The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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On Feb. 22, 2022, Teck Resources Ltd.'s Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska became the largest critical minerals operation in the United States, both in terms of quantity and value of the materials produced at this world-class base, precious, and critical minerals operation. Being catapulted to America's top dog when it comes to critical minerals production is not due to the germanium produced, though this semiconductor metal vital to ultrafast computing and communications is...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, America's tenuous relationship with China, and global competition for the enormous volume of mined materials needed to build the envisioned clean energy future has elevated the urgency for the United States to bolster domestic critical mineral supply chains. For many, these geopolitical and economic realities have elevated the development of Alaska's incredible critical mineral resources to a national imperative. The urgency of this matter is why...
"Grade is king" is an adage that guides mineral exploration and mining. The premise behind this basic axiom of the mining business is the less ore that needs to be mined and processed per ounce of precious metals, pound of base metals, kilogram of critical minerals, or carat of gemstones produced, the more profitable an operation will be. The kingliest of orebodies would be of such high grade that a mining company would simply need to dig up the ore, crush it, and then ship it...
Rare earths from the Nechalacho Mine being delivered into the supply chain marks the opening of a new critical minerals chapter in the story of mining in Northwest Territories – a saga that includes a 1930s gold rush to the territory's capital, a whole new town to support the Pine Point zinc mine, and the unlikely discovery of world-class diamond deposits in the famed Lac de Gras region. "We have an opportunity to add to our rich and long-standing mining story," Northwest Terr...
The global transition to low-carbon energy and transportation is both an incredible opportunity and daunting challenge for Alaska's mining sector. On the one hand, Alaska is incredibly enriched with the minerals and metals required to build electric vehicles, solar panels, wind farms, and other clean energy technologies. On the other, America's Last Frontier is burdened by a lack of affordable, low-carbon energy options in the remote reaches of the state where many of these...
What if remote mines and communities across Alaska and Canada's North could plug into batteries the size of cargo containers that could deliver multi-megawatt levels of zero-carbon electricity for at least eight years without needing a charge? This is the type of power source Westinghouse Electric is delivering with its eVinci microreactor, a 5-megawatt-electrical power module expected to generate heat and electricity at the United States Air Force's Eielson Base just outside...
While Golden Triangle is an apt and easily marketable moniker for northwest British Columbia's incredible mineral endowment, Tahltan Territory more accurately and thoroughly encapsulates the rich deposits of copper, gold, silver, nickel, platinum group elements, and other metals for which this region has gained international renown. Extending east from the Alaska border to the Cassiar Mountain range and north from the Nass and Skeena Rivers into the Yukon, the roughly...
People. Victoria Gold Corp. CEO John McConnell's answer could not be more concise or clear when asked about the secret behind junior exploration turned gold producing company's success in developing, commissioning, and the first year-and-a-half of operations at the Eagle Gold Mine. Not planning, even though having a well-engineered plan and sticking to it was critical to staying on budget and schedule while developing a 200,000-ounce-per-day gold operation in the middle of...
Assays are pending, the unofficial slogan of the 2021 mineral exploration season across Alaska and Canada's North, is a phrase that continues to echo in a void left by the lack of drill results going into the new year. "'Assays pending' has become one of the least popular phrases around the industry this year, given the painfully slow turnaround time at the labs," Tectonic Metals Inc. President and CEO Tony Reda penned in a year-end update on the Vancouver, British Columbia-ba...
A recent agreement between Vital Metals Ltd. and Ucore Rare Metals Inc. marks a major milestone in establishing a complete North American rare earths supply chain with links in Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Alaska. Vital has already established Canada's only rare earths mine at its Nechalacho project in Northwest Territories and is building a processing facility in Saskatchewan to upgrade the high-grade ore into a midstream carbonated product with a mix of rare...
The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act brightens an otherwise gloomy outlook when it comes to federal policies that impact Alaska and its mining sector. "I believe this is truly historic for our state," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during a Nov. 17 address at the Alaska Resources Conference. While the massive infrastructure bill passage was chalked up as a political win for President Joe Biden, the billions of dollars to be invested into upgrading and...
GIL-SOURDOUGH – With a Sept. 23 blast of explosives that fractured rock in preparation for the start of mining at Gil-Sourdough, Kinross Gold Corp. has raised the bar for mine openings with a literal groundbreaking ceremony at what is now the sixth large-scale metal mine in Alaska. "I hope this is just the beginning and there are a lot more plays like this and we have a future, not just here at Fort Knox but across the great state of Alaska," Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said t...
