The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Goldrich Mining Company Feb. 8 announced that it plans to carry out a roughly 4,000-meter drill program this year at its Chandalar gold property in northern Alaska. Located about 190 miles north of Fairbanks, the 23,000-acre Chandalar property hosts rich deposits of placer gold and several hardrock gold occurrences and historic mines. Drilling carried out by Goldrich in 2010 outlined an estimated 250,000 ounces of placer gold in 10.5 million cubic yards of gravel in the Little...
It is hard to quantify which is more impressive, the sheer size of the estate owned by Doyon Ltd. or the rich and underexplored mineral potential on the lands owned by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation for Alaska's Eastern Interior. Running the breadth of Alaska between the Brooks Range to the north and Alaska Range to the south, the Doyon region blankets a mineral-rich swath of Alaska's Interior that is nearly the size of Texas. Doyon owns 12.5...
Doyon Ltd. is seeing a resurgence of mineral exploration on its lands across Interior Alaska, especially on gold properties held by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation. Running the breadth of Alaska between the Brooks Range to the north and Alaska Range to the south, the Doyon region blankets a mineral-rich swath of Alaska's Interior that is nearly the size of Texas. Doyon itself, owns 12.5 million acres of land within this vast region, making it the...
As the rest of the country suffers through the Dog Days of summer, Alaska is approaching the end of a topsy-turvy summer season that saw unseasonably hot, dry weather in some parts of the state during some parts of the summer, while other parts of the state have seen record rainfall and unseasonably early snowfall. Gold prices have skyrocketed over the $1,500 per ounce mark and silver prices have moved strongly up, now trading at a one-year high. However, copper and zinc are a...
Alaska's mining community lost a strong champion and friend with the passing of Sen. Chris Birch, R-Anchorage. Must Read Alaska, the first to report on Birch's passing, said the senator from South Anchorage died suddenly from a heart attack on Aug. 7. This article was followed by shock and an outpouring of support from the senator's friends and colleagues. "Life is short. We all know it, but it's easy to forget. Tonight, that simple fact snapped into focus when I learned of Ch...
With 12.5 million acres of land spanning Alaska's Interior, Doyon Ltd. is the largest private landholder in the state and one of the largest in the nation. For mining and mineral exploration companies, the rich mineral potential of these lands may be more impressive than the sheer size of the estate. This is because the Doyon region is a nearly Texas-sized swath of Interior Alaska that is renowned for its gold and a host of other metals, providing the regional corporation,...
As Alaska's mining industry nears the end of another hectic year during which metals prices and investor sentiments rose and fell as precipitously as the world's major stock exchanges, the industry is naturally looking into its crystal ball trying to anticipate what the new year will bring. EY Global Mining and Metals does this sort of forecasting by putting out an annual "risk radar" for mining and metals. The idea is to find out what the industry perceives as the top ten...
Underscoring the interconnected nature of the global mining market, not 48 hours after the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law, the mining industry began wondering out loud how they were going to produce rare earth element, tungsten, tantalum and molybdenum in the near future. Why these metals and why the worry now? Because one of the many impacts the Defense Authorization Act will have on the U.S. economy is its ban on the U.S. Department of...
As we transition from 2017 into 2018, the weight of evidence pointing to a long-awaited mining industry up-tick is being trumpeted from every financial institution, brokerage house and mining pundit across the globe. For example, RBC Capital Markets' newly released "2018 New Year Preview" has this to say: "We are in the mid-stages of a stock market recovery and the early stages of an economic cycle recovery. Gold is already in a phase where it out-performs other financial...
Goldrich Mining Company Jan. 8 reported that the Chandalar placer gold mine in northern Alaska is slated to produce roughly 21,000 ounces of gold in 2018. The Chandalar mine is owned by Goldrich NyacAU Placer, a joint venture formed between Goldrich and NyacAU to mine the rich placer gold deposits that occur across Goldrich's 23,000-acre Chandalar property. NyacAU LLC, a mining company with extensive placer gold mining experience, is the mine operator. Since placer gold operations began in 2015, Goldrich NyacAU Placer has...
If you have ever played or followed sporting events, you are probably familiar with that bizarre and often game-changing event known as the "change of momentum". This is when the team that was on the ropes suddenly comes to life and often roars to victory, putting smiles on the faces of coaches, fans and bookies alike. Well, unless I am mistaken, the Alaska mining industry has been the beneficiary of just such a change of momentum over the past month. After taking head shots...
