The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Building and operating a mine at the 20-million-ounce Livengood gold project would lose money at today's US$1,300-per-ounce gold price, according to the results of a feasibility study published July 23 by International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. In fact, the 100,000-ton-per-day mine outlined in the study does not break even until the gold price approaches US$1,500/oz. International Tower Hill management, though, remains optimistic that developing the multimillion-ounce gold...
TMAC Resources Inc. is poised to enter the final stretch for development of its recently acquired Hope Bay gold project in northern Nunavut. Working with a timetable aimed at initiating gold production from the project's Doris North deposit in the fall of 2015, the company is focused this summer on completing a prefeasibility study begun in July, a surface exploration program undertake for 2013 and a sealift to the project site of main supplies for 2013/2014, equipment, materials and camp return as well as underground... Full story
Fire River Gold Corp. has dug a deep hole at Nixon Fork- not only a drift to the high-grade gold for which the mine is known but also a more perilous financial deficit that could result in the Vancouver B.C.-based junior losing the remote Alaska operation. Laden by heavy debt and unable to reach commercial production Fire River, in late June, said it was placing Nixon Fork on care and maintenance "until a revised operating plan has been developed and market conditions improve....
At two metric tons per hour, the mill at WestMountain Gold Inc.'s Terra project is the smallest of the hardrock gold operations in Alaska. But with feedstock exceeding one ounce of gold per metric ton, the electrum recovered from this pilot plant will likely help finance ongoing drilling of the high-grade veins for which the project is known and a much larger deposit believed to be lurking nearby. After completing the set-up of this pilot plant, WestMountain fed 23 metric...
Many concerned Alaskans may have read former State Senator Clem Tillion's op-ed piece in the July 2, 2013, issue of the Alaska Dispatch concerning the royalty that might be paid to the people of Alaska should the Pebble Project one day become a mine. Sen. Tillion argues that at current rates, the royalties to the state would be insufficient to justify allowing the Pebble Project to go forward. His message seems to be that developing Alaska's resources, when properly... Full story
Before we take a peek at what is happening across Alaska, I'd like to summarize a superb presentation on the world's exploration industry presented by MinEx Consulting's Richard Shodde at a mining conference in South Africa. He pointed out that since 1990 there has been a very strong correlation between gold price and exploration expenditures. While not earth-shattering in itself, he took the conclusion one step farther: analyst predictions for the gold price through 2020 are...
In the best of times, a government-sponsored mining incentives program could be a wise investment of public revenue to stimulate economic development in a mining-intensive jurisdiction like Yukon Territory. In a sustained capital drought like the one currently scorching the industry, funds awarded through the Yukon Mining Incentives Program can be the deciding factor in whether boots even hit the ground on many mineral exploration projects across the territory. Designed to promote and enhance mineral prospecting and explorati...
While Imperial Metals Corp. forges ahead with development of its Red Chris Mine Project in northwestern British Columbia, exploration fever is building a few miles to the northwest as Colorado Resources Ltd. delivers early excitement on ground that others have already explored. Not only has the junior's aggressive 2013 exploration program on the 5,188-hectare (12,820 acres) North ROK property attracted attention from investors, it also helped to draw a slew of other explorers to the area. The excitement started in April when...
Novagold Resources Inc. is well-equipped, not only to ride out the financial tempest that is battering most of the titanic gold producers and junior exploration companies, but to take advantage of the inclement market conditions that are forcing others to take shelter. "Notwithstanding the share price and the continued market conditions challenging mining equities, we find ourselves in a better position as a company than we had hoped," Novagold President Greg Lang informed... Full story
Canadian Zinc Corp. in recent weeks has reported significant progress in wading through the final regulatory and financial obstacles that could potentially bar its path to bringing the Prairie Creek Mine Project into production. Prairie Creek Mine is an advanced-staged zinc-lead-silver project located 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Yellowknife in southwestern Northwest Territories. Canadian Zinc is working to develop a 1,000-metric-ton-per-day underground mining operation at Prairie Creek using multiple methods to access...
Following an impressive decade-long run of consistent gains, has the price of gold reached its apex? Or, are the precious metal bulls taking a breather before stampeding to new historic highs in the months and years to come? This question of where gold prices are heading tends to perplex the most accomplished of economists. During a July 18 congressional testimony, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's admitted "that nobody really understands gold prices and I don't pretend... Full story
A growing number of Lower 48 lawmakers are weighing in on the potential risks and rewards of building a mine at the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in Southwest Alaska, shifting the frontline of the escalating battle to Washington D.C. With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seemingly positioning itself to exercise unprecedented powers to halt the Pebble project without giving developers the opportunity to have their plans vetted under the current permitti...
Further proof that the mining industry is undergoing fundamental changes can be found in "Mine: A Confidence Crisis," the 10th edition of PricewaterhouseCoopers's annual report on the global mining industry. This recently released report indicates that in 2012 the top 40 global mining companies saw net profits plummet 49 percent to US$68 billion. To make matters worse, after a 25 percent decline in average mining stock value in 2011 and a slower but still downward trend in 201...
