The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1101 - 1125 of 3020
A group of diverse global-scale mining companies hailing from Australia, Japan, and the United States are quietly exploring a relatively small region of Alaska's Interior. Two of these international players - Sumitomo Metal Mining and Newmont Mining Corp. - are seeking gold in the Pogo region of the Tintina Gold Belt. Melbourne-based MMG Ltd., on the other hand, is seeking nickel in the Wrangellia Terrane, a promising band of rocks immediately south of the legendary gold...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. has field programs underway at both the Bokan-Dotson Ridge rare earth elements project in Southeast Alaska and its Ray Mountain REE-tin project in the Interior region of the state. Work at Bokan Mountain is focused on collecting the last bits of information needed to complete a plan of operation that can be submitted for permitting and finalize a feasibility study scheduled for delivery in 2015. As a potential domestic source of a suite of heavy rare...
Full Metal Minerals Ltd., a familiar name in the Alaska mineral exploration sector for the past decade, is being reborn as CopperBank Resources Corp. The formation of CopperBank will result from a three-way arrangement in which Full Metal offers up its Pyramid copper project in Alaska, International Enexco Ltd. delivers its Contact copper project in Nevada, and Choice Gold Corp. will serve as the vehicle for the emergent company. "Not only will shareholders be a part of a new,...
As mineral exploration activity around the globe continues to reel from the body blows delivered by a multi-year capital drought, a trio of innovators in Yukon Territory is giving new meaning to the adage, "One man's meat is another man's poison." Groundtruth Exploration Ltd., led by Shawn Ryan's protégé, Isaac Fage, is making significant strides in marketing to mining companies a low-cost exploration system that is dependent on several proprietary technologies. During the 2014 field season, Dawson, YT-based Groundtruth o...
The Dene First Nations of Northwest Territories has created what is likely Canada's first 100 percent aboriginal-owned exploration and mining company. Named DemCo Limited Partnership, the startup will celebrate one year in business in October, and is already making its mark in the industry. DemCo's mission is to enable the Dene to become owners of hardrock mines operating on their own lands. The new company is owned by Denendeh Investments Limited Partnership, which has a membership comprised of First Nations from the five...
Diamonds exploration heated up in the Northwest Territories in 2014 as more and more companies mounted campaigns aimed at identifying the next big discovery in a region that has already produced three operating diamond mines and one well-advanced mine project. "It's been an exciting season for us because on April 1, we took over management of mineral and oil and gas resources in the territory. Overall, we're seeing a consistent trend for exploration as well as a bit of a resurgence of interest in diamonds," Pam Strand,...
Will Alaska be home to a "gigamine" that fills explosive future graphite demand expected to be driven by Tesla Motors' lithium-ion battery Gigafactory and the larger market for battery-powered vehicles and devices? Graphite One Resources hopes the answer is yes. In early September Tesla announced that Nevada would be the home of the Gigafactory, a massive facility that aims to produce enough lithium ion batteries annually to power 500,000 electric vehicles. For perspective,...
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...
WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory - Quieter streets, emptier skies, shorter business hours and closed shops here are sure signs of tough times in the mining industry. Hours away by helicopter, one can find bare-bones exploration camps and skeleton staffs sprinkled like the occasional grain of visible gold across remote mountain vistas, which also reflect the return to the frugal times of the past. In the wake of more than two years of scarce capital, mineral exploration activity is a shadow of the booming times the territory...
Indicative of the state of mineral exploration in Alaska, and around the world, no drills are turning at NovaCopper's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in 2014. Instead, crews crated up 12,918 meters of core from historical drilling at the northern Alaska project and shipped it to Fairbanks where it can more economically be re-logged and readied for re-sampling. At an expected cost of around US$2.7 million, this relatively modest program follows two years of exploration...
