The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1301 - 1325 of 3021
VANCOUVER, B.C. - British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Territory - the headliners of the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia's 2013 Mineral Exploration Roundup - tallied more than C$1 billion of mineral exploration spending in 2012. This marks the second year running that these neighboring jurisdictions at the northwestern extent of the North American Cordillera topped the C$1 billion mark. But unlike the 2012 Roundup, a year in which explosive exploration...
The mining industry just passed through one of the quietest year-end transitions in over a decade. The last month has seen few new public announcements regarding Alaska mineral occurrences but that relative silence is about to change. Within a week of completing this summary, the 2013 Cordilleran Roundup mineral convention will begin in Vancouver, B.C. This annual event is well-attended by individuals and corporations that are active in Alaska's mineral industry or looking to...
With the re-inauguration of the President, Alaska's miners are being forced to hunker down and withstand yet another election cycle wondering what gifts the federal agencies will bestow upon us now. Interior Secretary Salazar is out. His replacement has yet to be identified; however, there is little room to be optimistic. Even under friendly administrations, the selection of Secretary of the Interior has not served us well. The environmentalist community undoubtedly has the...
Lacking the fanfare emblematic of an explorer hot on the trail of a high tenor gold-copper-silver deposit, Contango Ore Inc. recently posted results from its Tetlin project that include a 58.5-meter intercept averaging 14.45 grams per metric ton gold, 0.24 percent copper and 9.1 g/t silver. While this interval from hole TET1218 underscores the potential of this previously undrilled prospect, it is not alone. Some 20 holes sunk into the newly discovered Peak zone tapped broad...
A recent ruling by the Court of Appeal for Yukon could give an Aboriginal group in southeastern Yukon Territory a big say in who gets to explore for and mine minerals discovered on its traditional lands. Unless overturned on appeal, the unanimous decision Dec. 27 by a three-judge panel comprised of British Columbia Court of Appeal judges, also could affect interaction between governments and First Nations throughout Canada, according to some observers. In "Ross River Dena Council v. Government of Yukon," the Yukon appellate...
In today's difficult financing climate, Homestake Resources Corp. is living the dream of most junior mining companies. Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., an aggressive intermediate gold producer, has signed on to pay the bills at the Homestake Ridge project located in northwestern British Columbia in a deal where the gold producer could spending up to C$25.3 million and earn up to a 70 percent interest in the exploration and development venture. Formerly Bravo Gold Corp., the junior changes its name to Homestake Resources in April....
When it comes to multimillion-ounce bulk-tonnage gold deposits in Alaska, one would be hard pressed to find one more ideally located than Freegold Ventures Ltd.'s Golden Summit Project. Situated alongside the paved Steese Highway some 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Fairbanks, a city of 87,000 that embraces its gold mining heritage, the project has direct access to an able work force, grid power and the full range of services needed to operate a low-cost drill program....
Alaska miners are on the cusp of topping 1 million ounces of gold produced, an annual milestone that has not been achieved since Gold Rush pioneers recovered copious amounts of alluvial aurum at the turn of the 20th Century. "When you think about what a million ounces of production means, it is all the more amazing that it was first accomplished by placer miners and a few lode miners, a few shovelfuls at a time, more than a century ago!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska...
Victoria Gold Corp. appears to be well on its way to building a mine at the Eagle Gold Project in central Yukon Territory by 2015, with construction startup tentatively scheduled for April. Eagle Gold is the most advanced new project in the region and is on track to become the largest gold mine in Yukon history. With estimated employment of 350-400 people, the mine also is expected to make a significant contribution to the territory's economy. Victoria aims to produce 207,000 ounces of gold during the first full year of...
I finally found something I have been thinking about for a long time but had not seen discussed in detail. We have all seen summaries of the declining rate of discoveries for new mineral deposits and have heard about the steadily increasing cost of production, now at a record US$727 per ounce, according to GFMS' Gold Survey 2012. What I really wanted to know was the replacement cost of an ounce or a pound of metal. Let's take gold for example: If I am a producing mine and I just produced an ounce of gold, what is the cost of...
There are those who walk among us who move the earth with a simple smile. One such being was the late David Stone, whose untimely passing on Nov. 20, 2012 leaves us with a hole in our hearts. Although David was not born here - he moved to Alaska in his early teens - he was an Alaskan through and through. He loved Juneau and the historic mines that had ceased production nearly three decades before his arrival. He loved to explore the tunnels and chambers of the...
