The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Trade groups are incensed; many Alaska Natives feel ignored; DC delegation and governor vow to fight what is seen as a "politically motivated" ruling. Politically motivated, Illegal, hypocritical, irresponsible, unacceptable, and disgusting; this is how Alaska business leaders, policymakers, and Natives are characterizing the Biden administration's denial of permits to build a road that would link the critical mineral-rich Ambler Mining District to North American markets. "To...
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...
Since investing roughly US$70 million to acquire a 28 percent stake in Novagold Resources Inc. in 2009, American billionaire Thomas Kaplan and his Electrum Group of companies have taken a keen interest in some of the more intriguing mineral exploration companies and projects in Alaska and across Canada's North. Kaplan, an Oxford-educated historian that began investing in natural resources in the 1980s, knows that gold has served as a currency throughout mankind's written histo...
Mineral exploration spending in Alaska hit an apex of US$365 million in 2011, but as venture capital for mining explorers dried these expenditures plummeted 78 percent to US$80 million in 2015. However, rising gold prices and a loosening of venture capital in 2016 seems to have marked an end to a painfully long bear market for mining explorers in Alaska. “After taking head shots for the past four years, the industry suddenly came to life over the past month, with new budgets,...
TSX/NYSE-MKT: TMQ Chairman: Gerald McConnell President and CEO: Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse Exploration Business Manager: Frank Gish While its name has changed, Trilogy Metals Inc.'s goal remains the same - unlock the potential of the world-class base and precious metals deposits at its Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska. The company's former name, NovaCopper, spoke to the some 8.5 billion pounds of copper identified so far at UKMP, but it did not describe the natural diversity provided by the zinc, silver, gold, lead...
The owners of Alaska’s five large metal mines – Sumitomo Metal Mining Pogo, Hecla Mining Company, Kinross Gold Corp, Teck Resources Ltd. and Coeur Mining Inc. – accounted for nearly half the US$92 million of exploration spending in the state during 2014 and similar investments by these companies is providing solid footing for the Far North state’s mineral exploration sector this year. Avalon Development President Curt Freeman said he is seeing more mining majors shopping for d...
Victoria Gold Corp. April 20 reported plans to raise C$24 million through a private placement of 80 million units at C30 cents each. Electrum Strategic Opportunities Fund L.P. has subscribed to 60 million of the offered units and Sun Valley Gold LLC has subscribed to the remaining 20 million units. Upon closing of the private placement, Electrum is expected to own roughly 13.6 percent of Victoria Gold's issued and outstanding shares while Sun Valley, already a significant shareholder, will increase its ownership to around 18...
What does a name say about a company? Management of NovaCopper Inc. feels that its corporate moniker does not say enough about the diversity of metals present in the high-grade deposits encompassed by its Upper Kobuk Minerals Projects in the Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska. Arctic, the most advanced UKMP deposit, actually hosts more zinc than it does copper. And, while copper remains the dominant metal in terms of value, zinc supply shortages are closing the price...
Mining's contribution to Alaska's economy starts with the hefty paychecks being issued to the some 4,350 miners that work in the state, according to recent study completed by the Alaska Miners Association and McDowell Group. The report, "The economic benefits of Alaska's mining industry," found that the average miner working in Alaska during 2016 received a whopping US$108,000 for the year, about double the average income across all sectors in the state. That is nearly US$470...
The Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia Jan. 27 awarded NovaCopper Inc. President and CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse and former NovaCopper Vice President of Exploration Joseph Piekenbrock the 2015 Colin Spence Award for Excellence in Global Mineral Exploration. Nieuwenhuyse and Piekenbrock are being recognized for their success in defining and significantly expanding the Donlin Gold deposit in western Alaska, the Arctic copper-zinc-silver massive sulfide deposit in northwestern Alaska and for exploration success a...
Necessity is the mother of innovative financing. While this is not the exact quote attributed Plato, it captures the wisdom of the philosopher as well as a message PricewaterhouseCoopers has for the junior mining sector. “Companies must take action – quickly and creatively – to find the cash to keep their projects alive and moving forward,” the global consultant recently penned in a brochure called Junior Mine 2015. While most prognosticators agree that we are at or near th...
Over the past month, three of Alaska's large mines reported strong quarterly results; two projects in advanced permitting and pre-feasibility reported recent progress; and three exploration properties changed hands. The latter is a trend putting 2015 on course to be one of the most active years for new acquisitions in the past decade. Placer gold production has all but ceased for the year; however, output from Alaska's placer mines is not likely to be known with any certainty...
Most of Alaska is now enjoying a warm, early spring, allowing field programs to get off to an quicker start this year. While budgets are still tight, interest in Alaska projects has steadily increased as the mining and metals markets slowly recover from a four-year slowdown. Current estimates for 2016 exploration expenditures are looking like they will end up in the US$50 million to US$60 million range, down from the US$75 million range of last year but less precipitous than...