Goldrich Mining Co. Jan. 18 reported that the Chandalar placer gold mine in northern Alaska produced 10,209 ounces of alluvial gold, or roughly 8,200 ounces of refined gold, during the 2016 mining season. This is roughly a 117 percent increase over the 4,400 oz produced at the mine in 2015. Processing of pay gravel at this operation about 200 miles north of Fairbanks continued into late-September and preparations for the 2017 mining season were completed in mid-October. Production costs through the end of September were...
Goldrich Mining Company March 7 said it anticipates higher gold production and potential resources expansion at the Chandalar gold mine in northern Alaska. Goldrich NyacAU Placer LLC, a joint venture between Goldrich and NyacAU to mine the various placer deposits at Goldrich's 23,000-acre Chandalar gold property, forecasts total 2017 production will be approximately 14,100 ounces of fine gold at a cost of roughly US$700/oz. In 2016, this operation produced 8,227 oz of fine gold at a cost of US$960/oz. Goldrich cautioned that...
With the opening late last month of a public comment period for the environmental impact statement on the proposed Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Project, I am cautiously optimistic that this time, Sisyphus will get the boulder up the hill. As a lowly graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks back in 1979, I helped a crew from Anaconda Minerals color township-size blocks on a huge paper map of the Brooks Range. At the time, Anaconda and numerous other...
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...
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...
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....
Goldrich Mining Co. Aug. 22 provided an update on placer gold operations at the Chandalar project in northern Alaska. As of Aug. 17, about 5,430 ounces of fine gold had been recovered from processing material stockpiled in 2015 as well as pay gravel mined in 2016. This includes 2,942 oz. of fine gold produced since the beginning of July. The gold recovered during this period was from the upper half of Little Squaw Creek but most of it was from outside the area of mineralized...
Goldrich Mining Co. June 6 said mining is underway at the Chandalar placer gold project in northern Alaska. The Chandalar placer mine is being operated by Goldrich NyacAu Placer LLC - a 50-50 joint venture formed by Goldrich and NyacAU LLC in 2012 to mine placer deposits across the 23,000-acre Chandalar property. Favorable spring weather conditions allowed the partnership to begin processing stockpiled pay gravel roughly three weeks ahead of the normal mid-June start of the...
Long, grueling, arduous, treacherous and painful are among the many adjectives, and sometimes expletives, used to describe the mining sector's nearly four-year bear market that is showing signs it is ready to hibernate. While Alaska's metal mines have not emerged from this enduring downturn unscathed, the sector remains largely intact and ready to ride metals prices higher. Together, Alaska's mines produced roughly US$2.76 billion of precious and base metals during 2015, down...
Goldrich NyacAu Placer LLC ramped up late-season production at Chandalar, a northern Alaska project that is shaping up to be one of the largest placer gold operations in North America. Goldrich Mining Co., which owns 50 percent of the partnership to mine the rich placer deposits at Chandalar, said the startup operation produced 4,400 ounces of alluvial gold over 35 days of production that began in August. "The beginning of mine production is a significant milestone for the...
By the time this summary reaches your eyes, termination dust (aka "snow") will have started to cover mineral projects across Alaska. At a recent project site visit, one of the project owner's representatives was listening to local Alaskans talk about not being ready for winter, how many things planned for the summer remained un-done, etc. After some cogitation on this, he asked me "Does everyone in Alaska get surprised by winter every year?" My response was simple: When you...
Goldrich Mining Co. Aug. 17 reported that placer gold operations at the Chandalar project in northern Alaska are expected to start this month. Overburden removal at the project began in March and through June crews had stripped 780,000 yards. Operations were expected to start earlier in the summer, but construction of ponds and completion of the wash plant has taken longer than projected. Subject to weather at the arctic project, the plant is expected to run through mid-Septem...
Goldrich Mining Company June 23 announced a deal to raise US$1.2 million by selling 12 percent of the cash flows Goldrich receives from its interest in Goldrich NyacAU Placer LLC, a 50-50 joint-venture between Goldrich and NyacAU LLC to mine the various placer gold deposits at Goldrich's Chandalar property in Northern Alaska. Goldrich will retain its 50 percent ownership in GNP but, after the transaction, will effectively receive about 44 percent of the cash distributions...
