The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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While mining activity remained strong in the Northwest Territories in 2019, industry and government officials alike worried that the robust sector, driven largely by production at three diamond mines, has entered a prolonged downward slide. The near-term economic outlook for the territory, which covers 1.3 million square kilometers in Canada's central Arctic region, continues to be bleak as its diamond mines that have now passed peak production and replacement projects are in...
Twenty years ago, Canada created the territory of Nunavut, carving out the easternmost part of the Northwest Territories to form the country's northernmost jurisdiction. A vast land of lakes and tundra sprawled across the North from the Hudson Bay to the Arctic Ocean and east to Baffin Bay and the coastal waters of Greenland, Nunavut is home to only about 38,000 people, of whom 85 percent are indigenous Inuit who have lived in this frozen land for millennia. Since 1999,...
When it comes to mineral exploration incentives, currency exchange and infrastructure, Alaska is at a disadvantage in the realm of attracting exploration investments from Canada and Australia, countries that are home to the majority of mining companies. The Far North State's vast and underexplored mineral potential, however, trumps these handicaps in the minds of a growing number of miners and mineral explorers. Mining executives from around the globe perennially rank Alaska...
Though mineral exploration in Yukon Territory this year lagged the pace seen in 2018, mine development projects advanced at a steady clip in 2019, while several past-producing mines moved toward resuming output. Yukon ranked fourth in Canada for projected spending on mineral exploration and deposit evaluation for 2018, according to statistics distributed by Natural Resources Canada. Spending for mineral exploration and deposit evaluations totaled C$249.4 million, made up of C$...
Whether it be precious metals such as gold and silver, base metals like copper and zinc, or battery metals like nickel and cobalt, northern British Columbia is rich in the type of metal deposits that junior mining companies are hoping to discover and majors are wanting to mine. Couple this mineral endowment with good infrastructure – especially stacked up against the other jurisdictions in the North of 60 Mining News coverage area – and northern B.C. continues to draw str...
The two mega-mergers that hit the gold mining sector early in 2019 – Barrick Gold Corp. combining with Randgold Resources Ltd. and Newmont Mining Corp. acquiring Goldcorp Inc. – is forever changing the gold mining landscape around the world. While the two largest gold mining companies Newmont Goldcorp (No. 1) and Barrick (No. 2) are still in the process of shedding assets following the mega-mergers, it seems that Newmont Goldcorp will emerge with a much stronger foothold in...
The Goodpaster Mining District in Interior Alaska adds credence to the sourdough mining adage "gold is where you find it." Unlike the 8.3 million ounces of placer gold recovered from the Fairbanks Mining District to the west, 1.2 million oz from the Circle Mining District to the northwest or 20 million oz from Yukon's Klondike District to the east, the Goodpaster Mining District has thrown off a paltry 2,050 oz of placer aurum. Yet, Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo Mine in...
On Aug. 8, 2011, I landed at the exploration camp at ATAC Resources' Rackla Gold property, a place buzzing with excitement and activity from the recent discovery of Carlin-style gold mineralization. Finding out more about this intriguing new find was the highlight of my tour of Yukon mineral projects that year. This is where I first met Julia Lane, a 25-year-old geologist tasked with explaining "Carlin-style gold mineralization" to me and my media colleagues and what this...
HighGold Mining Inc. was launched this summer to explore gold properties spun out of Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. While the spin-out of HighGold was not finalized until early August, the new company hit the ground running with drills turning at Johnson Tract, a gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide VMS project in Southcentral Alaska. Situated about six miles west of Cook Inlet and roughly 125 miles southwest of Anchorage, the 20,942-acre Johnson Tract property hosts a gol...
Coeur Mining Inc. entered 2019 with more silver reserves at higher grades, thanks to a maiden reserve calculation for Silvertip, a northern British Columbia silver mine the company acquired in 2017. While this newly built mine came with a rich resource base, a technical report and mine plan to elevate the high-grade silver resources to reserves had yet to be completed. With the information gleaned from a rigorous drill program, by the end of 2018 Coeur had converted some 58...
Hecla Mining Company's Greens Creek Mine in Southeast Alaska has enough reserves to keep the high-grade underground silver mine in operation until 2030. The Greens Creek Mine now has 9.23 million tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 11.5 oz/t (107.1 million oz) silver; 0.09 oz/t (840,000 oz) gold; 7.6 percent (706,470 tons) zinc; and 2.8 percent (227,740 tons) lead. This marks the highest silver reserves for Greens Creek since Hecla bought full ownership of the...
Kinross Gold Corp. focuses its in-house exploration on high-quality brownfield projects and the discovery of new resources within the existing footprint of several of its mine properties, including extensions of known mineralization, as well as looking at other properties in surrounding districts. The Fort Knox Mine in Interior Alaska is an example of the Toronto-based gold miner's brownfield success. In its 23rd year of operation, this open-pit mine a few miles north of...
