The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 618
Raging wildfires and record hot temperatures challenged the well-laid plans of a score and more of mineral explorers in Canada's Yukon this year as the 2023 field season shifted into high summer. Most of the companies, however, managed to carry out their exploration for gold, silver, copper, and other minerals across the territory. The fierce and sometimes out-of-control blazes marked one of the worst wildfire seasons seen in Canada in nearly 30 years, consuming more than... Full story
State's inaugural sustainability report details the ESG advantages of looking North to Alaska for energy transition metals. The global energy transition has steered Alaska to a critical minerals crossroad that will shape the economic future of America's Last Frontier. On the one hand, the push for low-carbon energy is expected to put a dent in the demand for petroleum, which has been Alaska's economic lifeblood for more than five decades. On the other, Alaska happens to be... Full story
Gladiator Metals Corp. Nov. 16 announced an update from its ongoing data compilation over the Whitehorse Copper project, identifying significant widths of unmined, copper-gold skarns within the historic Little Chief mine trend in Yukon, Canada. Whitehorse Copper is a 5,380-hectare (13,294 acres) copper-molybdenum-silver-gold skarn exploration project that covers a significant portion of what has historically been known as the Whitehorse Copper Belt. Located practically in the...
American West Metals Ltd. Nov. 6 announced that its 2023 drilling has tapped more impressive near-surface mineralization in expansion targets at the 4100N Zone on its Storm Copper project in Nunavut. Located within the far northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Storm Copper project covers more than 4,000 square kilometers (1,544 square miles) of the Polaris mineral district. This year, the company aimed for up to 10,000 meters of reverse circulation drilling to establish...
Summer shipping and construction success keep the Goose Mine on track for first gold pour in Q1 2025. With a successful summer construction and shipping season, B2Gold Corp. says its Back River gold project in Nunavut remains on pace to pour its first gold early in 2025. Upon the April completion of its acquisition of Sabina Gold & Silver Corp., which had already made significant progress on early development at Back River, B2Gold immediately invested the resources necessary...
Valhalla Metals Inc. Oct. 30 reported that all four step-out holes drilled this year at its Sun project in the World Class Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska cut significant zones of volcanogenic massive sulfide mineralization enriched with copper, zinc, silver, and gold. Lying alongside the route of the proposed Ambler Access Project, colloquially known as the Ambler Road, Sun hosts VMS deposits similar to the Arctic Mine project being advanced by Ambler Metals about...
Alaska Delegation says Ambler Road is guaranteed by Congress; Alaska Natives come out for, against road. Roughly a year and a half after suspending the previously issued federal permits to build a 211-mile industrial access road to the Ambler Mining District, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has published a draft supplemental environmental impact statement for a transportation corridor that would link the metal-rich region of Northwest Alaska to global markets. Permits for t...
Like many other northern regions, Canada's North was settled because of its mineral resources. When the Canadian Dominion Government first purchased its arctic regions from the British Crown in the late 1800s, the Northwest Territories was seen as a vast stretch of cold, inhospitable land and was thus largely ignored at the time. However, due to the Klondike Gold Rush, the future of these northern lands would change forever. These days, a new rush has arisen, a white gold...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Sept. 27 reported that stream sediment and rock sampling has identified two zinc-enriched volcanogenic massive sulfide targets on the Helpmejack project toward the eastern end of the Ambler schist belt in Alaska. Lying about 110 miles southeast of the world-class Arctic VMS deposit being advanced by Ambler Metals LLC, a joint venture owned equally by Trilogy and South32 Ltd., Helpmejack is an area first identified as prospective for zinc and copper in the...
Upon the April completion of its buyout of Sabina Gold & Silver Corp., B2Gold Corp. hit the ground running at its new Back River gold property in Nunavut and remains on pace to pour its first gold there early in 2025. The most advanced project on the district-scale Back River property is Goose, a mine development project that is slated to produce 3.34 million oz of gold over 15 years of mining 18.7 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 5.97 grams per...
Valhalla Metals Inc. Sept. 18 reported the completion of an exploration program at Sun that included camp upgrades, geophysics, relogging of historical core, and four new holes drilled on the polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulfide project in the world-class Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. "A lot was accomplished in a short amount of time during this first exploration program undertaken by Valhalla," said Chairman Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. This work began with the...
Every electric vehicle rolling off an assembly line increases the demand for graphite by an average of around 160 pounds. With more than 30 million EVs expected to hit global highways each year by 2030 and upwards of 45 million by 2045, the transition to e-mobility will require up to eight times more graphite than was mined globally during 2022. While graphite has not received the attention of other EV battery ingredients such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel, this highly... Full story
Trilogy Metals Inc. Sept. 11 reported that 2023 summer field activities at the Upper Kobuk Minerals Project were subdued as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reevaluates the permits for the proposed 211-mile road to the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska. An expected release of the draft supplemental environmental impact statement for the Ambler Access Project in the coming two weeks, however, provides some hope that a decision on the re-issuance of the road permits c...
