The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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White Rock Minerals Ltd. July 16 announced that its joint venture partner Sandfire Resources NL has committed another US$1.5 million into the 2019 exploration at Red Mountain, extending activities into September at this zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) project southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. Sandfire, a mid-tier Australia-based mining company, can earn up to a 70 percent joint venture interest in Red Mountain by investing US$21.6 million into and completing a...
Earlier this month S&P Global put out a summary indicating that during the first quarter of 2019 metals like copper, zinc and nickel were up quarter over quarter by 11 percent, 22 percent and 25 percent, respectively. More recently gold has skyrocketed beyond the $1,400-per-ounce mark for the first time in many months. Correspondingly, the mining industry's aggregate market cap also rebounded strongly in the period after four bearish quarters, rising 12 percent to $1.43...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. June 24 provided an update on the 2019 exploration program it is carrying out with joint venture partner Sandfire Resources NL to discover the next high-grade zinc and precious metals deposit on the Red Mountain volcanogenic massive sulfide property in Interior Alaska. Red Mountain already hosts two zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold deposits – Dry Creek and West Tundra Flats (WTF) – with 16.7 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (...
In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot! After seasonally slower news from Alaska's mining industry in March and April, the dam has broken with over two dozen Alaska mining project news releases issued in the last month. Including those projects moving forward that have not released their 2019 plans, Alaska has become a very busy place under the sun. All of our major metal mines reported strong performances in the first quarter, several of Alaska's most...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. May 20 announced the completion and preliminary results from a 311-mile (500 kilometers) airborne electromagnetic survey flown over its zinc-rich Red Mountain volcanogenic massive sulfide project in Alaska's Bonnifield Mining District. The Australia-based exploration company said the geophysical survey, which also included the collection of magnetics data, used a state-of-the-art data collection and processing system to identify potential VMS...
As is usually the case this time of year, news about Alaska mineral activities is a bit sparse this month as planning activities are at flank speed ahead of next month's surge in field activities. That said, there has been a blizzard of mineral industry data released recently that has both direct and indirect applications to the Alaska mineral industry. First off, some internally generated data. Current public and private budget announcements suggest Alaska's exploration...
With 12.5 million acres of land spanning Alaska's Interior, Doyon Ltd. is the largest private landholder in the state and one of the largest in the nation. For mining and mineral exploration companies, the rich mineral potential of these lands may be more impressive than the sheer size of the estate. This is because the Doyon region is a nearly Texas-sized swath of Interior Alaska that is renowned for its gold and a host of other metals, providing the regional corporation,...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. April 9 reported that following the March 25 signing of a joint venture with Sandfire Resources, the two Australian companies are already gearing up for an exciting 2019 field season at the zinc-rich Red Mountain project about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Fairbanks, Alaska. Two deposits already identified on the property – Dry Creek and West Tundra Flats – host 16.7 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.1 percent (1.49 billion pou...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. is preparing for a US$4.3 million exploration program at its zinc- and precious metals-rich Red Mountain project in Alaska, thanks to an option agreement with fellow Australian miner, Sandfire Resources NL. Under the option agreement, Sandfire can earn up to a 70 percent joint venture interest in the Red Mountain property by investing US$21.6 million into Red Mountain and completing a pre-feasibility study for developing a mine at the volcanogenic mass...
As is usually the case this time of year, the mining industry is awash in backward-looking statements designed to allow for more accurate forward-looking statements. Prime among them is one of my favorites, S&P Global's annual "World Exploration Trends 2019", a summary of what happened industry-wide in 2018 and what it may portend for the mining industry in 2019. The study predicts that global exploration budgets will increase again in 2019, although by a smaller amount, with...
When it comes to attracting mining investment, Alaska, British Columbia and all three Canadian territories rank among the top 20 jurisdictions in the world on the Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2018. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their mineral endowment and various policy topics important to mining. "The mining survey-now in its 21st year-is the most comprehensive report card on government...
Those of you that attended the recent Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver can attest to the exuberant, upbeat atmosphere that pervaded the conference and was very much in evidence at the standing-room only festivities at our annual self-hosted Alaska Night meet and greet. But digging down under this veneer of optimism, many of the junior explorers and most of the producers admitted to their expectations of challenging times in 2019. Putting words to this apparent...