Melbourne, Australia-based Nova Minerals Ltd. first looked north to Alaska late in 2017, when it acquired five Alaska properties – Estelle, a gold-copper-silver project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage; Chip-Loy, a nickel-copper-cobalt-gold-silver-platinum group element project; Bowser Creek, a silver-zinc-lead project; Windy Fork, a rare earth elements property; and Ozzna Creek, a gold-silver-zinc-copper-lead property. Nova Minerals' 2019 exploration focused p...
With a major investment by fellow Australian company, Sandfire Resources NL, White Rock Minerals Ltd. focused its 2019 exploration on discovering the next high-grade zinc and precious metals deposits on the Red Mountain volcanogenic massive sulfide property in Interior Alaska. Sandfire, a mid-tier mining company with a growing portfolio of assets in the United States, first became involved in Red Mountain when it invested A$2.5 million in White Rock shares during 2018. This...
International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. continued metallurgical work to define and refine the project flowsheet for its Livengood gold project located along a paved highway about 70 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. A pre-feasibility study (PFS) completed for Livengood in 2017 outlines plans for a 52,600-metric-ton-per-day mill that would produce 6.8 million ounces of gold over a 23-year mine life, or roughly 294,100 oz annually. This is based on 392 million metric tons of...
In order to focus on its flagship Palmer project in Southeast Alaska and to realize greater value from its portfolio of gold properties, Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. spun its gold assets into a new exploration junior, HighGold Mining Inc. "Constantine will continue to create shareholder value by advancing the Palmer project and will allow shareholders to realize the value locked in the gold assets through their spinout into a separate entity," said Constantine Metal Resour...
Australia-based PolarX Ltd. and its copper- and gold-rich Alaska Range property has drawn the interest of Canada-based Lundin Mining Corp. In a deal finalized in June, Lundin invested roughly US$3 million to acquire a 12.85 percent interest in PolarX. This investment provides the Toronto-based miner an option to earn a 51 percent interest in Stellar, a porphyry copper-gold portion of the larger Alaska Range property, by investing US$24 million in exploration and making US$20 m...
Building upon the strong economics of developing a mine at the high-grade Peak Gold project, joint venture partners Contango ORE Inc. (60 percent) and Royal Gold Inc. (40 percent) are investing US$6.9 million on exploring some of the intriguing outlying targets across this highway-accessible property in eastern Alaska. Discovered by Contango ORE in 2009, Peak Gold (sometimes referred to as Tetlin) hosts two skarn deposits – Main Peak and North Peak – on an underexplored proper...
South32, an Australia-based major base metal and coal producer spun out of BHP Billiton in 2015, is expanding its presence in Alaska. This company went into business with an impressive portfolio of base and precious metals mining assets in Australia, South Africa and Brazil. While all of South32's initial portfolio was south of the Equator, the Perth-based major is interested in high-quality exploration and mining projects around the globe. "Our exploration activities are...
Trilogy Metals Inc. is closing in on the completion of a feasibility study for Arctic, the first of a series of mines the company envisions being developed across the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska's Ambler Mining District. Arctic, the most advanced of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, hosts 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 metric ton gold and 36 g/t silver. A...
Freegold Ventures Ltd. is focused on exploring for copper and gold on two properties in Interior Alaska – Golden Summit, an advanced stage gold project just north of Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine, and Shorty Creek, an enticing porphyry copper-gold project about 75 miles northwest of Fairbanks. In March, South32 Ltd. entered into an option agreement with Freegold Ventures to acquire 70 percent interest in Shorty Creek for US$30 million, less any money the A...
EMX Royalty Corp., a company that has found success in generating royalties through low-cost property acquisition and early-stage exploration, nabbed significant royalties on properties in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District. EMX nabbed a foothold in this district that hosts Pogo, a high-grade underground gold mine owned by Northern Star Resources Ltd., when it invested C$1 million to acquire 7.14 million shares of Millrock Resources Inc. early this year. Prior to the EMX...
Northway Resources Corp., a new company with two gold exploration properties in Alaska, Aug. 26 announced the completion of an initial public offering and listing on the TSX Venture Exchange. "We are very excited about closing this transaction and being listed as a new public company on the TSXV," said Northway Resources President and CEO Zach Flood. "Northway Resources was founded last year with the primary focus to explore for gold in Alaska." Northway is currently focused...
Emerging on Alaska's exploration scene in 2018, Tectonic Metals Inc. is a new junior mining company that applies a business-first strategy to managing the risks inherent to advancing grassroots gold discoveries to a multi-million-ounce gold reserve that global mining companies want to buy and the local people want to see developed into a mine. "Junior mining is 99 percent risk, the failure rate is huge, yet nobody has any protocols in place for managing the risks," Tectonic...
Primarily focused on gold, copper and silver, Millrock Resources Inc. is a project generating mineral exploration company that has built a large portfolio of highly prospective mineral exploration properties in Alaska, British Columbia and Mexico. Many of the projects the company has generated have been sold recently to other companies in exchange for cash and shares of the company acquiring and exploring the project. For 2019, Millrock focused largely on amassing a large...
