The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Despite owning a Pacific Rim deposit of gold, copper, zinc and silver worth some US$1.44 billion, Heatherdale Resources Ltd. has not completely escaped the financial paralysis gripping the junior mining sector. While the value of Heatherdale's stake of the Niblack Project has nearly doubled over the past year, its share price has plummeted more than 70 percent. Still, the Hunter Dickinson-affiliated junior has successfully pulled together funds to continue to advance the... Full story
The unseasonably, interminably, unspeakably cold spring that is delaying mineral exploration and development work in Alaska this year is being mimicked by a financial chill that is affecting Alaska exploration efforts just like it is the rest of the world. Not to put too fine a point on it, but from a mineral exploration standpoint, Alaska is shaping up to be as dead as a doornail this summer (ever wonder where that saying came from ... but I digress.). How dead? Try this statistic on for size: Of the 49 exploration projects...
Following a rising chorus of junior companies touting impressive exploration programs on mineral prospects across Alaska that reached its crescendo in 2011, a deafening silence is resonating across the Far North expanse in 2013. And in the junior mining sector, no news is bad news. Mineral exploration expenditures in Alaska, which were a meager US$23.8 million in 2001, climbed to US$347 million by 2008. The "Great Recession of 2008" tightened the equity markets, resulting in...
The right size operation, recovering the right rare earth elements in the right location; this is how market experts and policymakers are describing Ucore Rare Metals' Bokan Mountain REE project in Southeast Alaska. In a March 9 article, "The Rare Earth Space, 'A Culling of the Herd, and the Survivors' (Part 1: North America)," pre-eminent technology metals expert Jack Lifton said Ucore and its Bokan Mountain project has the right elements to survive "the Darwinian nature of... Full story
I finally found something I have been thinking about for a long time but had not seen discussed in detail. We have all seen summaries of the declining rate of discoveries for new mineral deposits and have heard about the steadily increasing cost of production, now at a record US$727 per ounce, according to GFMS' Gold Survey 2012. What I really wanted to know was the replacement cost of an ounce or a pound of metal. Let's take gold for example: If I am a producing mine and I just produced an ounce of gold, what is the cost of...
Ending a streak of robust growth, mineral exploration spending in Alaska during 2012 took a downward turn from the record US$300 million spent a year earlier. "More advanced-stage projects that added ounces or pounds to their resource base had a better go of it than early-stage exploration projects which have taken a hard right cross to the jaw!" Curt Freeman, a well-known Alaska geologist and president of Fairbanks-based Avalon Development, observed in September. This blow de...
Over the past six months, the single-most common question I have gotten asked about Alaska's mineral industry is, "Have there been any significant new discoveries?" While there may be an as-yet unannounced new discovery in Alaska, it seems the above question is being asked more frequently in other parts of the world as well and the most common answer is a simple "no." While information on new discoveries in other sectors of the mining industry is out there, it's not as...
An employment forecast published by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development in October pegged the state's mining sector job growth from 2010 to 2020 at 19 percent. That is second only to health care, at 31 percent, and outpacing the 12 percent average growth across all Alaska industries. Expansion of current operations coupled with prospects of building mines at the world-class Livengood and Donlin gold deposits were cited as drivers behind adding new miners t...
In a long overdue step to bring Alaska into the 21st Century, state and federal agencies met in late June to discuss collaborative funding strategies for Alaska's Statewide Digital Mapping Initiative, an enterprise designed to create Alaska's first high-quality digital topographic map. The roundtable was convened by Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of Interior. Alaska remains the only state in the United States... Full story
Despite owning a Pacific Rim deposit of gold, copper, zinc and silver worth some US$1.44 billion, Heatherdale Resources Ltd. has not completely escaped the financial paralysis gripping the junior mining sector. While the value of Heatherdale's stake of the Niblack project has nearly doubled over the past year, its share price has plunged some 75 percent. Notwithstanding, the Hunter Dickinson-affiliated junior has successfully pulled together the funds it needs to continue to...
I was tempted to make a few 2012 predictions now that 2011 is nearly gone, but I decided not to when I came across the following lines and was struck by how closely they mimic our current mining climate: "On a more local level, several old Alaska properties have been rejuvenated by new players to the Alaska mineral scene. Reserve announcements have touched off renewed land acquisitions and property negotiations. Contracts for technical personnel, drill rigs, helicopters and... Full story
By consolidating ownership of the Niblack copper-gold-silver-zinc-silver project on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska, Heatherdale Resources Ltd. is taking long strides in advancing the volcanogenic massive sulfide project toward development. "After three years of successfully operating the Niblack project as a joint venture, the boards of directors of Heatherdale and Niblack (Niblack Mineral Development Inc.) have agreed that the best way to efficiently advance...