Here's an open letter to Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska: Dear Sen. Begich, Last week, I had the privilege to sit in on a constituent teleconference with you concerning a number of issues confronting Alaska. During the course of your comments, and in response to a question concerning the Pebble Project, you indicated that you were reserving judgment until EPA's pending Bristol Bay Assessment was complete. Implicitly, you suggested that the assessment was entitled to great weight,...
Among the dozen or so companies that are advancing mineral-rich deposits in Nunavut this year, none has more going on inside and outside of the territory this summer than Glencore Xstrata plc. Xstrata plc, owner of the Hackett River silver-zinc project located in western Nunavut, merged with Glencore International plc in late May to become one of the world's largest mining and trading companies. The US$30 billion deal created a mega-entity that employs nearly 200,000 people in 50 countries around the globe to generate full...
Regardless of having its stock price battered to the point of triggering a delisting review by the Toronto Stock Exchange, Pure Nickel Inc. has mustered resources sufficient to carry out multimillion-dollar mineral exploration programs at both of its Alaska properties in 2013. Due to the low share price of the stock, Pure Nickel's market capital fell below the C$3-million-threshold for mining companies listed on the TSX, which triggered the delisting review. Pure Nickel has...
You say the world's frontiers have all been conquered, and Nature's riddles have all been solved? Don't tell that to Darnley Bay Resources Ltd. The Toronto-based junior is celebrating two decades this summer of working to unravel one of Earth's most intriguing mineral mysteries. The puzzle lies deep beneath the earth's surface in Canada's Far North in what potentially may be the strongest isolated gravity anomaly in the world and certainly, in North America. Located near Paulatuk, Northwest Territories on the Arctic coast,...
The Government of Yukon is seeking feedback until July 31 on proposed amendments to the Canadian territory's "Quartz Mining Act, Placer Mining Act" and appropriate regulations. The proposed changes reflect Yukon officials' response to a court ruling in December and are intended to support positive relationships among First Nations and the exploration and mining industries. Amendments to the legislation must be in force by Dec. 27, 2013 to meet the one-year timeline imposed by the Court of Appeal for Yukon for implementing... Full story
A US$22 million option and joint venture agreement forged with Dowa Metals & Mining Co., Ltd. earlier this year is providing Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. with the ability to resume the expansion of a high-grade volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit at its Palmer project in Southeast Alaska. In addition to a cash infusion during tight financial markets, Dowa brings 130 years of experience in the mining and smelting of VMS ores to its newly forged partnership at Palmer....
The second draft of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Bristol Bay Assessment strengthens the notion that Pebble and other copper deposits in the Bristol Bay watershed are at risk of losing mining habitat due to the salmon population found there. After spending about a year studying the area of Southwest Alaska where the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project is located, EPA released the initial draft of the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment in May, 2012. Based on... Full story
With a marketing campaign seemingly designed to send investors and their money running, Contango ORE Inc., also known as Core, may be the most unconventional mineral exploration company working in Alaska. A presentation posted on the company's website in 2011 provides a sense of the explorer's unabashed frankness: "It would be truly exciting if Core owned gold or REEs (rare earth elements) - we sadly do not - we are an exploration company i.e. a pure and simple...
Each year about this time, the sun begins to shine like never before, the rivers rise and the ice melts, the daylight hours grow longer, and miners across Alaska bend their shoulders to their avocation. While it is true that the endless problems we all face don't go away; nonetheless, they seem to take their place as a part of the background noise with which we have to deal while getting on with the real business of life. Somehow, despite the unending bickering in Washington,... Full story
Scotiabank's Commodity Price Index, after losing significant ground in late 2012, started 2013 on a stronger note, climbing 3.8 percent in January before slipping 0.9 percent a month later, Scotiabank Vice President, Economics Patricia M. Mohr told a capacity crowd at 2013 Nunavut Mining Symposium in April. The annual gathering, held April 8-11 in Iqaluit, NU, the northern territory's capital, attracted 500 delegates, matching the record attendance reported for the symposium in 2012. Mohr, a commodity market specialist at... Full story
There is a reason why Nunavut has one of the fastest-growing economies in Canada: mining. With one operating gold mine at Meadowbank, two projects on the verge of startup at Hope Bay and Mary River , five projects advancing through the environmental assessment process at Meliadine, Back River, Hackett River, and the Izok corridor, and exploration activities continuing across all three regions in 2013, there's little wonder that Nunavut's "time has come." That's the word from Matthew Spence, director general of the Northern...
The story of the Meadowbank Mine in central Nunavut continues to be a tale of challenges met and obstacles conquered. From the hour that its development was conceptualized in the middle of the past decade, the gold at Meadowbank has delivered a succession of hurdles for its developers - first Cumberland Resources and then Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. - to clear. Agnico-Eagle acquired Cumberland in April 2007 in an all-share acquisition valued at C$710 million. In 2010, the gold producer brought Meadowbank into commercial...
