The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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The Pebble Partnership and ASRC Energy Services, a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., June 13 said they will be working together to provide business development and mentoring services aimed at enhancing future contracting opportunities for Alaska Native village corporations with landholdings near the Pebble copper-gold project in Southwest Alaska. "Local stakeholder involvement in responsible resource development projects is important, and ASRC Energy Services is a leader in stakeholder engagement," said ASRC Energy...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Aug. 11 reported that it is working toward the finalization of the design concept and necessary documentation to initiate permitting for its Pebble Mine project in Southwest Alaska. This work includes a field program to collect additional environmental baseline data for proposed infrastructure such as access routes, port and ferry landing sites with the objective of characterizing the existing conditions for engineering design and permitting...
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,...
Pebble Limited Partnership and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are on the cusp of reaching a settlement of the longstanding legal dispute over the federal agency's attempt to use Section 404 (c) of the Clean Water Act to place pre-emptive restrictions on permits needed to develop a mine at the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in Southwest Alaska. The federal court where the lawsuit was being heard granted a stay of proceedings until May 4 to provide Pebble and...
Alaska’s current fiscal crisis has highlighted the need to diversify the state’s economy and being one of the richest minerals jurisdictions on the planet, mining is an industry that could play a major role in future wealth creation in the Last Frontier. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker touched on mining’s role in the state’s future during a Nov. 15 address at the Alaska Resource Conference. “We have six large scale mines in Alaska, we would like to have 12,” he told the business le...
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wraps up a public comment period on its proposal to withdraw pending restrictions on Pebble, plans for an “environmentally-optimized” mine at the world-class Pebble copper project in Southwest Alaska are beginning to take shape. Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier rolled out this “new path forward” for Pebble at Resource Development Council’s Oct. 5 breakfast forum in Anchorage. In formulating the new Pebble Mine, the Pebble Pa...
Earlier in November, the Alaska Miners Association held its annual convention and trade show in Anchorage and as always, the well-attended convention overlapped with election Tuesday. While the lead up to, and results of, the national and state elections were hot topics throughout the week, one comment I heard from a colleague on the morning after the elections distilled the feelings of a lot of people at the conference. When asked what he thought of the election results, he...
After six tumultuous years, 2017 is shaping up to be a turnaround year for the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in Southwest Alaska. "The stars that were previously askew, they seem to be lining up," Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen told Mining News. This star realignment is reflected in a US$37.4 million financing the Pebble project owner closed on Jan. 26. Underwritten by a trio of renowned financiers, this financing involved the issuance of 20.24 million shar...
With the addition of Mark Hamilton as executive vice president of external affairs, the Pebble Limited Partnership continues to build upon an impressive team of Alaska-based leaders as it prepares to advance the world-class Pebble copper mine project towards permitting. "I'm delighted to join the Pebble team as we begin the long and rigorous journey toward permitting a mine engineered to protect the environment and the world-class fisheries of Bristol Bay," Hamilton said....
Strong metals prices and a pro-jobs businessman who vows to inject “new American metal into the spine of this country” preparing to set up his office in the White House bodes well for Alaska’s mining sector going into 2017. While a renaissance of Alaska’s mining sector may not be at the top of President-elect Donald Trump’s to-do list, pouring coal on the fire of America’s economic engine – both literally and figuratively – is. The figurative coal important to Alaskan miners...
Three world-class deposits in Alaska – Pebble, Donlin Gold and Livengood – are far enough advanced to be considered beyond the exploration stage but not quite ready to break ground on development. Together, these three colossal deposits host more than US$160 billion worth of gold – with Pebble adding nearly another US$200 billion worth of copper, molybdenum and silver at today's metals prices. The jobs and revenue generated from developing operations to mine these three global...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Jan. 11 announced plans to raise US$25 million, a financing that quickly swelled to US$32.56 million due to the immediate demand for the shares being offered. The original bought deal offering - made through a syndicate of underwriters co-led by Cantor Fitzgerald Canada Corp., TD Securities Inc. and BMO Capital Markets - involved 13.52 million Northern Dynasty shares at US$1.85 each. As a result of strong demand, Northern Dynasty said it had increased the offering to 17 million shares on Jan....