As a busy year in the Alaska and global mining industry starts to slide closer to its end, I figured now was a good time to gaze into my crystal ball (rutilated quartz, of course) to see what next year might bring. While strong metals prices promise another busy year for Alaska, a dose of global reality was provided by the financial giant Ernst & Young, who recently published a list of the top 10 business risks for the mining and metals industry for the coming year. Resource n... Full story
Whether it is multimillion-ounce gold discoveries, copper deposits that measure in the billions of pounds or massive ore-bodies of 20 percent zinc, Alaska is renowned for its mammoth deposits. The prospect of finding another Donlin, Pebble or Red Dog continues to draw explorers to this vast and underexplored corner of the United States. In the Survey of Mining Companies: 2010/2011, conducted by the Fraser Institute, top executives from 494 mining and mineral exploration...
Heatherdale Resources Ltd. has spent more than US$25 million since 2009 on expanding the copper-gold-silver-zinc deposits at the Niblack project on Prince of Wales Island. This aggressive exploration program, which includes more than 40,000 meters of drilling, has provided the Hunter Dickinson Inc.-affiliated junior with the confidence to advance the Southeast Alaska project toward feasibility. "Drilling over the past two years has affirmed the potential of the Niblack...
A recent article in the Newsletter of the Society of Economic Geologists discussed ways of addressing an arresting trend in the mining industry that affects Alaska's mining future. Authors N. Stephen Enders of the Colorado School of Mines and Cliff Saunders of Too Serious Unlimited, showed that the discovery rate for gold has been dropping steadily since 1999, while the gold mined by operating mines worldwide has remained essentially unchanged at about 80 million ounces per year. The low for ounces discovered coincided with...
Despite the abundance of good news from the Alaska mining industry this month, there is an unusual black cloud hanging over the industry that threatens to rain on our parade of projects. Domestic and international markets got a severe case of the jitters during the recent United States debt crisis. The resulting economic uncertainty contributed to significant metal price volatility. For example, the London gold price jumped 20 percent, from about US$1,480 to US$1,770 during the month prior to the debt deferral and has since d...
A March ruling by U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick, which reinstated the so-called "Roadless Rule" in the Tongass National Forest, promised an early end to Ucore Rare Metal Inc.'s 2011 exploration at its Bokan Mountain rare earth elements project on Prince of Wales Island and left several other Southeast Alaska mineral projects needing special permission to carry out planned drilling. "The implementation of the 'roadless rule' in the Tongass National Forest by Judge...
Since the formation of Heatherdale Resources Ltd. in the latter half of 2009, the Hunter Dickinson Inc.-affiliated junior has spent more than US$20 million exploring the Niblack gold-copper-zinc-silver project in Southeast Alaska. Now contemplating the viability of building a mine at that precious metals-enriched volcanogenic massive sulfide project, the young junior has added Delta, an earlier stage VMS prospect located in eastern Interior Alaska, to its portfolio. "Our...
There are some new stats out regarding mining's impact on Alaska that the McDowell Group Inc. produced for the State of Alaska. For 2010, the Alaska mining industry accounted for 3,500 direct jobs and 5,500 indirect jobs. The industry paid US$350 million in payroll with the average salary totaling US$95,000 per year, which is double the statewide average for all sectors. Mining salaries were higher than all other sectors except for the oil and gas sector. The industry paid...
For more than a century Prince of Wales Island has been known as a rich source of gold, copper, platinum group elements and silver. The 2,577-square-mile, or 6,674-square-kilometer, Southeast Alaska isle later gained renown for its stores of uranium and rare earth elements. While modern explorers have investigated several of the uncounted historical mines that dot the island, Niblack and Bokan Mountain have emerged recently as standout exploration projects. Both located near... Full story
Alaska's mining industry is entering the final lap for what has turned out to be a more robust than expected year for exploration, development and production. Strong worldwide demand for mined products has certainly helped push metallic and energy minerals prices up, but all is not rosy for Alaska's mineral industry. A recent CNBC report placed Alaska dead last of all the states in terms of overall business attractiveness. We were a dismal 46th of 50 in terms of cost of doing...
The Last Frontier, as Alaska has long been labeled, is as applicable a moniker today as it was to prospectors who ventured to the territory at the end of the 19th century. Alaska is considered one of the most mineralized provinces on Earth, but due to an inter-related combination of Arctic weather, rugged terrain, limited infrastructure and high exploration costs, the state's vast mineral potential remains at the edge of exploratory expansion. Though the Far North state...
Heatherdale Resources Ltd., a subsidiary of Hunter Dickinson Inc., (see Hunter Dickinson Inc.) is living up to its pledge to aggressively explore the Niblack copper-gold-silver-zinc project on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. Some 23,000 meters of drilling completed by the junior over the past year traced nearly 1,000 meters of precious metal-rich volcanic massive sulfide mineralization under Lookout Mountain. Heatherdale optioned Niblack from CBR Gold Corp. (see... Full story
Chairman: Robert Dickinson CEO: Ronald Thiessen Hunter Dickinson Inc. is a Vancouver, B.C.-based private company associated with a suite of publicly-traded companies engaged in mineral exploration, development and mine operations around the world. The company's multi-disciplinary team of some 120 financial and technical specialists provides professional services to successful mine operators and developers on four continents, with interests in gold, copper, platinum group metals, molybdenum, zinc, silver and diamonds. Hunter...
