The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The State of Alaska’s mining industry continues to be a bright spot for Alaska’s economy during difficult fiscal times. Thanks to our world-class natural resource endowment, investors continue to be interested in new exploration and development opportunities in Alaska, and our large mines are still running strong. Recently, our new Natural Resources Commissioner, Andy Mack, had the opportunity to visit the Fort Knox mine. This visit was a great opportunity for Commissioner Mack to become familiar with the operations of a lar...
Without putting too fine a point on it, federal regulatory initiatives reached a crescendo during the last administration. According to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, since Jan. 1, 2000, the bureaucracy has generated more than 10,000 regulations, of which 1,830 were deemed "Economically Significant". The term, "Economically Significant," in general, means that it is likely to have an annual effect on the economy of the United States of $100 million or more....
Montana's lone Congressman, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who is President Trump's nominee to be the next Secretary of the Interior, was sautéed (fried quickly in hot oil) for four hours on Jan. 17 by the U. S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Zinke, a former U. S. Navy Seal Commander, was introduced by Montana's two senators, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, who took pains to emphasize that the nominee was a fine fellow, a great hero and a consummate...
I must be getting old because I remember when, in 1966, Robert Kennedy first uttered the so-called Chinese curse about living in interesting times. It is probably one of his more memorable lines; but somehow, it has been prescient to me in the sense that the succeeding fifty years have actually been interesting. Some might say that they have become more and more interesting each succeeding year. Surely the social changes have been dramatic, and the evolution of science and...
Like lots of folks, I was somewhat astounded that Secretary (Hillary) Clinton was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory earlier this month. Everyone, of course, expected the left coast states (except for Alaska) to fall in line, and no one could have been caught off guard when the northeast and Illinois voted true blue. Nevada might have been a little disappointing, but Colorado and New Mexico have been lost at sea for a while; and Minnesota was pretty much true to...
Last week the Pebble Project announced that it had reached a settlement with the EPA of pending litigation in conjunction with the agency's previous determination to block the development of the project. Essentially, the settlement means that Pebble will be able to resume the permit application process with the hope of ultimately opening a mine. This good news, besides the obvious possibility of a major mine going forward in Southwest Alaska, is that it lets us dream of a...
Earlier in November, the Alaska Miners Association held its annual convention and trade show in Anchorage and as always, the well-attended convention overlapped with election Tuesday. While the lead up to, and results of, the national and state elections were hot topics throughout the week, one comment I heard from a colleague on the morning after the elections distilled the feelings of a lot of people at the conference. When asked what he thought of the election results, he...
Although the Bureau of Land Management has been developing land management plans for decades, in the past those plans have had two qualities that made them tolerable. First, they were relatively easy to live with and second, they were reasonably understandable. There can be no doubt, however, that the earlier plans violated unequivocal prohibitions of the Alaska National Interest Lands Act against restrictive land management practices on the public domain. During the past deca...
Like all Americans, those of us who live in that part of America that is generally contained in a tiny inset on the lower left corner of traditional maps, have watched and waited as the most improbable of candidates for the White House, one by one, slew the dragons of tradition, aided and abetted by a press corps that is somehow able to draw a distinction between satire and fake news. The President-elect has nominated many of his picks for cabinet and other high-ranking...
In almost fifty years of having practiced law, it has consistently been my counsel to my clients to avoid litigation wherever possible, subject to a lengthy list of qualifications. Certain miscreants are entitled to a trial of their peers before lengthy incarceration or worse. Some bad actors simply don't understand the law. Occasionally, there are issues that require a referee in the personae of a judge. And then, there are matters of principle. Principles are tricky things....
With winter programs winding down and summer efforts rapidly ramping up, it is becoming clear that 2017 will be a much more vigorous year for the Alaska mining industry than the 2013 to 2016 period. For example, my internal estimates are already pushing $75 million for exploration activity alone and a significant number of projects that have announced exploration plans have not yet announced budgets for 2017, so that number is likely to rise. Compare this to estimates of less...
The year just past was many things for the mining industry, but one of the bright spots came from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, an agency not known for awarding happy faces or gold stars. In 2016, the mining industry experienced only 25 deaths in U.S. mines, the lowest level ever recorded. This, despite the industry having more than 330,000 miners working in 13,000 mines across the country. The leading cause of death in both coal and metal/nonmetal mines was...
If there is anyone still on the fence wondering if the minerals industry has started a recovery from the doldrums of the past four years, this month’s mineral industry activity in Alaska should settle the question with authority. During the past month, we have seen two merger/acquisitions occur, one by Solitario Exploration & Royalty Corp., which acquired Zazu Metals Corp. and its interest in the Lik lead-zinc-silver deposit. Then we also had Coventry Resources acquire V...