Adding to the major Australian investments in unlocking Alaska's mineral potential by South32 Ltd. and Northern Star Resources Ltd., junior explorer Nova Minerals Ltd. is briskly expanding the multi-million-ounce gold resource it has outlined over the past three years on its Estelle gold property in the state's Southcentral region. According to a calculation published in April, the Korbel Main deposit at Estelle hosts 518 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.3...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. is carrying out the largest exploration program at Red Mountain, an already district-scale project in Alaska that keeps getting bigger as the Australian explorer continues to find more zinc, silver, and gold mineralization on the outskirts of this now 323-square-mile (836 square kilometers) land package. By late May, White Rock had already begun a more than 10,000-meter drill program that is testing both intrusive-related gold targets at the Last...
Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s late 2018 acquisition of the Pogo gold mine in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District was celebrated as both good news for the future of the underground gold mine and the rapidly expanding Down Under mining company's first major asset outside of Australia. "While the Pogo operation is currently our only asset in North America, it is a very good one to have," said Luke Creagh, Northern Star Resources' chief operating officer of the Pogo Mine and...
When Australia-based South32 Ltd. decided to expand its portfolio into the Northern Hemisphere, Alaska was its first stop. Under a deal struck with Trilogy Metals Inc. in 2017, South32 agreed to invest more than US$175 million to earn a 50% joint venture interest in the massive Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Alaska's world-class Ambler Mining District. After investing more than US$30 million to fully understand the mineral potential at UKMP, the major base metals producer...
Accounting for at least US$100 million invested in mineral exploration and mine development in Alaska during 2021, Australian companies continue to work along the entire breadth of the Last Frontier's mining industry – from discovery to doré. Following a year in which COVID-19 protocols and travel restrictions made exploring Alaska challenging, especially for companies headquartered half a world away, this impressive investment in Alaska's mining sector demonstrates that Do...
An Alaska-based mineral explorer that has long attracted Australian companies to projects it has generated, Millrock Resources Inc. is actively working with two such companies on gold exploration projects in Interior Alaska – Felix Gold Ltd. in the Fairbanks Mining District and Resolution Minerals Ltd. in the Goodpaster Mining District. "The exploration season is in full swing in Alaska," Millrock Resources President and CEO Greg Beischer said earlier this month. "Our f...
Alaska's largely untapped mineral potential continues to draw the interest of Down Under mining companies, including two Australian minerals explorers that picked up prospective land packages open to staking. Earlier this month, Australia-based Ragusa Minerals Ltd. announced that it had acquired Monte Cristo, a block of 500 state mining claims covering a 35-mile-long (55 kilometers) under-explored stretch of Southcentral Alaska east and south of two projects with...
High-grade deposits rich in copper, gold, and silver to bulk tonnage porphyry targets sought after by many of the world's major copper producers, Australia-based PolarX Ltd. has no shortage of targets to explore across its 22-mile- (35 kilometers) long Alaska Range property. As its name suggests, this property lies within the majestic and mineral-rich mountain range that arcs across the middle of the Far North state. PolarX' 2021 program is focused on two high-grade copper...
From reinstating the Roadless Rule in the Tongass Forest to replacing the General Mining Law of 1872, federal regulations being proposed by President Joe Biden threaten to rain on a parade of strong metals prices, growing demand for critical minerals, and robust investments into mineral exploration and mining across Alaska. "We recommend Congress develop legislation to replace outdated mining laws including the General Mining Law (GML) of 1872 governing locatable minerals...
While copper did not make it onto the list of 35 minerals and metals critical to the United States, the red metal's criticality to the global transition to renewable energy and electric mobility cannot be overstated. No matter which battery chemistries power tomorrow's electric vehicles, what renewable energy solutions recharge those EVs, or if rare earth magnets are used to generate that electricity and propel those vehicles more efficiently, any path to a decarbonized...
The ultimate goal for most junior exploration companies is to discover and advance a mineral deposit to the point that it is large and rich enough to attract the attention of a major mining company to swoop in and nab a stake through an investment in the project or even an outright buyout of the junior. Sometimes, if the global market conditions are right and the project shows enough promise, majors will invest in a project long before an economically viable mining project...
Alaska, Northern British Columbia, and the Yukon are home to a dozen advanced stage exploration and mine projects hosting billions of pounds of copper ready to deliver to a world demanding massive amounts of this conductive metal for the green energy and electric mobility transition envisioned over the next three decades. In its report, "Copper is the new oil," Goldman Sachs forecasts that the electrification of transportation and decarbonization of electrical generation...
From a world-class graphite deposit in the Northwest to rare earths on the Southeast Panhandle, Alaska has the potential to offer a sustainable and secure supply to meet the coming explosive demand for the minerals and metals crucial to the renewable energy and electric vehicle sectors in North America and around the globe. International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, estimates that this shift to low-carbon energy and electric mobility will create nearly...
