The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1401 - 1425 of 3021
On Oct.15, 2012, Joseph A. Main, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health announced that "recently finalized data shows that in 2011, fatality and injury rates were the lowest in history." Main went on to say that "in the Metal/Nonmetal mining sector, the fatal injury rate was .0084 per 200,000 hours worked and the all-injury rate was 2.28 per 200,000 hours worked." He said, "No miner should have to die on the job just to earn a paycheck," and we all agree. Nota...
In exploring for gold in the central Kivalliq region of Nunavut this field season, North Country Gold Corp. has found evidence of emerald in drill core at the Anuri prospect on its 300-kilometer- (186 miles) long Committee Bay Greenstone Belt Property. The junior's Nunavut land package at Committee Bay consists of 222,623 hectares (550,101 acres) and has identified five distinct mineral development centers, including the Anuri-Raven prospect and the Three Bluffs gold deposit where the company has focused exploration in...
An employment forecast published by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development in October pegged the state's mining sector job growth from 2010 to 2020 at 19 percent. That is second only to health care, at 31 percent, and outpacing the 12 percent average growth across all Alaska industries. Expansion of current operations coupled with prospects of building mines at the world-class Livengood and Donlin gold deposits were cited as drivers behind adding new miners t...
The 17,209-meter drill program carried out by NovaCopper Inc. in 2012 at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Project in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska is revealing a third copper deposit with sufficient size and grade to be deemed world-class. When the spin-out of NovaGold Resources Inc.'s copper-rich Ambler project was completed in May, NovaCopper held Arctic, a single deposit with an NI 43-101-compliant resource. But the deal also included US$40 million in start-up...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. has two things the Pentagon wants - heavy rare earths and state-of-the-art technology to extract these strategic elements from the ore. The almost magical properties of REEs - a group of 17 previously obscure metals that include scandium, yttrium and the 15 lanthanide elements on the periodic table - make them an essential ingredient to a number of avant-garde military applications such as drones, lasers, radar systems and night vision equipment. The...
For a junior who lost a substantial funding partner, BHP Billiton Canada Inc., at the onset of the recent downturn in the financial markets, Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. hardly broke stride in exploration momentum in 2012. The aggressive explorer not only forged ahead with a substantial program at its highly prospective Chidliak diamond project on Baffin Island in Nunavut, it also made significant progress in identifying new kimberlites at its Lac De Gras projects in Northwest Territories. Further icing its cake, Peregrine success...
For the dozens of companies that rushed to stake claims in the Nechako Plateau of central British Columbia three years ago, the area now known as the Blackwater Gold District is shaping up to be a better-than-average bet. But a series of bold acquisitions by New Gold Inc. in 2011 has placed the mid-tier gold producer solidly in the driver's seat in one of Canada's largest modern gold exploration plays. Located about 160 kilometers (99 miles) south-west of Prince George in central British Columbia, the Blackwater Project area...
As gold topped US$1,775 per ounce in September, banks and billionaires predicted the safe-haven metal will continue to rocket upward, topping US$2,000 per ounce by early 2013. This bullish outlook is being fueled by continued quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe. "Loose monetary policies with a scope for more aggressive balance-sheet use in the U.S. and Europe will keep real rates in most reserve currencies low (or negative) in 2012,"...
As the first cooler days and termination dust start appearing across Alaska, seasonal exploration activities are winding down and operating mines are preparing for another winter. To be sure, less money was spent on fewer projects by the mineral industry exploring and developing Alaska's mineral resources in 2012 versus 2011. More advanced-stage projects that added ounces or pounds to their resource base had a better go of it than early-stage exploration projects which have...
Among the many blessings the founders of our Republic bestowed upon us is the incredibly good idea of having our national executive isolated from the legislative and judicial branches. In most parliamentary democracies, the head of the legislative branch is also the de facto head of the executive branch, so he (or she) gets to appropriate the money and then spend it. Under our system, by contrast, the executive gets to print money, and he is almost to the point where he...
Location, location, location," the old adage goes, summing up the opportunities and challenges faced by the real estate industry. Well, "infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure," can offer the same insights into the problems of modern mining in remote jurisdictions like Yukon Territory. The relative scarcity of roads, bridges, airports, power and other infrastructure in the Yukon is critical to the outlook for mining, and in many cases, the presence or lack of these important components can spell the difference between...
Haines Borough Manager Mark Earnest is a man on a mission, getting the word out to mining companies in Yukon Territory that the deep-water port in his sleepy Alaska community of 1,811 souls could well be the answer to their prayers. Unlike the Port of Skagway, its increasingly busy neighbor to the northeast, the Port of Haines is virtually devoid of congestion. The port attracts only one cruise-ship a week along with daily ferry service in summer, has very little road traffic thanks to a designated truck route that bypasses...
Don Ewigleben and Tom Irwin - two figures that played key roles in the development of Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine - are once again united to develop a world-class gold deposit in Interior Alaska. Filling a void created by the sudden departure of James Komadina in May, International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. appointed Chairman Ewigleben president and CEO of the company looking to develop the 20-million-ounce Livengood gold project. Ewigleben, a lawyer who spent 35 years...