The summer solstice has come and gone, but the Alaska mining industry has paid little attention to the decreased amount of daylight because it is high summer in the high latitudes, time to be out completing work programs that have been in the planning since last fall. Exploration drilling programs have sprouted in the Brooks Range, Interior, Alaska Range, Southeast, Southwest and the Alaska Peninsula. In addition, the sounds of tire-kicking are being heard over a wide area of...
Despite the obsession of the (District of) Columbians with health care, the Russians and Twitter, it seems to me that there are one or two good things to discuss when it comes to the new administration. For instance, with regard to health care, if the population of the United States is more or less 325,000,000 people and that if 25,000,000 people more or less are in some form of jeopardy with regard to health care, the fair inference is that 300,000,000 are not in such...
At a recent mining industry panel discussion at the Western States Land Commissioners Association meeting in Anchorage, I was asked if the recent upturn in activity in the Alaska mining industry was a function of commodities prices or a growing worldwide recognition of Alaska's enormous mineral potential. I answered that I thought neither factor was driving the Alaska mineral industry revival: commodities prices have been steady or rising slowly over the last year and...
Despite some of the significant things that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has done in his brief tenure as head of the U. S. Department of the Interior, one item of broad concern, to me at least, does not yet appear to have made it onto his radar screen: the overwhelming burden of Interior compliance with the intricacies of the Administrative Procedure Act, or "APA". Although the Secretary is bound by the statutory mandate and the innumerable judicial interpretations that have...
As the Alaska mining industry prepares for and kicks off exploration, development and production activities for 2017, the question on everyone’s lips at the recent Cordilleran Roundup mining convention in Vancouver, B. C., was the same: “Have we seen the bottom of this down cycle?” While signs of life were seen for short periods during the 2008 to 2015 period, the reality was an overall downward spiral of commodities prices and global demand. However, in a recent editi...
For the first time in five long years, the mood at the recently held Alaska Miners Association Convention in Anchorage was buoyant, the result of a slow but steady turnaround on mineral investments in the state. Additional new corporate interest in the state emerged during the past 30 days, and sources of exploration funds coming to Alaska continue to shift, with estimates for 2017 suggesting that 62 percent of this financing comes from Canadian concerns, 18 percent from...
For the past 20 months or so, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been wrestling with some proposed changes to the regulations concerning the location and maintenance of State of Alaska mining claims. This effort has been driven by some substantial issues that have arisen with the interpretation of the regs over the past several years as well as some significant open questions. The current proposed changes can be obtained from the DNR’s website, but the process is s...
In early November, the Alaska Miners Association will hold its annual convention in Anchorage. Unlike the past four or five years, the excitement surrounding the convention this year is palpable due to the steady increase in exploration, development and production activities in Alaska in 2017. Clear signs of the industry's long-awaited revival include the fact that 11 new project acquisitions have taken place in 2017, half of which involve companies that are newcomers to the...
As the first snows of the coming winter began to fall at high elevations across Alaska, results of summer programs likewise began to trickle in from far-flung areas of the state. Meanwhile, second- and third-quarter production data began to show up and mining industry analysts released a series of reports covering a wide range of industry-wide trends. For example, SNL Metals and Mining Research released information on how long it takes to move a new discovery to production....
Although many of us think that it didn't go far enough, one of the more important first steps that President Trump took in January was the promulgation of Executive Order (E. O.) 13771 which imposed a ceiling on new regulations. "For every new regulation issued, at least two prior regulations [shall] be identified for elimination the cost of planned regulations [shall] be prudently managed and controlled through a budgeting process." For the natural resources industries in A...
The Alaska mining industry continued its increased pace of activities in August, even as the first hint of autumn starts to be felt across the state. Metals prices were relatively stable with increasing demand for zinc and gold, the two metals that generate the most revenue from Alaska's operating mines. Wood Mackenzie is forecasting a 3 percent increase in global refined zinc demand in 2017 to 14.7 million metric tons. With refined zinc production limited to a 2 percent...
There have been numerous comparisons of President Trump to President Jackson in the news and elsewhere, some of which have not been flattering to either; however, it does seem reasonable to take a brief look at the past in order to make an educated guess about the future. First, the two men are extraordinarily different. Jackson was a war hero, despite the fact that his most noteworthy victory, at the Battle of New Orleans, took place after the War of 1812 was over. (Neither...