HOWARD'S PASS, Yukon Territory - Here at the Selwyn Project, Vancouver-based Selwyn Chihong Mining Ltd. is moving forward with year-round exploration and development that began in June 2013. The company is building a 35,000-metric-ton-per-day zinc-lead mine (roughly 3.5 times the size of the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska) with completion anticipated in 2020. A colossal undertaking, the proposed mine is singlehandedly expected to double Yukon Territory's gross domestic product. It will have a capex of C$2.12 billion, 500...
With 9.9 billion pounds of copper and 38.2 million ounces of gold in reserves, a provincial environmental certificate in-hand and federal approvals pending, Seabridge Gold is in the final stages of gathering all of the components needed to develop a mine at its Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell project in northwestern British Columbia. Attracting a partner of the same world-class caliber as the deposits that make up the project simply known as KSM and getting that final stamp of...
Rockhaven Resources Ltd.'s Klaza Project located at the end of the Nansen Road in central Yukon Territory may be coming into its own as an exciting precious metals property. After three years of exploration, the junior has amassed 460 claims, enough to comprise 90-square kilometers (35 square miles) within a highly prospective area of the Dawson Range. In addition, Rockhaven, a company spawned by the folks at Strategic Metals Ltd. and Archer, Cathro & Associates Limited, has gradually stepped out from its first drilling in...
Through its strategic alliance partnership with Nunavut Resources Corp., Transition Metals Corp. has acquired an additional 433 square kilometers (167 square miles) of high potential gold and base metal exploration properties in Nunavut. The alliance acquired the properties located along the Izok-Grays Bay road infrastructure development corridor in western Nunavut this summer through the execution of a mineral exploration agreement with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which manages the subsurface mining rights on Inuit owned lands...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has offered the proposal of allowing the Pebble Limited Partnership to apply for permits to develop a less than average-size porphyry mine at the world's largest undeveloped copper-gold-molybdenum deposit. Falling short of an outright ban of building a mine at Pebble, the EPA is proposing Clean Water Act Section 404(c) permit restrictions aimed at limiting the footprint of any mine allowed to be developed at the enormous porphyry...
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 Supreme Court of Canada June 26 released its highly anticipated decision in "Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia." Called "ground-breaking" by observers, the judgment by Canada's highest court granted a declaration of Aboriginal title over a tract of Crown lands to the Tsilhqot'in Nation of the west central interior of British Columbia. It is the first time in Canadian history that Aboriginal title has been definitively established and affirmed. The civil action claim asserted by the Tsilhqot'in First Nation in 2002...
A coalition of 38 companies and organizations, representing a broad spectrum of America's economy, is urging lawmakers on Capitol Hill to dust off pending critical minerals legislation and send a version to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature. "Updating our geologic data, reducing delays in permitting, bolstering research, and encouraging efficient use can pay dividends for future generations," explains the group pressing for critical minerals legislation....
As a result of its timely partnership with Dowa Metals & Mining Co. Ltd., Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. has launched the largest single-season exploration program ever carried out the Palmer volcanogenic massive sulfide project near Haines in Southeast Alaska. At US$6.2-million, this year's exploration expenditures at the precious metals enriched copper-zinc project also ranks among the largest programs expected to be carried out in the 49th state during 2014. "The Palmer...
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...
Alaska's natural gas is increasingly replacing diesel as the fuel of choice for mines and mining projects across the Far North State and Yukon Territory. At roughly 37 trillion cubic feet, Alaska is awash in natural gas; however, some 35 tcf of these known reserves are isolated in the Arctic oil and gas fields of the North Slope. The balance, located in the Cook Inlet basin that stretches southwest from Anchorage, has been developed primarily to serve consumers in the...
A group of presenters at the first annual Northern Regions Summit held in Vancouver May 28-30 addressed the nature of "social licenses to operate" and how mining companies should go about getting and keeping them. The dialogue, at the same time, allowed Alaska's Institute of the North, the summit organizer, to showcase young aboriginal leaders from Far North communities in Alaska and Canada. Jason Prno, Ph. D., a researcher and consultant from Waterloo, Ont., moderated a panel discussion titled, "Emerging Leaders Dialogue -...
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...
