The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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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...
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...
Goldrich Mining Co. Sept. 26 provided an update on 2016 operations at the Little Squaw placer mine in northern Alaska. Through Aug. 31, 8,570 ounces of alluvial gold, for approximately 7,000 oz. of fine gold, has been recovered from the mine in 2016. This reflects a roughly 95 percent increase in gold recoveries compared with output during the entire 2015 mining season. Production for the year continued through Sept. 21 and final production numbers for the season will be released after all smelter settlement documents have...
Over the last month the inevitable termination dust has begun to show up across Alaska, bringing with it completion of mineral exploration programs and transition of development and production projects to winter operational modes. Explorers, developers and miners will soon be gathering to compare notes at the annual Alaska Miners Association Convention in Anchorage, an event that always overlaps national and local election night. Alaska's mineral industry outlook brightened...
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...
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...
The Chandalar Mine in Alaska's Arctic is on track to begin commercial production this summer, a milestone that is expected to significantly move the dial of placer gold production in Alaska. Goldrich Mining Co., which owns 50 percent of a venture to mine gold in the Chandalar district, provided a forecast of anticipated gold recoveries from the mine over the next five years that includes 16,500 ounces of the precious metal this summer. Considering that the 300 or so placer min...
The state of the world's exploration industry was recently summarized in SNL Metal & Mining's annual "World Exploration Trends" publication, released at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto. Not surprisingly, it painted a grim picture of 2014, a year we are all glad to have behind us. The statistics indicate that worldwide exploration expenditures declined a further 26 percent to $11.4 billion, compared with $15.2 billion in 2013 and...
Goldrich Mining Co. March 9 said Goldrich NyacAU Placer, a joint venture between Goldrich and NyacAU LLC will begin mining activities at the 23,000-acre Chandalar gold project later in the month. Work will begin with the resumption of stripping the overburden from gold-rich gravels. Goldrich reported that an initial pit has already been opened and a 1,800-foot haul road between the pit and the processing plant site is complete. Goldrich NyacAU Placer plans to use a winter haul road to transport seven 40-ton rock trucks to...
Galvanized by higher zinc prices and strong production at Teck Resources Ltd.'s Red Dog Mine, the value of Alaska's mineral production topped US$3 billion for the fifth year running. Larry Freeman, chief of Minerals Resources at the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, told an audience at the AME BC Mineral Exploration Roundup that production of zinc, lead and silver - all metals produced at Red Dog - climbed in Alaska during 2014. Gold production, on the...
Several events have dramatically affected Alaska's mining industry in recent weeks, underscoring critical links between Alaska and the global economy. First came bad news for newly-elected Gov. Bill Walker: The plunge in world oil prices pushed Alaska's coming-year budget projections about $3.5 billion into the red. The ripple effect of this was a slashing of everything not required and one of the cuts, temporarily at least, was state funding of the Ambler District Road....