Kaminak Gold Corp. Dec. 13 reported a maiden NI 43-101-compliant inferred mineral resource estimate for its Coffee Gold Project in west-central Yukon Territory of 3.236 million ounces of gold contained in 64 million metric tons, grading 1.56 grams per metric ton gold. The long-awaited calculation follows several seasons of intensive exploration at the 60,704-hectare (150,000 acres) property ignited in 2010 by a modern gold rush to an area now known as the White Gold district of the Yukon. Kaminak was the second company to...
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...
Kivalliq Energy Corp. recently completed a successful uranium exploration season at its Angilak Property located 225 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Baker Lake, Nunavut and reported plans to resume work on the project in 2013. "We had one of the largest uranium exploration programs on the globe in our peer group," said Kivalliq CEO James Paterson in a September update. "And our 2012 program came in on time and under our budget of C$20 million." Describing 2011 as a "bumpy ride" in the uranium sector, Paterson said...
A challenging economic climate in 2012 failed to impede growth in mining activity in Northwest Territories. As miners struggled to fund their work programs, numerous companies managed to plow ahead in the wake of regulatory improvements, advancing projects that could bring even more robust times to the territory's mineral resources sector. The Northwest Territories, one of Canada's three northern territories, is sandwiched between Yukon Territory to the west and Nunavut to the east. With a land mass of nearly 1,347,150...
Mining, by definition, is an environmentally invasive practice of digging holes in the earth to extract the minerals found therein. This reality, coupled with a historical legacy of leaving unsightly scars that ooze metal-laden acidic waters, has given the modern mining industry a figurative black eye. Champions of today's extraction sector, however, see the strategic resources that are critical to national security, a strong economy and the development of a green energy...
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...
Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine is on pace to retake the position of the top gold producer in Alaska. The open-pit operation situated about 26 miles (42 kilometers) north of Fairbanks reigned as the state's most prolific gold operation for a decade before relinquishing the title to the Pogo Mine in 2008. During the third quarter of this year, however, Fort Knox churned out 106,698 ounces of gold, a 48 percent surge from 71,952 ounces produced in the second quarter and a...
A recent letter distributed to the minerals industry by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys and the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development's Division of Economic Development is seeking faster and more efficient ways to gather, collate and publish Alaska's Annual Minerals Industry Report. The agencies are looking for feedback regarding what items the industry thinks is important to retain in the report, what items are not in the report that should be...
For reasons that escape me at the moment, the re-election of President Obama brings to mind another fairy-tale administration that led our nation barely 50 years ago. To be sure, it was a different era with different priorities and prejudices, but it captured for America a mystical place which few could hope to visit, but which everyone wanted to reach for - a rock candy world without the cavities. Realists cynically shake their heads in wonder at the ragtag troupe that...
5 brought unprecedented engagement of First Nations in mining industry activities in Yukon Territory. While tight financial markets appeared to slow the pace of mining exploration, efforts of mining companies, local and territorial governments and others to advance and/or initiate various cooperative agreements with the 11 self-governing aboriginal groups with traditional territories in the Yukon seemed to intensify. Adding to a significant roster of existing agreements, mining companies forged new pacts with a number of...
Ethos Gold Corp. recently wrapped up a second phase of 2012 exploration aimed at identifying a multimillion-ounce gold deposit on its Betty Property located in the White Gold district of Yukon Territory. The junior Sept. 19 reported completing 7,500 meters of reverse circulation drilling in 61 holes, and collecting 8,700 grid soil samples and 166 prospecting samples in 2012 that targeted the 17-square-kilometer (6.56 square miles) Mascot Creek gold-in-soil anomaly at Betty that Ethos outlined in 2011 and where the junior...
Roughly a mile beyond the golden beaches of Nome, Placer Marine Mining Inc. - a joint venture that combines the gold mining expertise of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. with the marine mining experience of De Beers - is investigating the potential of dredging a vast placer gold deposit lying beneath the icy waters of the Bering Sea. These gold-rich placer deposits in Alaska's Arctic Northwest are not the first marine mining endeavors undertaken jointly by AngloGold Ashanti and De...
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...
Pebble and politics are two matters that loomed large in the minds of the mining community that gathered in Anchorage for the 2012 Alaska Miners Association Convention in early November. The weight of these provocative and inexorably related matters was reflected in conversations and presentations at the annual gathering. With the trade show and technical session portion of the AMA convention typically starting on the day after the U.S. elections, the juxtaposition of...
