The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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NRCan funding will support a vertically integrated critical minerals supply chain that includes a mine in Northwest Territories and refinery in Alberta. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) March 26 announced a C$714,500 (US$525,200) investment into enhancing the production of cobalt sulfate and bismuth ingot products from a future mine at Fortune Minerals Ltd.'s Nico project in Northwest Territories and associated hydrometallurgical refinery in Alberta. "Critical minerals develop...
From the world's largest gold company expanding its production profile in British Columbia's Golden Triangle to a 130-year-old silver mining legend strengthening its foothold in the Yukon and a soon-to-be new gold producer in Nunavut, mergers and acquisitions completed in 2023 will forever change the North of 60 Mining News landscape. In fact, if everything goes according to plan, by the time Mining Explorers 2024 rolls off the presses, B2Gold will be pouring the first bars...
Routine flight turns tragedy as six reported dead after crash; authorities, Rio Tinto seek to determine cause. A routine trip on a small Jetstream aircraft on its way to Rio Tinto's Diavik diamond mine turned to tragedy when the flight crashed shortly after takeoff near Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. "We have been informed by authorities that a plane on its way to our Diavik mine, carrying a number of our people, crashed near Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada,...
Fireweed Metals Corp. Dec. 28 gave a year-end review of its accomplishments from 2023 and ushered in the new year with expectations to continue advancing its flagship Macmillan Pass zinc-lead-silver-copper project in southeast Yukon, the adjacent world-class Mactung tungsten project spanning the Northwest Territories-Yukon border, and its Gayna River zinc-lead-silver project about 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of MacPass in NWT, Canada. "2023 has been another extraordinary...
Raging wildfires and record hot temperatures challenged the well-laid plans of a score and more of mineral explorers in Canada's Yukon this year as the 2023 field season shifted into high summer. Most of the companies, however, managed to carry out their exploration for gold, silver, copper, and other minerals across the territory. The fierce and sometimes out-of-control blazes marked one of the worst wildfire seasons seen in Canada in nearly 30 years, consuming more than...
With its Casino project hosting billions of pounds of copper needed by a global economy transitioning to clean energy, Western Copper and Gold Corp. attracted a C$21.3 million (US$15.6 million) investment from Mitsubishi Materials Corp. to help advance the large porphyry project about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northwest of Whitehorse, Yukon. Historically, two prefeasibility studies and a feasibility study on developing a mine at Casino have been completed. Western Copper and...
With a summer marred by unprecedented wildfires behind them, companies exploring the mineral-rich Northwest Territories are reporting impressive results from their 2023 programs. Seeking new deposits of valuable minerals, ranging from ever-popular diamonds and precious metals to recently designated "critical minerals," such as lithium, rare earth elements and zinc, a score of explorers took to the field across the territory. "An exciting new chapter is emerging for mining in t...
Fortune Minerals Ltd. Dec. 5 announced that it has received federal and provincial funding for Nico, a vertically integrated cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project that is slated to include a mine in Northwest Territories and a hydrometallurgical refinery in Alberta. Lying about 150 road-kilometers (95 miles) north of the Canadian rail system at Hay River, Northwest Territories, Nico is a near-development stage mine project that includes an intriguing mix of critical and precious...
Aluminum has been classified as critical by the United States, European Union, Canada, and even China. At first glance, one may wonder how such a ubiquitous metal could possibly be critical. The answer is simply that aluminum is so widely used that supply, if endangered, could devastate an economy. In 2020, the World Bank identified aluminum as a "high-impact" and "cross-cutting" metal in all existing and potential green technologies. In spite of this, due to high energy...
From promising solid-state battery technology that could eliminate range anxiety for electric vehicle owners to solar panels and thermoelectric devices that transform sunshine and heat into low-carbon energy, tellurium is emerging as a secret ingredient of the clean energy future. "It has flown largely under the radar, even though it's essential for cadmium-telluride solar panels and new lithium-tellurium batteries that could revolutionize energy storage," said Tyrone...
While lithium has been the poster child for optimism and controversy in equal measure, nickel has its own crucial role to play in the batteries powering the clean energy future – increasing range and capacity – but is traditionally carbon-heavy to produce. For nickel, the industry's focus has been twofold – obtaining enough and moving the needle between untenable quantities of emissions from mining and processing and the battery and alloying metal's necessary inclusion in ne...
Rio Tinto to build largest solar plant in Canada's North at diamond mine. Signaling its commitment to clean renewable energy, mining powerhouse Rio Tinto announced its intention to construct the largest solar power plant in Canada's North at its Diavik Diamond Mine – more than 6,600 solar panels that are expected to provide up to 25% of the electricity needed at this iconic operation in Northwest Territories. "I am delighted that we will be significantly increasing our renewab...
