The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Urges White House to streamline permitting process for domestic mines that will supply the minerals and metals needed for energy transition. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy leveraged the national platform offered by S&P Global's CERAWeek 2024 energy conference in Houston to urge the Biden administration to streamline the permitting for mines that will deliver a domestic supply of the minerals and metals critical to America's economy, security, and clean energy ambitions. "Our...
Massive increase in mining needed to bridge abyss to US's clean energy ambitions; a bad reputation holds the sector back. RENO, Nev. – With policymakers, regulators, automakers, and the public at large looking for "a miracle" from the American mining sector, National Miners Day 2023 was like no other for the more than 1,800 industry representatives that convened for the American Exploration & Mining Association's annual meeting and convention. The miracle being asked of the mi... Full story
Urges the mining industry to build goodwill and trust to survive societal, geopolitical, and new technology megatrends in a changing world. Newmont President and CEO Tom Palmer did not waste his keynote address at the Minerals Week 2023 gathering in Australia to tout the many achievements of the world's largest gold mining company he leads. Instead, he delivered a powerful and sometimes foreboding message to the mining leaders in the room and around the world about the...
Alaska mines produced roughly $3.89 billion worth of nonfuel minerals last year, a 23% increase over the estimated $3.16 billion produced in the 49th State during 2020, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022 published by the United States Geological Survey on Jan. 31. The rise in Alaska mine production value is largely due to increased zinc and gold production, along with strong metals prices last year. According to early estimates by the Alaska Division of Geological...
The territories of northern Canada, so far, appear to have escaped the novel coronavirus pandemic that is currently sweeping the globe. This is due, in part, to the remoteness of the region. But it's also likely the result of extraordinary steps some mining companies are taking to keep COVID-19 out of the region. Sabina Gold & Silver Corp., a Canadian junior aggressively seeking gold in Nunavut, for example, reported March 17 to delay the start of its 2020 exploration program... Full story
Alaska once again finds itself joining other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in a broadened definition of "waters of the United States," or WOTUS, a federal environmental rule that could significantly impact the management of private and public property across the Last Frontier. WOTUS has been a concern for Alaska and many other states since the Obama administration set out to broaden the definition of U.S. waters in 2014, a move that would significantly...
The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration has published new and much stronger COVID-19 guidance aimed at assisting mine operators to implement more effective coronavirus protection programs and better identify risks that could lead to exposure. "The pandemic has cost too many Americans their lives or their well-being. Together, employers and workers have vital roles in making their workplaces as safe as possible to counter this terrible disease,"...
The American Southwest is the best place in the world to find, permit, and build a mine, according to the mining executives that responded to the Fraser Institute's Annual Survey of Mining Companies, 2020. Nevada, which is a perennial top-5 contender when it comes to "investment attractiveness", reclaimed the top spot from Western Australia in the latest edition of the Fraser mining survey. Arizona moved up from seven places to claim the No. 2 position in this category.... Full story
Like nearly every other aspect of human existence, the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the mineral exploration industry in Canada and Alaska. The Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia embraced this change with the first ever AME Remote Roundup, a virtual rendition of the long-lived mineral exploration convention that traditionally brings thousands of people to Vancouver, British Columbia at the onset of each year. "This is one of the first meeting... Full story
Alaska mines produced roughly $3.16 billion worth of non-fuel minerals during 2020, a slight increase over the $3.13 billion during 2019, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021 published by the U.S. Geological Survey on Feb. 2 The rise in Alaska mine production value is largely due to higher gold output at Alaska's large mines and record setting prices for the precious metal last year. According to early estimates by the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical... Full story
U.S. President Donald Trump assured Alaskans that politics will not play a role in the federal permitting decision for the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum-rhenium mine in Southwest Alaska. "Don't worry, wonderful & beautiful Alaska, there will be NO POLITICS in the Pebble Mine Review Process. I will do what is right for Alaska and our great Country!!!," Trump said in a late Wednesday tweet. This is in contrast to several premortem Pebble obituaries published by national news... Full story
An invisible line that divides a community in the towns of Stewart, British Columbia and Hyder, Alaska has become a lot more tangible with COVID-19 and the international travel restrictions that comes with it. Now, residents of these remote border towns are asking provincial, state, and federal governments to create a figurative bubble that will reunite neighbors now separated by a mandatory 14-day isolation period and other border crossing limitations. A close-knit community... Full story
