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...
With it becoming increasingly apparent that Joe Biden will be confirmed as the 46th President of the United States, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski believes the coming years will be "interesting times" for the state's resource sectors. "There is near certainty that he is going to be taking office on Jan. 20, 2021," Alaska's senior senator said, referring to Biden, during the Resource Development Council for Alaska annual convention. "If he follows through on some of his campaign...
Pebble Limited Partnership has submitted a compensatory mitigation plan for Pebble, which is the final piece needed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to finalize a record of decision for the world-class copper-gold-molybdenum-silver-rhenium mine project in Southwest Alaska. Following publication of a Final Environmental Impact Statement for Pebble in July, the Army Corps sent Pebble Partnership a letter that details the need for "in kind" and "in watershed" mitigation for...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc., which has set a plan in motion to begin producing rare earth elements in Alaska by 2023, has shipped more than 1.5 metric tons of material from its Bokan Mountain project to Innovation Metal Corp.'s RapidSX facility in Ontario for concentration and REE separation testing. Ucore acquired Innovation Metals earlier this year and is operating the company as a subsidiary to further advance RapidSX technology for the separation and purification of rare earth...
Much like Mark Twain, who quipped, "The report of my death was an exaggeration," when informed of his obituary in an American newspaper, Politico's report of the untimely demise of the Pebble Mine project in Southwest Alaska was grossly overstated. On Aug. 22 Politico reported, "The Trump administration is planning to block the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska early next week ... marking a surprise reversal that could be the death knell for the massive copper and gold project."...
The July 24 release of a final Environmental Impact Statement that details a mine at Pebble capable of extracting copper, gold, and other valuable metals from a world-class deposit in Southwest Alaska without harming the Bristol Bay salmon fishery is a landmark achievement for Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., which has spent the better part of two decades advancing the project to this point. "We're ecstatic to reach this major milestone in the advancement of the Pebble Project...
With the federal permitting process coming to a close, it is becoming increasingly likely that a mine developed at the world-class Pebble project in Southwest Alaska could become a significant domestic source of copper, gold and other metals demanded by America's manufacturing sectors. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lead federal regulator for permitting the Pebble Mine under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), published the final environmental impact statement...
The U.S. Department of Interior issued two decisions that mark a major milestone along the path of permitting a road to the incredibly rich and strategically important Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska. On July 23, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Park Service (NPS) with the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, issued a record of decision that authorizes a right-of-way for the proposed 211-mile-long road...
Looking "to chart the path forward toward a future of unparalleled American prosperity" in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump has pulled together a wide array of business and thought leaders into various "Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups." National Mining Association President and CEO Rich Nolan was named among the esteemed leaders to the United States economic recovery group. "We appreciate President Trump's leadership during this...
In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak and following the cancellation of the Alaska Miners Association 2020 Spring Convention in Fairbanks, AMA Executive Director Deantha Crockett takes the time to answer 20 questions on how the pandemic is affecting Alaska's mining sector and the association; Alaska's economy; state and federal mining policy; and due process for the Pebble Mine project. Q. Alaska Miners Association recently made the difficult decision to cancel its spring...
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...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Feb. 6 said it is taking a closer look at the mine portion of its mine-to-metal-to-market "M3" strategy for its Bokan-Dotson Ridge rare earth project in Southeast Alaska. Introduced by Ucore in September, M3 includes three initiatives to meet the needs of an independent rare earth supply chain in the United States – advancing its Bokan-Dotson Ridge to shovel-ready status; developing an associated facility to separate the rare earths found at Bokan i...
Det'on Cho Nahanni Construction Corp., owned by the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, has signed a landmark agreement to run the mining operations at Nechalacho, a Northwest Territories' rare earth elements project that is on pace to be the first REE mine in Canada. Read the full story in Metal Tech News at: https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2020/01/29/tech-metals/nwt-first-nation-to-mine-first-canada-ree/140.html...
With more than half of Alaska's entire population living within its region, Cook Inlet Region Inc., more commonly known as CIRI, is the most metropolitan of the 12 landholding Alaska Native regional corporations. While CIRI has leveraged its urban position with retail developments such as Tikahtnu Commons, an enormous retail and entertainment center on the outskirts of Anchorage, the Southcentral Alaska regional corporation also has oil and gas, renewable energy and mining...