Metallic Minerals Corp. Jan. 28 reported additional high-grade silver results from the 2018 exploration programs at its 100% owned McKay Hill Project, located 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the historic Keno Hill Silver District in the Yukon. While McKay Hill is earlier stage than Metallic's Keno Silver project to the south, the company see's similar potential for a district-scale, high-grade silver-lead-zinc-copper system on the property. The company said its 2018 explorat...
I, for one, feel vindicated, relieved and ready to face the New Year! How so, you ask? Please let me explain. For those of you who remember my column in November, I noted that EY Global Mining and Metals publishes an annual "risk radar" for mining and metals, outlining what mining companies perceive as the top ten risks facing them in the near future. This publication was for the years 2017-2018 and stated that "Our number one risk this year is digital effectiveness." If you...
White Rock Minerals Ltd. Dec. 27 reported that Sandfire Resources NL has exercised its option to enter into a joint venture agreement with White Rock on the zinc-rich Red Mountain volcanogenic massive sulfide project in Interior Alaska. In July, White Rock entered into a strategic relationship with Sandfire, a mid-tier Australian mining company that operates the high-grade DeGrussa copper-gold mine in Western Australia. To formalize this strategic relationship between the two...
As the year waned, Alaska's mining industry reported some of the last of its 2018 seasonal field results while the University of Alaska and state of Alaska released some current and projected state-wide economics. At the same time, some macro-economic data was released for the global mining industry. Combined, these figures show a mix of encouraging and not so encouraging trends facing the Alaska mining industry. At the global scale, things for the mining industry are looking...
WESTERN ALASKA Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. announced that it had finalized a surface right of way agreement with Alaska Peninsula Corporation for use of that latter's lands for the construction and operation of transportation infrastructure associated with the Pebble copper-molybdenum-gold project. Alaska Peninsula Corporation is an Alaska Native village corporation with extensive land holdings proximal to the Pebble site and more than 900 shareholders, many of which live...
White Rock Minerals Nov. 21 announced that it has staked 524 state of Alaska mining claims around Red Mountain, more than tripling the Australian company's land position at this high-grade zinc-silver-lead-gold-copper volcanogenic massive sulfide project on the north slopes of the Alaska Range. This expansion follows White Rock's first year of exploration where drilling confirmed the high-grade zinc-silver-lead-gold-copper mineralization at two historical deposits at Red...
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...
Alaska is rich in rare earth, a unique group of elements that are so distinctive that most are placed in their own separate section at the bottom of the periodic table. While scientist have long realized that rare earths possessed distinctive characteristics that set them apart from their fellow elements, it wasn't until the advent of the color television in the 1960s that these unique properties had any sort of widespread practical application. Over the ensuing five decades,...
The six platinum group elements – platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium – are amongst the rarest metals on Earth. This scarcity, coupled with PGEs' uses in the automotive, petrochemical and electronics industries, has this group of industrious precious metals firmly planted on the United States Geological Survey's critical minerals list. "PGEs are indispensable to many industrial applications but are mined in only a few places," USGS inked in a 2017 rep...
Canada is the world's top destination for mining exploration spending, attracting more than 14 percent of global budgeted expenditures from explorers seeking to tap the country's vast mineral wealth. Yet in 2017, the three huge mineral-rich territories to the north, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory, lured only about C$360 million, or less than one-fifth of the roughly $2.1 billion that junior and senior mining companies invested in mineral exploration and dep...
Thanks to its own rich mineral endowment, Australia is a juggernaut in the world of mining, especially across the Southern Hemisphere. Over the past couple of years, however, a growing number of Aussie mining companies are looking north to Alaska, another minerals-rich land way north of the Equator. At least four Aussie juniors – White Rock Minerals Ltd., PolarX Ltd., Nova Minerals Ltd. and Riversgold Ltd. – and three Australia-based metals producers – South32 Ltd., North...
Thanks largely to increased investments from Aussie mining explorers, mineral exploration spending across Alaska topped US$100 million in 2018. This is well above the roughly US$95 million invested last year and nearly double the US$58 million spent at the bottom of the market in 2015. "Canadian and Australian companies continue to be the source for the bulk of funds spent in Alaska in 2018, together comprising well over 80 percent of the exploration expenditures earmarked...
Australia-based White Rock Minerals Ltd. set its sights on Alaska's vast and underexplored mineral potential when it acquired Red Mountain, a zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide project about 60 miles south of Fairbanks, in 2016. While the two main deposits at Red Mountain – Dry Creek and West Tundra Flats, or WTF – had more than 120 historical holes drilled into them when White Rock acquired the property, a deposit had not been defined to modern reporting standards unt...
