The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2024 - January 15, 2025
The Canadian and Nunavut governments kicked off 2024 with a historic devolution agreement that will transfer the management of lands and resources in Canada's largest territory in the hands of Nunavummiut (people of Nunavut).
"With the signing of this agreement, we can now bring decision-making about our land and waters home," Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok said during the January signing of the devolution agreement. "It means that we, the people most invested in our homeland, will be the ones managing our natural resources."
This largest transfer of land in Canada's history comes at a time when mining companies are taking a keen interest in the rich stores of cobalt, copper, gold, graphite, iron ore, nickel, platinum group metals (PGM), silver, zinc, uranium, and other minerals found across the 2.1-million-square-kilometer (808,000 square miles) territory.
Based on mineral exploration spending commitments announced early in the year, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) estimated in March that 2024 mineral exploration spending in Canada's largest territory to be roughly C$268 million ($191 million), a figure that likely climbed as more mineral exploration companies looked North to Nunavut, especially for uranium and other minerals needed for the energy transition.
Despite a more than 25% jump over 2023, last year's mineral exploration spending in Nunavut does not reflect the territory's outsized potential.
Bolstering mineral exploration and the potential mines that follow could help make Nunavut more self-sufficient as it takes over responsibility for its lands and reaps the economic benefits of collecting mineral royalties under the devolution agreement.
"Namminiqsurniq, or devolution, is one more step towards the vision of a self-reliant Nunavut," said Akeeagok.
While Nunavut makes up 22% of Canada's land mass, the mineral-rich territory accounted for less than 7% of the estimated C$4.4 billion of mineral exploration carried out across the country last year
One of the primary reasons that mineral exploration spending in Nunavut does not match the territory's potential is a lack of transportation and energy infrastructure, which drives up the costs of mineral exploration and mine development there.
Since 2021, NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines has been advocating for a federal Northern Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (N60METC) to help level the playing field for Nunavut and its neighboring territories north of the 60th parallel.
N60METC would be based on the same principle as the Canada's famed 15% Mineral Exploration Tax Credit, which allows Canadian mineral exploration companies to pass their "losses" to investors that participate in "flow-through financings" for mineral exploration in Canada. In turn, the Canadian investors can apply a portion of their flow-through losses to their own federal income taxes.
To level the playing field, the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines, all three Canadian territories, and the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) have asked Ottawa to create a special 40% North of 60 Mineral Exploration Tax Credit.
For Nunavut, this could help attract new investments at a time when the territorial government is embarking on its path to self-reliance.
Nunavut leaders, however, are not relying solely on federal assistance to spur mineral exploration. The territory's Discover, Invest, Grow (DIG) program provides financial support exploration drilling and bulk sampling of mineral projects in Nunavut.
To be eligible for a DIG grant, an exploration company must apply the funds to mineral exploration on Nunavut projects the will include at least:
• 500 meters of reverse circulation (RC) or rotary air blast (RAB) drilling or;
• 2,000 meters of diamond drilling or;
• 1,000 metric tons of bulk sampling.
Mineral projects that use Nunavut goods and services, including direct employment, are prioritized over those that do not.
Qualified and selected projects can receive a DIG contribution of up to 25% of eligible exploration expenses to a maximum of C$250,000.
Exploration companies that receive DIG grants may apply in subsequent years; however, no project may receive more than C$500,000 in DIG assistance over its lifespan.
Companies that received DIG funding during the 2023-2024 cycle include:
• B2Gold (Nunavut) Corp., which is developing a mine and exploring the Back River gold project in Nunavut's Kitikmeot region.
• Blue Star Gold Corp., which is exploring for gold and critical minerals on its Ulu project in Nunavut's Kitikmeot region.
• Canadian North Resources Inc., which is exploring the Ferguson Lake copper-nickel-cobalt-PGM project in Nunavut's Kivalliq region.
• Forum Energy Metals Corp. – A company exploring for Uranium at the Aberdeen project in Nunavut's Thelon Basin.
• StrategX Elements Corp., which is exploring the graphite-rich Nagvaak critical minerals project on Nunavut's Melville Peninsula.
• Tornado Metals Ltd., a subsidiary of American West Metals Ltd. exploring for high-grade copper at the Storm project.
"The support from Nunavut's Discovery Program further validates our commitment to responsible exploration practices and strengthens our relationship with the local community and government," Kaihui Yang, CEO of Canadian North, which is also exploring lithium-enriched pegmatites identified over a 253.8-square-kilometer area of Ferguson Lake.
