctic Slope Regional Corp. has enlisted to help explore and develop coal deposits believed to lie beneath its lands in northern Alaska, is an old hand in virtually every aspect of the venture. London-based Billiton is the world's largest resource development company with 37,000 employees in 100 operations in about 25 countries and nearly $32 billion in revenue and $6.5 billion in profits in 2005 as well as $92 billion in market capitalization. Billiton is a mining...
As federal regulators plan the opening of the 9.2 million acres in the southern part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas leasing, one Alaska industry group is urging them to broaden their outlook. The Alaska Miners Association is advocating that the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all activity in the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, cast a wider net in search of energy development opportunities. "For several decades, the mining industry has been aware of the mineral potential...
Hang on to your hat, the data is beginning to roll in from Alaskan field programs and there are some hum dingers in this month's data and several others will be showing up next month. What's a "hum dinger"? How about an Alaska gold project at the center of a $1.5 billion corporate takeover by the world's largest gold producer? Or how about 75 feet grading more than 2 ounces of gold per ton? Or maybe silver production costs of a negative $2.28 per ounce? But wait, there's more...
The annual running of the bulls in Pamplona can't hold a candle to the statewide frenzy that is going on right now across the length and breadth of Alaska. Measure it any way you like - meters drilled, helicopter hours used, geologists or engineers on the payroll, gallons of fuel burned or gallons of peanut butter consumed - it all comes out the same. The Alaska mineral industry is running at or over capacity and there is no sign that that will change any time soon. The last month saw the start of multiple drilling programs...
The last month has seen the 2006 summer season's first offering of new discoveries, new drilling results and new companies in Alaska. While a number of programs were delayed due to an unseasonably cold spring (bring on the global warming!), most programs have moved to Plan B, C or D and are now fully engaged under the midnight sun. Western Alaska Triex Minerals and Full Metal Minerals reported their planned diamond drilling program has begun on the Boulder Creek uranium project on the Seward Peninsula. The $1.1 million progra...
The game is afoot! The last month has seen the start of a number of field programs in Alaska, marking the beginning of the traditional "field season" in the Great Land. With demand for metals remaining extraordinarily high, Alaska's mining industry is operating at capacity but well below demand. An acute shortage of drills and drillers, geologists and engineers and helicopters to move them all around is affecting exploration, development and production plans around the state. For the first time in my career, money is not in...
A woman who appears on a "Legends of the West" postal stamp and a man who killed two people in gunfights were inducted into the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame in March. Nellie Cashman and Jack Dalton followed very different paths in life, although both ended up in Alaska. Some of Dalton's descendants were present at the evening of historical reminiscences in Fairbanks, but Cashman never had children of her own. Her distant relative, Kay Cashman, is the publisher of Mining News and its sister publication Petroleum News. Nellie...
The sound of boots, hammers, drills and helicopters is starting to drown out the sounds of "we are planning," "we hope to" and "later this year" that we've been hearing for the last few months. Despite a late spring through most of Alaska, a number of projects kicked off recently and more are gathering steam as the short, hectic Alaska summer season approaches. Companies counting on an early spring due to Global Warming have been disappointed and Plan B options are being formulated however, the end result will be the same:...
Northern Dynasty Ltd., would-be developer of the Pebble project, is convinced that the huge copper-gold mineralization in southwestern Alaska can be accessed and brought to market in an environmentally benign manner that promises economic prosperity for the region. Part of its confidence stems from Hunter Dickinson Inc., the management team that guides the Canadian junior mining company. Hunter Dickinson has a track record of working to develop successful, modern copper-gold deposits. One such venture is the Kemess South Mine...
Two Alaskans prominent in the mining industry have spent years nurturing dreams of railroads. Both presented their visions at the Arctic International Mining Symposium in Fairbanks the week of March 13. Professor Paul Metz, a geologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, wants to see a rail link from Alaska to Canada. Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association, hopes that one day a railroad from the Brooks Range to Norton Sound will be built, providing access to the vast reserves of coal on the...