With metal prices stabilizing, physical stockpiles dwindling and demand again on the rise, things are beginning to look up for the beleagered mining industry. Gold's performance over the past several months is a case in point. The World Gold Council reported that during the first quarter, buying of exchange-traded gold funds rose to its highest level since early 2009, wiping out the deep sell-offs of 2014 and 2015 for this instrument. Uncertainties in the fiscal stability of...
As a follow-up to last month's realization that once again "the game is afoot" in the mining industry, major gold producer Goldcorp recently presented some arresting statistics at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Metals, Mining and Steel Conference. The presentation showed gold discovery and production information for the global mining industry that indicated that peak gold discovery occurred in 1995, this despite three periods between 1995 and 2015 when exploration...
The path to discovering the viability of developing a mine at Arctic and the road needed to deliver the copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver from this exceptionally high-grade Northwest Alaska deposit to world markets are both making headway in 2017. Arctic is the most advanced of the high-grade deposits that make up the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects, an extensive land package that unites Trilogy Metals Inc.-controlled mining claims that blanket a 70-mile- (110 kilometer) long...
NovaCopper Inc. is exercising the discipline of a marathon runner as it paces towards the finish line - developing the high-grade copper deposits at its Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska into world-class mines. This year's US$5.5 million program for UKMP - a budget identical to 2015 - will continue to collect the data needed to complete a prefeasibility study for an open-pit mine at the Arctic deposit, while continuing to seek areas to expand upon the more than...
NovaCopper Inc. June 22 said the Bornite Camp is being prepared for the 2016 field program at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects located in Northwest Alaska. The majority of this year's project budget of US$5.5 million is planned to be spent on roughly 3,000 meters of drilling at the Arctic project. The program will include drilling for geotechnical, hydrological, waste rock characterization and metallurgical studies as well as further resource definition. The company is also planning a series of environmental studies that...
NovaCopper Inc. May 16 filed a National Instrument 43-101-compliant technical report that describes 913 million pounds of indicated copper and 5.45 billion lbs. of indicated copper identified, so far, at the Bornite project in Northwest Alaska. This marks a 410 percent increase in indicated copper and 517 percent increase in inferred copper since NovaCopper had its first resource calculated for Bornite in 2012. At a 0.50 percent copper cut-off grade, Bornite is estimated to contain 40.5 million metric tons of in-pit...
NovaCopper Inc. April 19 provided an updated resource estimate for the Bornite project located in the highly prospective Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska. Using a 0.50 percent copper cutoff grade, the Bornite Project is estimated to contain 40.5 metric tons of in-pit indicated resources averaging 1.02 percent (913 million pounds) copper; and 84.1 million metric tons of inferred resources averaging 0.95 percent (1.8 billion lbs.) copper. Contained copper in the...
Although there is plenty of Alaska mining industry news this month, the big dog in the pen is the dramatic and unexpected run-up in the price of gold, which moved from a low of $1,078 per ounce to a high of $1,246/oz., most of which occurred after Feb. 1. Although profit-taking and other factors have caused the price to back off a bit, the move was both dramatic and unexpected. As you might guess, the ether is full of talking heads telling us why it went up, why it either won'...
NovaCopper Inc. Feb. 8 reported that it has budgeted US$5.5 million for its 2016 program at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in northwestern Alaska. Like the 2015 program, which was similar in size and scope, this year's work will focus primarily on collecting data to inform a prefeasibility study for Arctic, a volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit that is rich in copper, zinc, silver and gold. This year's program is expected to include additional drilling at Arctic;...
As the curtain rings down on 2015, the sound of clapping and cheering can already be heard from the mining industry as it anticipates the end of a largely depressing year which started out looking like the long-awaited industry recovery was going to happen but in the end, did not. The uncertainty brought on by this year's unsettling events was front and center in a recent round-table discussion hosted by Northern Miner, sponsored by PearTree Securities and entitled "New...
A four-year rout in metals, coal and oil prices left Alaska's mining community digging deep for reasons to be optimistic during their annual gathering at the Alaska Miners Association convention in Anchorage. While depressed metals prices naturally cut into the bottom lines of those companies mining gold, silver, zinc, lead and coal in Alaska, the effects reverberate across the entire mining community. In order to adjust to lower metals prices, the producers have cut back on...
From an expanding ownership interest in one of the largest producing zinc mines on the planet to grassroots gold exploration, NANA Regional Corp. is delving into all phases of mining across the 24.3 million acres of extremely minerals-rich land in Northwest Alaska. During the past 26 years, this Alaska Native regional corporation and the more than 13,800 Iñupiat shareholders whose forebears settled the northwest corner of Alaska thousands of years ago have enjoyed some...