A pledge by global leaders to triple nuclear power generating capacity by 2050 has energized the exploration of projects in Nunavut with the potential to produce uranium concentrates aptly named yellowcake.
It was a commitment by global leaders to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050 that really energized Nunavut mineral exploration in 2024.
As a reliable power source that shares the zero-carbon-emissions advantages of wind and solar, along with the steady and dependable baseload power of coal or natural gas, nuclear is enjoying a renaissance during the transition to clean energy.
"Because it doesn't generate greenhouse gases inherently, it proves a strong complement to renewable energy," Sprott Asset Management CEO ohn Ciampaglia said during a discussion on uranium with Thalia Hayden, a reporter for ETF Guide. "Solar, wind, and other renewable sources do not provide consistent energy, creating a need for always-available power that nuclear provides."
During the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, 22 world leaders signed a pledge to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050.
This commitment is expected to spark increased demand for uranium to fuel new nuclear reactors around the world.
"When there's a supply and demand imbalance, typically you have a price that adjusts to incentivize more production," Ciampaglia said.
By February 2024, the price for a pound of uranium topped $80, roughly double the price from a year earlier. The price has settled back to the $60/lb range but still high enough to fuel enthusiasm for exploration within Nunavut's Thelon Basin, an area that hosts some of the world's richest stores of high-grade uranium.
Core from a 7.6-meter intercept of the Tatiggaq West zone at Forum Energy's Aberdeen project in Nunavut's Thelon Basin averaging 1.31% U3O8.
The Thelon Basin is a more than 1.2-million-hectare (2.9 million acres) underexplored region of Nunavut that has been compared to the world-famous Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan and Alberta when it comes to high-grade uranium potential.
Considering the Thelon Basin to perhaps be one of the most prospective high-grade uranium districts in the world, Forum Energy focused its 2024 exploration on its Aberdeen project found there.
Aberdeen lies roughly three miles (five kilometers) west of Kiggavik, a project being advanced by global uranium producer Orano that hosts 133 million pounds of uranium grading at 0.54% triuranium oxide (U3O8).
Forum tested five of the 20 uranium targets identified at Aberdeen with 30 holes during a 2024 exploration program designed to set the project up for future success.
This includes drilling at Tatiggaq, where one hole drilled in 2023 cut 11.1 meters averaging 2.25% U3O8.
"We constructed a 40-person exploration camp to stage our future exploration efforts in the Thelon Basin with the expertise of our exceptional logistics team and were able to begin drilling in late June with a focus on our Tatiggaq deposit," said Forum Energy Metals Vice President of Exploration Rebecca Hunter. "In concert with that achievement was our ability to drill four additional targets including our second discovery, Qavvik."
This year, Forum plans to build upon its 2024 achievement with expansion drilling at Tatiggaq and Qavvik, and further exploration of greenfield targets at Aberdeen.
In addition to Forum and Orano, the Thelon Basin attracted a cohort of new uranium exploration companies:
• Terra Uranium acquired Amer Lake, which hosts an estimated resource of 17.83 million metric tons of uranium at an average grade of 380 parts per million U3O8.
• Inspiration Energy optioned Maraschino, a 113-square-kilometer (43.6 square miles) property that covers six uranium prospects.
• Greenridge Exploration, which acquired the Nut Lake project about 135 kilometers (84 miles) south of Orano's Kiggavik uranium deposit.
• Ahtna Energy, which acquired Angilak, which hosts 2.83 million metric tons of historical resource averaging 0.69% (43.3 million lb) U3O8.
The reason the Thelon Basin has attracted so much attention is the geology and uranium mineralization found there is remarkably similar to the world-renowned Athabasca Basin covering the northern reaches of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Nunavut's uranium-rich basin, however, has been much less explored than its contemporary to the south.
"The Thelon Basin has many similar geological attributes to the Athabasca Basin but is very underexplored," said Greenridge Exploration CEO Russell Starr. "It has been proven that there are at least two significant uranium deposits in the Thelon Basin that have very similar characteristics to that of the prolific Beaverlodge Uranium District in the Athabasca Basin."
The under-exploration of Nunavut's Thelon Basis provides companies with the opportunity to couple what has been learned in the Athabasca Basin with modern exploration technologies to unlock the Uranium potential in at the southern end of Canada's largest territory.
Uranium is not the only energy transition metal drawing mineral exploration companies to Nunavut. Companies exploring for cobalt, copper, graphite, nickel, and PGMs contributed to the territory's exploration growth in 2024.