Capstone Mining Co., Alexco Resource Corp. and Yukon Zinc Corp. have crossed the Rubicon. Unlike other mining companies in Yukon Territory who continue to grapple with the complexities and uncertainties of exploration and development, the operators of the Minto, Bellekeno and Wolverine mines are working to master a new set of challenges - optimizing their mining and milling processes. Going gangbusters at Minto It will be five years in October since Sherwood Copper Corp. (Capstone Mining Corp.'s predecessor) commenced...
Grande Portage Resources Ltd. is in the midst of a 15,000-meter drill program targeting a high-grade gold deposit at Herbert Glacier, a project that is shaping up to be on par with its renowned neighbors in the Juneau Gold Belt. Located about 20 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of the legendary Treadwell Mine and about the same distance southeast of Coeur d'Alene Mines' Kensington operation, Herbert Glacier is situated along a 160-kilometer (100 miles) stretch of Southeast...
Andover Mining Corp. is hoping to shed some light on the true potential of its Sun volcanogenic massive sulfide project in Northwest Alaska. To accomplish this, the Vancouver B.C.-based junior has put together US$3.5-million program aimed at expanding the copper-silver-lead-zinc-gold mineralization at the historical Sun deposit and testing new prospects across an expanded land-package in the Ambler Mining District. "We designed our program this year to enable us to come out wi...
Over a year ago, Natural Resource Holdings published a report entitled "How Rare are One Million Ounce Gold Deposits?" At that time, the publisher ranked 296 gold deposits that have more than 1 million ounces of gold in all resources categories. The same firm recently published a follow-up report titled, "Global Gold Mines & Deposits 2012 Ranking." The report ranks gold deposits above 1 million ounces, whose numbers have increased to 439 deposits with total resources of...
Perhaps it's just me, but this year's election cycle seems to have an uncharacteristically high level of venom and spleen, at least at the national level. The words "hate" and "liar" seem to have all of a sudden become politically correct in a macabre kind of way. We in Alaska, however, are going to have to watch from the sidelines due to the fact that there is no U. S. Senate race here and with our mere three electoral votes, we simply are not going to be a feather in the wind of the Presidential race. Instead, we will have...
Under the chairmanship of historian and entrepreneurial billionaire Thomas Kaplan, there is little chance NovaGold Resources Ltd. will be among those of which Spanish philosopher George Santayana warned when he wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Kaplan, though, does not need to exercise his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in history from Oxford University to see the wisdom of marching Donlin Gold - a 40-million-ounce gold deposit...
FARO - Legendary mineral explorer W. Douglas "Doug" Eaton hurried forward to greet the group of visitors clambering out of the MD900 helicopter as its whirring blades whipped miniature cyclones of dust in the air. Eaton - unlike many of the geologists, engineers and mining executives the group would meet during a weeklong tour of mine sites, exploration camps and conferences around Yukon Territory - grinned from ear to ear. The early part of the territory-wide mining tour also would include visits to the Einarson Project...
DAWSON, Yukon - The 3rd Annual Dawson Rocks conference, an annual exposition for active mineral exploration projects in Yukon Territory, offered a sobering reminder of the power of the markets in the world of mining. Absent were the scores of juniors that packed much larger exhibition halls in 2010 and 2011 with enticing displays of samples, maps and drill core. This year a dozen exhibitors, ranging from part-time, grassroots prospectors to representatives of advanced exploration projects like Kaminak Gold Corp.'s Coffee...
Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. is making considerable progress this summer in its ambitious quest to commence commercial production at the Mary River iron mine project in Nunavut. The company wants to develop an open pit mine on the Mary River property located on North Baffin Island in the Qikiqtani region of Nunavut and recently has been addressing questions regarding the mine's construction, operation, closure and reclamation. Mary River is one of the largest and richest undeveloped iron ore projects in the world, containing...
Having poured 2 million ounces of gold July 31, the Pogo Mine appears to be living up to its new mantra, "mining done right." Pogo General Manager Chris Kennedy is quick to attribute the continuing success at Alaska's most prolific gold mine to the efforts of the more than 330 employees and 150 contractors that work there. "Milestones like this are only achieved when safety and environmental performance remain at the forefront of everyone's minds. No ounce of gold is worth...
Two of the projects credited with touching off the recent gold rush to Yukon Territory reported results from their 2012 programs in July that suggest they could deliver on all that their early results promised. While new entrants have slowed to a trickle and other early players retire from the scene, at least until the anemic capital markets regain their vigor, Atac Resources Ltd. and Kaminak Gold Corp. and a handful of other juniors are quietly churning out impressive assay results in robust multimillion-dollar drill...
What's the rush?" This is the question the Pebble Partnership and a growing number of lawmakers, resource development advocates and state officials are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in regard to the regulator's assessment of the Bristol Bay Watershed. Companies hoping to develop promising mineral deposits in the United States typically spend several years and millions of dollars to gather environmental baseline information needed to initiate a long and...