Colorado School of Mines thesis confirms that the germanium values at Bornite deposit have long been underreported. In addition to hosting 6.3 billion pounds of copper and 88 million lb of cobalt critical to the energy transition, the Bornite deposit in Alaska's Ambler Mining District may also be a significant source of the germanium essential to both clean energy and high-tech. "Germanium is an important metal with numerous applications, particularly in the manufacture of sem...
Everyone agrees that historically enormous quantities of copper are essential to wiring a world in which low-carbon electricity delivered via powerlines supplants fossil fuels pumped through pipelines as the energy solution of choice. The federal entity charged with compiling the list of minerals critical to the United States, however, disagrees with nearly every company, organization, and person associated with the clean energy supply chain on the criticality of the... Full story
Valhalla Metals Inc. July 19 announced the start of its 2023 exploration program at Sun, which is slated to include up to 4,000 meters of drilling focused on expanding the high-grade volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit on this property in Alaska's Ambler Mining District. "We are excited to get our drill program underway. The Sun deposit is ripe for expansion," said Valhalla Metals Chairman Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. According to a 2018 calculation, Sun hosts 1.71 million metric...
From the Pentagon's multi-million-dollar investment in Graphite One Inc. to China's restrictions on the exports of gallium and germanium, Alaska's current critical minerals supply and future potential was in the headlines and subtext of American news stories over the past month. Alaska as a future source of minerals critical to the clean energy transition grabbed headlines after the mid-July news that the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Graphite One Inc. $37.5 million to...
North Arrow Minerals Inc. Aug. 10 announced an exciting update to its field program at its Lac de Gras kimberlite property in Canada's Northwest Territories, confirming at least four spodumene pegmatites and establishing the diamond exploration project as an official lithium exploration project. "In a very short period of time, North Arrow has confirmed a new spodumene pegmatite field within our 100% owned LDG project in Northwest Territories," said North Arrow Minerals...
Gladiator Metals Corp. July 31 announced an update to its ongoing data compilation of historic drilling and the largely untested shallow, high-grade Arctic Chief prospect as the once-producing Whitehorse Copper project in Yukon, Canada. Located practically in the backyard of Yukon's capital city, from which it gets its name, the Whitehorse Copper project is a 35-kilometer (22 miles) by five-kilometer (three miles) contiguous high-grade copper belt with 30 known prospective...
North Arrow Minerals Ltd. July 13 announced the start of the 2023 field program for its recently fully acquired Lac de Gras kimberlite property in Northwest Territories, Canada – while primarily a diamond project, the company plans to explore a lead for possible lithium-bearing spodumene pegmatites initially reported by Geological Survey of Canada mappers in the 1940s. After obtaining 100% interest in Lac de Gras from previous joint venture partner Arctic Canadian Diamond C...
Alaska mining and Washington policy leaders gather to discuss forging a path forward to critical minerals in US's Arctic state. Building upon the discussions and strategic ideas set in motion during the 2022 "Alaska's Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative" summit, the U.S. Department of Energy's Arctic Energy Office co-hosted a two-day summit this week to advance policy recommendations for development of critical mineral resources in the North American Arctic. For the Unit...
Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd. has finalized its acquisition of the Ekati diamond mine in Canada's Northwest Territories, adding another precious stone mine to its portfolio. Already a 40% partner with North Arrow Minerals Inc. at the Naujaat diamond project in Nunavut, Burgundy closed a transaction on July 4 that provides the Australian diamond company full ownership of the world-class Ekati Mine, which will significantly elevate Burgundy's efforts to deliver high-end cut and...
Despite the growing calls by Alaska Native tribal and municipal leaders for an expedited review of the Ambler Access Project, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it will take six extra months for it to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement for the proposed 211-mile road to the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska. "This unnecessary delay threatens a project that will provide much-needed jobs and economic growth for Alaskans, while also stre...
Alaska's unparalleled potential to be a major domestic supplier of the minerals and metals critical to the clean energy transition attracted some of North America's top commodities investors and analysts to Anchorage for the second annual Alaska Sustainable Energy conference. The 49th State's rich mineral resources, however, may remain on lockdown due to a "permitting pandemic" that plagues not only Alaska but the entire United States. "Our country is suffering from a...
The North of 60 Mining area hosts billions of pounds of copper ready to be delivered to a world craving this metal in sky-high demand for wiring the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that would enable the envisioned low-carbon future. Whether enough of these copper-rich projects are developed in time to circumvent a short circuit of the clean energy transition remains to be seen. Global Market analysts such as S&P Global have predicted that copper... Full story
