The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1426 - 1450 of 3021
In a long overdue step to bring Alaska into the 21st Century, state and federal agencies met in late June to discuss collaborative funding strategies for Alaska's Statewide Digital Mapping Initiative, an enterprise designed to create Alaska's first high-quality digital topographic map. The roundtable was convened by Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of Interior. Alaska remains the only state in the United States...
The very founding of our country was premised upon resistance to governmental excesses. Authors and movie producers from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged ("A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.") to Steven Spielberg's "Men in Black" (Bug: "Place your projectile weapon on the ground." Edgar: "You can have my gun, when you pry it from my cold dead fingers." Bug: "Your proposal is acceptable.") have warned us against the...
Despite owning a Pacific Rim deposit of gold, copper, zinc and silver worth some US$1.44 billion, Heatherdale Resources Ltd. has not completely escaped the financial paralysis gripping the junior mining sector. While the value of Heatherdale's stake of the Niblack project has nearly doubled over the past year, its share price has plunged some 75 percent. Notwithstanding, the Hunter Dickinson-affiliated junior has successfully pulled together the funds it needs to continue to...
Copper North Mining Corp. July 20 reported that its application for a five-year Type 'A' land use permit, submitted in support of its 2012 exploration program at the Redstone Property in Northwest Territories has been approved by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board. A LUP has been granted to Redbed Resources Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Copper North. The LUP will enable the company to conduct exploration activities on the Redstone property for a period of five years from the date of grant. The Redstone Property...
For more than 30 years, devolution - the authority to manage one's own public lands and natural resources - has been a goal of the Government of Northwest Territories. With a final devolution agreement currently being negotiated with Canada's federal government, the northern territory is now laying the groundwork for effectively managing its land and natural resources once the devolution process is complete. Northwest Territories, which is slightly larger than the Province of Ontario, covers 1.183 million square kilometers (4...
Putting Alaska on the map as a domestic source of rare earth elements and other strategic and critical minerals is a priority of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell. During the 2012 budget cycle, Alaska lawmakers approved US$498,000 proposed by the administration to begin a statewide REE evaluation. This year's budget includes US$2.7 million for a three-year project to continue this initiative. "Alaska can become America's source for rare earth elements," Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell...
When Steve Borell announced that he was retiring as the executive director of the Alaska Miners Association - a post he held for 22 years - the group's board of directors was charged with the daunting task of filling the void left by the association's highly regarded and beloved leader. Unbeknownst to the board members, or Borell himself, the outgoing executive director had been grooming his replacement, Deantha Crockett, for nearly a decade. The new AMA executive director is...
An early June shakeup at the upper echelon of Barrick Gold Corp. management, including the sacking of CEO Aaron Regent, calls to question the future of the 40 million-ounce Donlin Gold project in Southwest Alaska. Regent, who had served as Barrick president and CEO since 2009, was replaced by executive vice president and CFO Jamie Sokalsky. Barrick founder and Chairman Peter Munk cited lackluster share performance when announcing the changes to the top executive office. "We...
As the scope and tenor of a long-predicted shortfall in zinc supply begins to take shape, proponents of advanced mine projects in northern Canada with substantial deposits of zinc, along with lead, copper and/or other metals, are busy refining development strategies aimed at achieving production by the end of the decade. Near the front of the line are Tamerlane Ventures Inc., which is advancing the Pine Point Project in Northwest Territories, and Selwyn-Chihong Mining Ltd., which is working to develop the giant Selwyn...
If you are looking for proof that the mining industry is experiencing unparalleled changes, look no further than "Mine 2012: The growing disconnect," the 9th edition of PricewaterhouseCoopers' annual report on the global mining industry. This recently released report indicates that in 2011 the top 40 global mining companies posted record profits of $133 billion and generated record operating cash flows of $174 billion. However, over the course of the year, market...
The 9th Circuit handed down an en banc ruling on June 1, 2012, counter-posing placer mining on federal claims within the national forest along the Klamath River pursuant to a 36 CFR 228.4 Notice of Intent and Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. Karuk Tribe of California v. U. S. Forest Service, No. 05-16801. Unsurprisingly, the majority ruled against the USFS and concomitantly against the miners on the single question of whether before consenting to a notice of intent, NO...
Driven Capital Corp. recently launched a maiden 1,500-meter drill program to investigate the extent of high-grade gold-copper-silver rocks that pepper the surface of the White River property tucked in the southwestern corner of the Yukon Territory. Situated about 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of the Alaska border and a mere 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the Alaska Highway, White River is a grassroots discovery made by Tarsis Resources Ltd. in 2010. "You just get a tingle...
With its flagship Renard project firmly on track to becoming Québec's first diamond mine, Stornoway Diamond Corp. recently demonstrated that it is also making progress in advancing its diamond exploration projects in Nunavut. In an NI 43-101 technical report recently filed on SEDAR, the explorer reported the first mineral resource estimate for the Q1-4 kimberlite pipe located at the explorer's Qilalugaq project in Nunavut. The Qilalugaq project includes the Qilalugaq kimberlite pipes and the Naujaat system of kimberlite dikes...