Amid renewed market interest in gold, White Gold Corp. recently reported increased mineral resource estimates for its flagship White Gold Project and unveiled plans for a 2023 exploration program across its namesake district in the Yukon. The junior explorer, which enjoys the financial backing of major Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (19.5%) and Kinross Gold Corp. (15%), has turned its attention in 2023 to further evaluation of targets at its JP Ross and Betty Ford projects and...
Rio Tinto reflects on extraordinary people, spirit and innovation behind Far North Canada diamond mine. Rio Tinto celebrates the extraordinary people, award-winning innovation, and pioneering spirit behind the 20 years of producing brilliant diamonds at the Diavik Mine in Canada's Northwest Territories. Discovered during the great Canadian diamond rush in the 1990s, Diavik began commercially producing diamonds in 2003. Over the ensuing two decades, Diavik has produced over...
The North of 60 Mining area hosts billions of pounds of copper ready to be delivered to a world craving this metal in sky-high demand for wiring the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that would enable the envisioned low-carbon future. Whether enough of these copper-rich projects are developed in time to circumvent a short circuit of the clean energy transition remains to be seen. Global Market analysts such as S&P Global have predicted that copper...
Let's talk about electric car batteries, their mineral content, the source of the minerals, and where those minerals are refined. Generally speaking, according to a recent piece in the Washington Post, electric car batteries weigh about 900 pounds – 900 pounds of minerals that have to be mined, refined, combined and shaped, fitted and installed into cars – cars that are being pushed onto the American public because they don't require polluting gasoline. We are told that electr...
White Gold Corp. April 5 announced that it has identified two large copper-molybdenum porphyry targets on its Pedlar and Hayes properties in the southern portion of the company's 350,000-hectare (865,000 acres) land package in the Yukon. "Our primary exploration focus is discovering new orogenic gold deposits in the White Gold District and growing our existing gold resources. However, the Yukon is rich in various other metals which is also the case in our large land package,"...
With access road construction underway, Western Copper and Gold Corp. prepped its world-class Casino gold-silver-copper-molybdenum project to be ready for development with exploration and expansion programs to crack open this jackpot discovery. Located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northwest of Whitehorse, this highly prospective project that Western Copper and Gold subsidiary, Casino Mining Corp., has been advancing since acquiring the property in 2008 is found within the...
Mining activity in Northwest Territories held steady in 2022 despite constraints imposed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as a cadre of mainly junior mining companies took up the international challenge to seek out large deposits of critical minerals. Early in the year, government officials noted that industry interest in diamonds, gold, and especially critical minerals boded well for the NWT economy in the coming year. "An exciting new chapter is emerging for mining in the...
Tesla and other automakers clamor for nickel suppliers with low CO2 footprint Tesla CEO Elon Musk's 2020 appeal to "please mine more nickel" served as a rallying cry for mining companies with projects positioned to deliver this critical battery metal into global markets. Going into 2022, however, the electric vehicle trailblazer's words were echoing in nearly empty warehouses as the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs are demanding more nickel than global miners can supply....
From flashlights to supercomputers, tin is the glue for an electronic age Lost in the clamor for lithium, nickel and other metals needed for the batteries powering electric vehicles and modern electronics, or the rare earth elements that turn stored energy into motion, is the enormous need for a much more modest metal that is so fundamental to the advancement of technology that it almost goes unseen – tin. While other technology metals are critical to certain products and s...
Coal ash, acid drainage, and tailings for future green economy As the world continues to prime itself for the global energy shift, academia, governments and the private sector are scrambling to extract the valuable minerals and metals necessary to power the low-carbon renewable future – resulting in some truly innovative and unconventional methods. In addition to the rare earths, cobalt, lithium, and other technology metals that capture headline attention, this list often miss...
Rare metalloid is key element of CdTe thin-film solar cell tech The rising popularity of thin-film solar cells as a highly effective means of converting sunlight into electricity is creating increased demand for tellurium, amongst the rarest of the stable elements on the periodic table. Tellurium is a metalloid, one of seven elements with properties that fall between metals like aluminum and tin and non-metals like carbon and phosphorus. These semimetals, which also include...
Rare earths from the Nechalacho Mine being delivered into the supply chain marks the opening of a new critical minerals chapter in the story of mining in Northwest Territories – a saga that includes a 1930s gold rush to the territory's capital, a whole new town to support the Pine Point zinc mine, and the unlikely discovery of world-class diamond deposits in the famed Lac de Gras region. "We have an opportunity to add to our rich and long-standing mining story," Northwest Terr...
Western Copper and Gold Corp. June 28 announced the release of an updated feasibility study for its world-class Casino copper-gold-silver-molybdenum project in Yukon, Canada. Superseding all previous studies and incorporating an updated mineral resource and mineral reserve with an effective date of April 29, the study considers the Casino project being constructed as an open pit mine, with a concentrator processing 120,000 metric tons per day to recover copper, gold, silver,...
