The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Rhenium is exceptionally resistant to heat and wear, characteristics that make it a vital ingredient in superalloys used in jet and industrial gas turbine engines. "The high-temperature properties of rhenium allow turbine engines to be designed with finer tolerances and operate at temperatures higher than those of engines constructed with other materials," the United States Geological Survey penned in a fact sheet on the critical metal. "These properties allow prolonged engine... Full story
As 2020, arguably the most calamitous year for northern mining in decades, drew to a close, the Government of Northwest Territories took the unusual step of topping up its annual mining incentives program with an additional C$100,000. In August, the territorial government awarded C$1 million in these grants to 19 junior mining companies and prospectors who proposed mineral exploration programs during the 2020-2021 field season. Normally awarded in the spring, the incentives... Full story
Resolution Minerals Ltd. is on a mission to reveal the rich gold potential in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District, home to Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo gold mine. While still known as Northern Cobalt Ltd., this Australia-based junior cut a deal with Millrock Resources Inc. to earn up to a 60% interest in 64North, a 160,000-acre land package encircling the Pogo Mine property, by investing US$20 million in exploration spending over four years. This enormous property is... Full story
Traditionally used to create stronger, lighter, and more durable steels, vanadium is emerging as a potential game changing element in the grid-scale batteries needed to store renewable energy. Known as vanadium redox flow batteries, or VRFBs, this emerging electrical storage technology takes advantage of vanadium's ability to exist in solution in four different oxidation states as electroactive elements, instead of separate elements for the cathode and anode. The amount of ene... Full story
Niobium and tantalum are nearly identical critical mineral twins with unique personalities that takes them on separate career paths in the defense, energy, high-tech and medical sectors. "The leading use of niobium is in the production of high-strength steel alloys used in pipelines, transportation infrastructure, and structural applications," the United State Geological Survey penned in a 2018 report on the indispensable twins. "Electronic capacitors are the leading use of... Full story
Giga Metals Corp. Oct. 28 published a preliminary economic assessment that outlines a mine at its Turnagain project in Northern British Columbia that would produce an average of 33,215 metric tons of nickel and 1,962 metric tons of cobalt annually over a 37-year mine life. This PEA is based on 1.07 billion metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 0.22% (5.21 billion pounds) nickel and 0.13% (312.4 million lb) cobalt; plus 1.14 billion metric tons of inferred re...
The COVID-19 pandemic has led NANA Corp. and its mining partners, Teck Resources Ltd. and Ambler Metals LLC, to adjust their mineral exploration and mine development plans in order to meet the ever-evolving health and safety mandates to keep shareholders, employees and residents of Northwest Alaska as safe as possible. "Although the pandemic was unexpected, learning to adapt is nothing new for the region and Iñupiaq people. For 40 years, NANA shareholders have supported... Full story
N'tsi Tatay, more widely known as the Windy Craggy Project, is one of North America's largest resources of cobalt with excellent copper, zinc, gold, and silver grades hosted in an Upper Triassic Besshi-style volcanogenic massive sulphide. It is located in the northwestern corner of British Columbia within a regional scale volcano-sedimentary basin, termed Alta Basin, which is a mineralized belt that has the potential for future discoveries. Other known sulphide prospects... Full story
Trilogy Metals Inc. Feb. 26 announced that Ambler Metals LLC, a joint venture operating company equally owned by Trilogy and South32 Ltd., has approved a US$22.8 million budget for the 2020 program aimed at advancing the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP) in Northwestern Alaska. The largest part of this program will focus on advancing studies to prepare the Arctic mine project for permitting. A 2018 prefeasibility study for Arctic detailed plans for an open-pit mine and...
Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. Feb. 6 reported that headway is being made at its Will Scarlett rare earth elements recovery project in Illinois and Nechalacho REE Mine project in Northwest Territories. Avalon said the December agreement by Canada and the United States to co-operate on critical minerals supply chain development, particularly rare earths, has resulted in new government initiatives in both countries to support the creation of these supply chains. The critical...