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has created a new office specifically focused on issues unique to the American West, including clean-up of legacy hardrock mine sites. Headquartered in Lakewood, Colo., this new Office of Mountains, Deserts and Plains has been established to improve EPA's ability to respond to the range of special issues and unique needs associated with Western mining sites in EPA regions six through 10, which covers all states west of the Mississippi... Full story
The International Council on Mining and Minerals (ICMM) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have introduced standards for the safe management of new and existing mine tailings facilities around the globe, no matter where they are located or who operates them. Tailings facilities, structures constructed to store material that is finely ground to extract the sought-after minerals, are used at most mining operations. "These dams are some of the largest human-made... Full story
In a move aimed at modernizing and streamlining the environmental review process for large-scale projects in the United States, the Trump administration has finalized sweeping reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act. When it was established in 1970, NEPA was hailed by U.S. policymakers as "the most important environmental statute ever enacted" but was largely viewed by law professionals as lacking any kind of detail that could be considered statute. Theodore Lowi, a... Full story
National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan says the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the risks associated with America's overreliance on foreign supply chains for nearly every sector of the economy, especially when it comes to minerals. "As states continue to open across the country, we must focus on investing in and establishing domestic supply chains to help speed our economic recovery and make us more resilient to future crises," he penned in a June 9 letter.... Full story
Looking "to chart the path forward toward a future of unparalleled American prosperity" in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump has pulled together a wide array of business and thought leaders into various "Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups." National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan was named among the esteemed leaders to the United States economic recovery group. "We appreciate President Trump's leadership during this... Full story
As the United States hunkers down to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains imperative for the nation to maintain the critical infrastructure needed to respond to the global emergency and ensure systems remain intact for after the coronavirus has passed. The Department of Homeland Security considers mining among 16 critical infrastructure industries that "have a special responsibility in these times to continue operations." In its March 28 "Guidance on the... Full story
Crashing markets, quarantines, closed offices and cancelled events are reverberating across the North of 60 Mining sector in the wake of the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus strain officially known as COVID-19 a global pandemic. At first, the effects of COVID-19 on mining in Alaska and across Canada's North was being felt mainly by the precipitous drop in the share price of mining companies doing business here – a plunge that is being further fueled by a S... Full story
Canada's provinces and territories have fallen from grace in the eyes of the global mining community, according to the latest rendition of Fraser Institute's Annual Survey of Mining Companies. For the first time in a decade, no Canadian jurisdiction ranks in the top 10 for "investment attractiveness" in the annual survey conducted by the Canadian public policy think-tank. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their... Full story
It's official, U.S. mining projects can now be considered for more efficient permitting under Title 41 of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or Fast-41, a program established in 2015 to improve the timeliness, predictability, and transparency of the federal environmental review and authorization process for eligible infrastructure projects. This Obama-era Fast-41 program established the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), a federal entity... Full story
Mining and other trade organization leaders welcome the White House's proposed revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as much needed upgrades to the burdensome and often redundant regulations that are holding back investments into mines and infrastructure in the United States. "The mining industry is all too familiar with the project delays and escalating costs associated with NEPA compliance," said National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan.... Full story
USA Rare Earth LLC and Texas Mineral Resources Corp. has made a major advancement toward developing the heavy rare earth separation technology that the U.S. Army is looking to invest in. The Army recently sent memos requesting information on the costs to develop separation facilities that can produce heavy rare earths, which tend to be the least abundant but most highly prized of the 17 elements considered rare earths. Further details on the Army memos and Pentagon's push to...
From helmet mounted radios to laser guided missiles, rare earth elements (REE) are an essential ingredient to the advanced hardware used by the U.S. military. These high-tech metals, however, are not produced in America, forcing the Pentagon to depend primarily on China for its supply. As part of a joint armed forces effort to establish a domestic source of rare earths, the U.S. Army is looking to invest in the processing facilities needed to ensure a reliable supply of these... Full story
SPARKS, Nev. – The notoriously long timeline for permitting a mine in the United States may soon be shortened. This reprieve is not from the various renditions of mine permit reform that has been introduced to Congress over the past decade but from an agency in Washington D.C. that most people have never heard of – the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC). Alexander Herrgott, executive director of FPISC, drew the nervous laughter he was expecting when he... Full story