Development of the rich mineral resource in Alaska's Ambler Mining District took another major leap forward with the Dec. 19 announcement that Australia-based South32 Ltd. is investing US$145 million to become a 50 percent joint venture partner in Trilogy Metals Inc.'s Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP). This Northwest Alaska project covers a more than 70-mile (115 kilometers) stretch of Earth's crust that is uncommonly rich in a variety of precious, base and critical...
Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. Oct. 30 announced that Australia-based Cheetah Resources Pty Ltd., a private company recently acquired by Vital Metals Ltd., has made the final cash payment to acquire the near-surface resources at the Nechalacho rare earth elements project at Thor Lake, roughly 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. According to a resource calculated in 2012, the Upper zone at Nechalacho hosts 47.2 million metric tons of indic...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Oct. 15 announced that 38,500 metric tons of critical minerals have been added to the resource for its Bokan Dotson-Ridge rare earth project in Southeast Alaska. The new metals added as co-products to the REEs already defined at Bokan include niobium, zirconium, beryllium, hafnium, titanium and vanadium. Using a cut-off grade of 0.4 percent for the rare earths, the Bokan deposit hosts 4.79 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 460 parts per...
Home of the famed golden beaches of Nome that have captured the imagination of millions over the past 120 years, the Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) region covers the Seward Peninsula and coastal lands arcing around the eastern and southern coast of the Norton Sound in the far western reaches of Alaska. While this region may be 300 miles beyond North America's highway system, it has served as a crossroads for human activity for at least 15 millennia and will continue...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. has unveiled a three-tier strategy for delivering a non-Chinese source of rare earth elements to North American markets from its Bokan Mountain project in Alaska. Called M3, for mines, metals and markets, Ucore's plan to meet the needs of an independent rare earth supply chain in the United States includes three initiatives: advancing its Bokan-Dotson Ridge rare earths project in Southeast Alaska to shovel-ready status; developing an associated facility...
The U.S. Department of Commerce June 4 released "A federal strategy to ensure secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals," an interagency report that outlines a government-wide action plan to ensure the United States has secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals. Department of Commerce was charged with spearheading this report under Executive Order 13817, which was signed by President Donald Trump late in 2017. Trump's critical minerals executive order...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. May 29 announced a victory in the legal row over its option to acquire IBC Advanced Technologies Inc., part of Ucore's plans to establish a rare earth elements processing facility in the United States. Utah-based IBC is the pioneer of molecular recognition technology, a highly selective process for isolating an element or group of elements from solution. Using a solution derived from Ucore's Bokan Mountain project in Southeast Alaska, IBC and Ucore...
Antimony is a poor conductor of heat, an attribute that lends itself to this semi-metal's most common use, as an ingredient to make clothing, mattresses and other products flame resistant. While making work clothes and household items safer and less likely to catch fire is a relatively new use for antimony, humans have been using antimony for other purposes for more than 5,000 years. "For example, the ancient Egyptians and early Hindus used stibnite, which is the major ore...
Extremely hard and with the highest melting point of all the elements on the periodic table, tungsten is vital to a broad spectrum of commercial and military applications, yet there are no mines in the United States producing this durable metal. Nearly 60 percent of the tungsten consumed in the U.S. during 2018 was used to make the cemented tungsten-carbide, a compound of roughly equal parts tungsten and carbon. Roughly twice as strong as steel, tungsten carbide is often...
A vital ingredient in stainless steel and superalloys, chromium is considered by the United States Geological Survey as "one of the nation's most important strategic and critical materials." "Because there is no viable substitute for chromium in the production of stainless steel and because the United States has small chromium resources, there has been concern about domestic supply during every national military emergency since World War I," the USGS explains. Rich chromite...
In addition to being a past producer and a future source of most of the 35 minerals and metals considered critical to the United States, Alaska currently contributes a globally significant amount of one of these vital metals – germanium. While not a widely known metal, germanium has optical qualities that make it an important ingredient in fiber-optics, infrared optics, electronics and solar energy systems. "The extensive use of germanium for military and commercial a...