In November 1996, a little over 23 years ago, I began writing quarterly mining news summaries for the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG). Shortly after that, I began writing monthly summaries for this publication's ancestor, Mining News Alaska, and have continued both monthly, quarterly and annual mining news summaries ever since. With this summary, I have written my last Alaska update for North of 60 Mining News. When I wrote my first summary, Greens Creek was milling only... Full story
With two Australian companies making major investments and several exploration companies from Down Under chomping at the bit to get into the field, 2020 is shaping up to be the best year for Alaska's mining sector in a decade. When you add up the investments South32 Ltd. plans to make in the Ambler Mining District and other exploration projects; Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s spending at the Pogo gold mine; and the exploration dollars at least five other Aussie companies are... Full story
Resolution Minerals Ltd. (formerly Northern Cobalt Ltd.) Dec. 16 announced that it has formally entered into an option to joint venture Millrock Resources Inc.'s 64North gold project in Alaska. Previously known as the Goodpaster project, 64North includes nine claim blocks – West Pogo, Shaw, Eagle, LMS-X, South Pogo, East Pogo, North Pogo, Last Chance and Divide – covering roughly 160,000 acres in the Goodpaster Mining District, a gold-rich area of Interior Alaska anchored by...
As the year winds down, mineral industry evaluations for 2019 are being published at a rapid rate. One of the most interesting such global reviews is EY Global Mining and Metals' annual "risk radar" for mining and metals, outlining what mining companies perceive as the top ten risks facing them in the near future. This publication stated that, for the second straight year, "social license to operate" remains the number one risk facing mining companies in 2020. This was... Full story
Northern Cobalt Ltd. (now Resolution Minerals Ltd.) Nov. 22 reported that the West Pogo access road has reached high-priority drill targets at Aurora Creek and a well is being drilled in preparation for a winter drill program slated to get underway by mid-February 2020. West Pogo is one of nine blocks of state of Alaska mining claims Millrock Resources Inc. has acquired and staked in the Goodpaster Mining District. Together known as the 64North (formerly Goodpaster) project, t...
Millrock Resources Inc. Nov. 4 reported that all the pieces are falling in place for an early 2020 drill program at West Pogo, one of nine blocks of claims that make up the company's district-scale Goodpaster gold project in Interior Alaska. In mid-October, Australia-based Northern Cobalt Ltd. cut a deal to earn up to a 60 percent interest in the Goodpaster project by investing US$20 million in exploration, plus paying US$200,000 in cash and issuing 38 million in Northern...
An abnormally long fall has allowed the Alaska mining industry to extend seasonal work well into mid-October, creating a lot of new information about project work conducted around the state. Exploration efforts, in particular, benefitted from this additional field time. Based on information available to date, 2019 exploration expenditures are expected to be in the $135-140 million range, well ahead of the $120-125 million exploration spending tracked for 2018. In addition,...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Oct. 28 reported the final set of assay results from the 2019 drill program at Bornite, part of the company's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP) in the Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska. The open-pit portion of Bornite hosts 40.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.02 percent (913 million pounds) copper; and 84.1 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.95 percent (1.77 billion lb) copper. The underground portion of...
Crystal Lake Mining Corp. reported that drills have tapped a new porphyry copper-gold zone at Newmont Lake; and surface sampling has discovered an entirely new hydrothermal system containing high-grade gold , silver, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc and lead mineralization along a separate corridor on the northern British Columbia property. The porphyry copper-gold mineralization, announced on Oct. 9, was encountered by drilling at 72' Zone, which is about 2,300 meters northeast...
Australia-based Northern Cobalt Ltd. has agreed to invest as much as US$20 million over the next four years to earn up to a 60 percent interest in Millrock Resources Inc.'s enormous land package covering highly prospective gold targets in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District. Goodpaster has gained a lot of attention since Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s 2018 purchase of the Pogo gold mine at the heart of the district. While it has been just over a year since the acquisition,...
If you have watched the metals markets over the last month, you know why Alaska's mineral industry has surged, stalled, swerved, swooped, slowed, shelved and stuttered, sometimes all at the same time! Gold has gone above US$1,500 per ounce; copper pundits are predicting an increasingly dour future; zinc markets are looking to dive below $1.00 per pound; tin markets have marched strongly upward due to supply disruptions; and silver bulls are calling for annual worldwide... Full story
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... Full story
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$249.4 million, made up of C$... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
