The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Among his final acts before resigning as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt directed his agency's Office of Water to put together a proposal to update the regulations governing EPA's role in the permitting discharges of dredged or fill materials, including the elimination of the "preemptive veto" under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. EPA's current interpretation of regulations on implementing CWA section 404(c) allows the agency to...
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker has called for a halt to an environmental review process aimed at determining whether a mine at Pebble can be developed in a way that protects the environment of the Bristol Bay region where the world-class copper-gold-molybdenum deposit is found. In a June 29 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also signed by Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, Walker questioned the "readiness of the proposed Pebble project to move forward." The governor cited the lack of...
Development of the high-grade Lucky Shot gold mine near Willow Alaska has been suspended and the future of the project is up to the Singapore-based equity firm that is the new owner. In a June 6 announcement, Miranda Gold Corp. reported that Gold Torrent Inc., the Idaho-based company seeking to develop a small but high-grade mine at Lucky Shot, had failed to complete a share financing required to hold ownership of the development project. Gold Torrent, which held a 70 percent...
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. is working on a deal to lease Johnson Tract, a gold-rich polymetallic deposit in Southcentral Alaska, from Cook Inlet Region Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation more commonly known as CIRI. Located about six miles west of Cook Inlet and roughly 125 miles southwest of Anchorage, the 20,942-acre Johnson Tract property hosts a gold and base metals deposit that is reminiscent of the historical Eskay Creek Mine in neighboring British...
The Fort Knox Mine will continue churning out gold until at least 2030, thanks to Kinross Gold Corp.'s decision to move ahead with the development of Gilmore, an expansion project immediately west of the open-pit mine that has provide ore to the Interior Alaska operation for 22 years. "This go-ahead decision for Gilmore represents collaboration, hard work and dedication coming to fruition, and it wouldn't have been possible without the contributions of many," said Fort Knox...
The Bornite deposit at Trilogy Metal Inc.'s Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska contains 77 million pounds of cobalt, according to a maiden resource estimate published by the company on June 5. This significant cobalt resource, among the largest in North America, is a by-product to the roughly 6.4 billion lb of copper that has been outlined so far at this world-class deposit in the Ambler Mining District. Trilogy Metals anticipates that a US$10 million...
PolarX Ltd. is ready to kick off the initial phase of its 2018 drill program at its Alaska Range copper-gold project. Encompassing the Stellar and Caribou Dome properties, the Alaska Range blankets a 22-mile mineralized trend that hosts Zackly, a high-grade skarn deposit with roughly 91 million pounds of copper and 213,000 ounces of gold; Caribou Dome, a sediment-hosted deposit with 280 million pounds of copper; and numerous exploration targets. The initial 23-hole program...
In an initial move to implement President Donald Trump's strategy to break the United States' growing reliance on foreign countries for minerals and metals vital to its security and economy, the U.S. Department of Interior published a final list of 35 critical minerals on May 18. An executive order signed by President Trump in December instructed Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke, in consultation with Secretary of Defense James Mattis, to identify and publish a list of...
In a report published in December, the United States Geological Survey defined critical minerals as non-fuel minerals or mineral materials essential to the economic and national security of the United States; vulnerable to supply chain disruptions; and serve an essential function in the manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for the U.S. economy or security. Using this definition, USGS has identified 35 minerals critical to the...
White Gold Corp. is eager to expand known gold deposits and make news discoveries across the roughly 1 million acres (390,000 hectares) of prospective lands it holds in the Yukon's White Gold District. About half of this year's C$9 million exploration program is focused on regional targets across the extensive land holding, including more than 100 rotary air blast (RAB) drill holes, airborne geophysical surveys, over 22,000 soil samples and other exploration activates. The...
11 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for the Palmer copper-zinc-silver-gold project in Southeast Alaska. A roughly US$9 million exploration program outlined by Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. on May 10 proposes not only the annual tradition of resource expansion and new discoveries but also plans to provide the first peek into the economics of mining the copper- and zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits found there so far. Being carried out by a joint venture...
The surge in production of electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them, is driving the price of cobalt higher. A key ingredient in the cathodes of the batteries powering the growing number of EVs on the road today, cobalt has rocketed from around US$25 per pound a year ago to more than US$40/lb in recent weeks. This higher price, however, has electric carmakers looking for alternative recipes for rechargeable battery cathodes that use less cobalt yet delivers similar...
Mining is expected to fuel strong economic growth in Nunavut and Yukon in the coming years, according to The Conference Board of Canada's latest Territorial Outlook. "With many new mining projects on the horizon in Nunavut and Yukon, growth is expected to take off over the next five years," said Marie-Christine Bernard, director, provincial and territorial forecasting, The Conference Board of Canada. The conference board's outlook for Northwest Territories, however, is not...