American West Metals is one such company that has grabbed headlines over the past couple of years due to outlining deposits of copper at the Storm project with grades so high that it is considering using simple ore sorting technology to produce a product that can be shipped directly to market.
The diamond drill crew at the Chinook deposit at the Storm Copper project in Nunavut, Canada.
According to a calculation completed early last year, Storm Copper hosts 17.5 million metric tons of indicated and inferred resources averaging 1.17% (452 million lb) copper and 3.38 grams per metric ton (1.9 million oz) silver.
Studies have shown that an ore sorter and jug could upgrade this ore to 16% copper concentrate without needing a mill, tailings storage, or other facilities that are expensive to build and take time to permit.
"The process of generating DSO at Storm is amazingly simple and highlights our company's focus on generating ESG sensitive and low capital development solutions," said American West Metals Managing Director Dave O'Neill.
What makes this idea even more compelling is the project lies next to the coast of a Nunavut island along Northwest Passage shipping lanes, which means a port and loading facility is the only transportation infrastructure needed to ship Storm Copper ore directly to market.
Other companies exploring Nunavut's energy metals potential include:
• Canadian North Resources Inc, which has outlined a large nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM deposit at its Ferguson Lake project in Nunavut's Kivalliq region.
• SPC Nickel Corp., which is uncovering exceptional nickel, copper, and PGM grades at its Muskox project in Nunavut's Kitikmeot region.
• StrategX Elements Corp., which is exploring the high-grade Nagvaak graphite-vanadium-nickel- copper-cobalt-silver-PGM project in Nunavut's Melville Peninsula.
• White Cliff Minerals Ltd., which has discovered exciting new high-grade copper targets at its Rae project in Nunavut's Kitikmeot region.
One thing all of these projects have in common is they host high-grade mineralization that would be much more thoroughly explored and potentially developed into mines if they where located in less Arctic and better-connected parts of the world.
"Having spent more than 25 years exploring for magmatic nickel-copper-PGM sulfides, I can say without a doubt that the Muskox project represents one of the best undeveloped district-scale opportunities that I have ever seen," said SPC Nickel President and CEO Grant Mourre.
Much like these Nunavut-based workers holding the first gold bar poured at Agnico Eagle's Meliadine Mine, the future prosperity of Canada's largest territory is being transferred to the people that live there.
While critical energy minerals may represent future mining opportunities for Nunavut, it is iron and gold mines that are the biggest drivers of the territory's current economy.
According to Statistics Canada, mining contributed nearly C$1.4 billion ($1 billion) to Nunavut's economy in 2023, accounting for 46.7% of the territory's gross domestic product (GDP).
At 15.5%, government spending is the next largest contributor to Nunavut's GDP.
"Government looms large in the Nunavut economy, not only because of the high cost of providing public services in the Far North, but also because the territory's private sector is typically quite small," Nunavut inked in its 2024-25 Fiscal and Economic Indicators. "One exception is mining, which accounts for roughly one-third of the economy - the industry's highest share in Canada. A falling share of government GDP generally indicates economic maturation and diversification, which is welcome," reads the GN's 2024-25 Fiscal and Economic Indicators. "While mining's cyclical nature makes capital investment in Nunavut inherently unstable, the territory's capital prospects look bright."
These bright prospects include B2Gold Corp.'s development of the Goose Gold Mine in the territory.
Once in production, which is expected by midyear, Goose will add to the two gold mines operated by Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and the iron ore mine operated by Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. that are the primary mining contributors to Nunavut's economy.
Looking into the not-too-distant future, Agnico is also advancing toward opening the Hope Bay gold mine in Nunavut. This mine, however, could replace the company's Meadowbank operation in the territory, which is currently slated to wind down by the end of the decade without new sources of ore.
Hudson Lester, the Nunavut general manager at the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, says Nunavut needs to ready itself and its youth for the next generation of mining operations that will support the territories economic future.
"By engaging young people and providing them with the skills they need, the North can secure the future of mining and build a stronger, more resilient economy," he penned in an October column published by Nunavut News. "This will ensure that the benefits of resource development continue to enrich communities and create lasting opportunities for Nunavut."
Lester emphasizes the importance of young and highly skilled Nunavummiut that can fill the needs of a mining sector in Nunavut transitions to technologies like automation.
"Mining matters in Nunavut because it supports economic growth, creates jobs and enhances community well-being," he wrote. "But the sector's continued success hinges on preparing the next generation to step into its opportunities. Investing in training and workforce development today is essential to ensuring Nuanvut's long-term prosperity."
This prosperity will provide the mineral-rich territory with sure footing as its people take the next steps toward their vision of self-reliance.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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