Alaska fell from favor with the 350 mining executives who responded to the Fraser Institute’s Survey of Mining Companies 2016, published on Feb. 28. This group of miners, explorers and consultants ranked the Far North State as the 14th best jurisdiction on Earth to seek and develop a mine. To gather information for its report, the Fraser Institute asks mining executives to rank the mineral potential and mining policies of mining jurisdictions around the globe. The C...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. March 8 said Pebble Limited Partnership has selected HDR Alaska, Inc. to serve as lead regulatory and permitting consultant for the world-class Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in Southwest Alaska. HDR will assist in preparing the documentation Pebble Partnership will need to initiate federal and state permitting by the end of the year, in anticipation of a successful outcome of the company's strategy to address the U.S. Environmental...
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. May 20 reported the Pebble Limited Partnership and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have filed a joint motion in federal court to extend a stay of proceedings to May 4 in ongoing litigation under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. In 2014, the Pebble Partnership had filed a suit, alleging EPA violated FACA by working inappropriately close to anti-Pebble groups as the regulatory agency built a case for placing restrictions on yet to be applied for permits for the development of a mine...
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...
Alaska Department of Natural Resources April 11 announced significant new requirements in a land-use permit authorizing the Pebble Limited Partnership to continue care, maintenance and reclamation on its mining claims in the Bristol Bay region. The regulatory agency said this decision follows the review of more than 2,000 public comments and an exhaustive analysis. During the comment period on Pebble's application for the permit, questions arose on the condition of certain drill holes and whether hundreds of these holes...
There are good indications that large porphyry copper deposits may be found beyond the borders of the Pebble property held by Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Quaterra Resources Inc. has cut a deal on Groundhog, one of the most promising of these prospects in this area of Southwest Alaska known for its world-class copper potential. “The Groundhog project offers the potential to discover a major deposit in an established porphyry belt,” said Quaterra Chairman and CEO Tom Pat...
With winter programs winding down and summer efforts rapidly ramping up, it is becoming clear that 2017 will be a much more vigorous year for the Alaska mining industry than the 2013 to 2016 period. For example, my internal estimates are already pushing $75 million for exploration activity alone and a significant number of projects that have announced exploration plans have not yet announced budgets for 2017, so that number is likely to rise. Compare this to estimates of less...
After five long years of battling inside and outside of the courtroom, Pebble Limited Partnership and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have negotiated an agreement that opens the door for the enormous Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in Southwest Alaska to enter the permitting process unencumbered by predetermined restrictions. “This settlement represents a major step forward for the Pebble project,” said Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier. “It allows us to start...
Now that the Pebble Partnership has settled its dispute with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company is focusing its attention on readying the world-class Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project for permitting. The first move towards attaining this goal was to assemble an advisory committee that will provide valuable insights from a broad range of perspectives, including those that voiced concerns about building a large mine in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest...
If there is anyone still on the fence wondering if the minerals industry has started a recovery from the doldrums of the past four years, this month’s mineral industry activity in Alaska should settle the question with authority. During the past month, we have seen two merger/acquisitions occur, one by Solitario Exploration & Royalty Corp., which acquired Zazu Metals Corp. and its interest in the Lik lead-zinc-silver deposit. Then we also had Coventry Resources acquire V...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set in motion plans to completely do away with the pre-permitting restrictions it attempted to impose against Pebble in 2014. If fully implemented, these Obama-era Clean Water Act restrictions would have seriously reduced the size of any mine that could have developed at the world-class Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska. A federal judge ordered a stay on the implementation of EPA's...
Rolling into the final quarter, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. remains confident that it will meets its ultimate 2017 goal of filing for the permits needed to develop a mine at the world-class copper deposit in Southwest Alaska by the end of the year. “We entered the year with three objectives: settlement with EPA; re-partnering; and then getting the project description filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by the end of the year,” Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen tol...
The Pebble Partnership Oct. 13 announced the appointments of Stephen Hodgson and James Fueg to its technical team. Serving as senior vice president of engineering and project director, Hodgson will be responsible for all aspects of project design, engineering and financial studies, and regulatory compliance. He will be supported by Fueg, who has been appointed as vice president of permitting. In this role, Fueg will be responsible management of environmental and socioeconomic studies, liaison with federal and state agencies...