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' April 27 filing of the final Environmental Impact Statement for Donlin Gold is a major milestone along the roughly six-year journey to obtain the permits needed to develop a world-class mine at the 39-million-ounce gold project in the heart of the Kuskokwim Gold Belt in Southwest Alaska. "The filing of the Donlin Gold EIS is a major step forward in unlocking the enormous value of our uniquely attractive gold asset," said Novagold Resources Inc....
There has never been anything ordinary about the Peak Gold (formerly Tetlin) project, or the companies that are exploring the high-grade gold skarn deposits found there. In a move that continues this tradition of extraordinary, Royal Gold Inc. has acquired a 13.6 percent stake in Contango ORE Inc. Neither of these companies are your prototypical mineral explorer and their involvement in the Peak Gold project continues to defy the norms for the industry and their own operating...
A US$28.7 million financing that closed today provides Trilogy Metals Inc.the funds to take major strides in achieving its goal of beginning to develop the vast mineral potential that the world-class Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska has to offer. In a deal announced on April 16, a syndicate of underwriters led by Cantor Fitzgerald Canada Corp. –including Cormark Securities Inc., BMO Capital Markets and Roth Capital Partners – has agreed to buy on a bought deal, und...
After trekking roughly 71 miles across Alaska's Interior on a winter trail west from Delta Junction, Australia-based White Rock Minerals Ltd. has delivered the drill, camp and other supplies needed to explore the zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits and prospects at its Red Mountain project in the Bonnifield Mining District. "The company is very excited about the potential for its globally significant high-grade zinc VMS project at Red Mountain," said White Rock CEO...
While Pogo has surpassed its original life expectancy of 10 years and 3 million ounces of gold, the air of excitement emanating from the miners, geologists and management indicates that mining is just getting started at this high-grade underground gold mine in the heart of Alaska's Interior. Churning out 271,273 oz of gold from roughly 950,000 tons of ore in 2017, Pogo is on pace to pour its 4-millionth ounce of gold early in 2019 and based on current estimates would have enou...
Born from an idea to create a vehicle that could provide Alaska businesses lower interest rates offered by tax-exempt financing, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, has been doing its part to create jobs and bolster Alaska's economy for five decades. "Fifty years ago, the Alaska State Legislature created the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, to develop, encourage, and improve the economic potential and welfare of the people of... Full story
FAIRBANKS – 2018 marks the 75th anniversary of Alaska's longest lived mining operation, the Usibelli Coal Mine Inc.'s coal mining operations near Healy – a monumental milestone honored by the mining community during the Alaska Miners Association Biennial Spring Conference in Fairbanks. "I guess as far as 75 years ago, that's a pretty amazing number when you think about it and in some ways we're a survivor and success is a combination of a lot of hard work and a lot of luc...
For the fourth year running, Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, has put forward the legislation aimed at streamlining the process for permitting strategic and critical minerals in the United States. "Critical and strategic minerals are essential to the technologies that make our daily lives and economy work. Unfortunately, when it comes to mining strategic and critical minerals domestically, duplicative regulations, bureaucratic inefficiency, and lack of coordination between federal...
After four years of declines, global minerals exploration spending rose roughly US$1 billion in 2017 and is expected to see further growth this year, according to a March 5 report by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The 1,535 companies that answered a survey put out by the research firm reported US$7.95 billion of investment in the search of nonferrous metals in 2017, a 14 percent increase from the US$6.95 billion spent in 2016. Taking into account data that could not be...
Alaska's rich mineral endowment helped propel the Last Frontier into the top ten on the Fraser Institute's Survey of Mining Companies 2017. To gather information for its report, the Fraser Institute asks mining executives to rank the mineral potential and mining policies of mining jurisdictions around the globe. The Canada-based think-tank compiles this data into the "Investment Attractiveness Index", a measure that weighs mining executives' perceptions of both the mineral...
The prefeasibility study for the Arctic deposit in Northwest Alaska details plans for a financially robust mine that is expected to produce 1.9 billion pounds of copper, 2.4 billion lb of zinc, 405 million lb of lead, 367,531 ounces of gold and 40.2 million oz of silver over an initial 12-year mine life. The mine outlined in the PFS is based on 43.04 million metric tons of probable reserves averaging 2.32 percent copper, 3.24 percent zinc, 0.57 percent lead, 0.49 grams per...
With rising metals prices helping to bolster the state's mining sector, Alaska mine leaders had good news to deliver to Alaska Senate and House resource committees during a Feb. 13 trip to Juneau. "I am happy to report that after four years of declining metals prices things started to improve in 2016, so we are able to report better economic numbers for 2017," Council of Alaska Producers Executive Director Karen Matthias informed members of the resource committees. The strong... Full story