Following a five-year hiatus, TNR Gold Corp. has returned to confirm a 1 million-ounce gold resource at its Shotgun project in the Kuskokwim Gold Belt of Southwest Alaska. Located about 110 miles (175 kilometers) south of Donlin Gold and about the same distance northeast of Pebble, the property lies at the intersection of two trends known to host big deposits. "So, it's in a very, very prolific gold area. We think it has a potential not just for 1 or 2 million ounces we...
While most juniors are cinching their belts and scaling back programs, Millrock Resources Inc. has C$7.5 million of exploration slated for its array of gold and copper-gold properties in Alaska in 2012, not to mention a healthy C$4.5 million budget for its copper-gold prospects in Arizona. Millrock President and CEO Greg Beischer said the scarcity of venture capital available to the junior exploration sector was palpable at the Cambridge House World Resource Investment...
One year after donning the mantle of chief executive officer at International Tower Hill Mines Ltd., James Komadina abruptly vacated the position recently. The unexpected departure comes less than a week after Tower Hill filed its first-quarter 2012 financial results, revealing a budget overrun of C$46.9 million on Komadina's watch. The vacuum created in the upper echelon of Tower Hill management has pulled in company founder Jeff Pontius to help steer the company through...
Although spring took its good old time in arriving across much of Alaska, the mining industry's busy summer exploration and development season has arrived. Five of Alaska's major mines reported strong first-quarter operating results, and two new companies acquired exploration properties in Alaska in the last month. These new acquisitions are not expected to be the last, as the prolonged venture capital drought continues with no end in sight. The news this month is sparse, prim...
On May 18, 2012, the EPA released for public comment a draft scientific study of the Bristol Bay watershed and its natural resources. Under the Clean Water Act, EPA claims the authority to perform scientific studies that enhance the public's knowledge of water resources. Whether, as a matter of law, the agency has that authority, is disputed, but for the purpose of this conversation, it is irrelevant because the more pressing question is whether, assuming such authority, it is...
The stock symbol "NCQ" lit up the boards on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges May 2, marking the official launch of NovaCopper Inc. as an independent mineral exploration company under the leadership of NovaGold Resources Inc. founder Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. "Now that we are a public company independent of NovaGold, we are looking forward to unlocking great value from the exceptional assets we have in the Ambler mining district," said NovaCopper President and CEO Van Nieu...
For the past 18 months, Golden Predator Corp. has been working fast and furiously to get a handle on the gold resource it has steadily uncovered at its flagship Brewery Creek Project located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) east of Dawson City in central Yukon Territory. On Dec. 1, the aggressive junior reported that it was working toward a near-term production decision even as increasingly impressive 2011 drill results continued to surface. Six months later, Golden Predator Chairman and CEO William M. Sheriff, M.Sc., is busy...
The Pebble Limited Partnership has approved a budget of about US$107 million to advance the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in 2012, with the objective of readying to initiate permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act. Work programs for the coming months will include ongoing environmental studies focused on fish and marine resources; water quality and groundwater hydrology; continued engineering analysis to finalize a project description;...
Shear Diamonds Ltd. is advancing a plan to return the Jericho Diamond Mine located in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut to full production as early as 2014. The junior reported May 1 that it has begun processing high-grade concentrate stockpiles at the Jericho Diamond Mine located in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut. A total of about 3,500 carats had been recovered from 358 metric tons of the recovery reject stockpiles after the first 10 full days of processing. These diamonds and all future production from Jericho, other than...
Taking as its theme, "Building a Resourceful Future," the 15th annual Nunavut Mining Symposium held April 16-19, 2012 in Iqaluit, Nunavut, featured several presentations that examined the challenges facing mining and the importance of regulatory reform to the industry's future in Canada's northern territories. Pierre Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada, led the discussion by citing mining's significant contributions to the North, which include 30,000+ person years of stable, high-wage employment,...
The Nunavut Mining Symposium, held April 16-19 in Iqaluit, NU, the northern territory's capital, drew more than 500 delegates, a record for the annual gathering. Patricia M. Mohr, vice president of Scotiabank, delivered the keynote address, outlining the financial institution's 2012-13 outlook for metal prices, currencies and global growth. Mohr, a commodity market specialist at the Toronto-based international bank, said price increases in the bank's widely respected Metal & Mineral Index at 11.1 percent per annum during the...
Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emphatically denies it has predetermined whether to exercise its authority under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act to prohibit or restrict large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed, a draft assessment published by the regulatory agency surmises that development of Pebble and other promising copper deposits in this vast expanse of state-owned land in Southwest Alaska may pose a threat to a world-class salmon fishery...
