The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Trade groups are incensed; many Alaska Natives feel ignored; DC delegation and governor vow to fight what is seen as a "politically motivated" ruling. Politically motivated, Illegal, hypocritical, irresponsible, unacceptable, and disgusting; this is how Alaska business leaders, policymakers, and Natives are characterizing the Biden administration's denial of permits to build a road that would link the critical mineral-rich Ambler Mining District to North American markets. "To...
Zinc contributed most to state's mine production value during 2023; gold is poised to take the crown and make run toward 1 million ounces per year. At a value of $1.5 billion, zinc held onto its throne as the most valuable metal produced in Alaska during 2023. With production forecasts and price trends headed in opposite directions for zinc and gold, however, the gleaming precious metal that drew fortune-seekers North at the turn of the 20th century could soon regain the...
As a mineral-rich Canadian province and a top global hub for mineral exploration and mining, British Columbia has the geology and technical expertise to be a global powerhouse when it comes to supplying the minerals and metals needed for the clean energy transition. Canada's westernmost province, however, has been lagging many of its mining peers when it comes to a cohesive strategy to take full advantage of the generational opportunity on its doorstep. The provincial...
Is it time for BC, Yukon, Alaska to forge an alliance to unlock critical mineral wealth, usher in new era of prosperity in the 21st century? The extremely mineral-rich geology that sweeps in a roughly 1,500-mile (2,600 kilometers) arc from the southern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle, through the Yukon, and onward to Alaska's west coast does not recognize the borders it spans. Likewise, the opportunities and challenges related to unlocking the precious, industrial, a...
State's inaugural sustainability report details the ESG advantages of looking North to Alaska for energy transition metals. The global energy transition has steered Alaska to a critical minerals crossroad that will shape the economic future of America's Last Frontier. On the one hand, the push for low-carbon energy is expected to put a dent in the demand for petroleum, which has been Alaska's economic lifeblood for more than five decades. On the other, Alaska happens to be...
From Pentagon's $37.5M grant to Graphite One to emerging nickel deposits, critical minerals are a hot AK mining topic. With Washington investing billions of dollars into ensuring safe and secure critical mineral supply chains, many mining companies are focusing more sharply on unlocking Alaska's potential to be a domestic source of the 50 minerals and metals critical to America's economic well-being and national security. The growing list of critical minerals being sought...
BEAVER CREEK, COLO. – The thin air at the 8,100-foot elevation of the 2023 Precious Metals Summit at Beaver Creek offers a perfect allegory for the markets faced by the gold and silver mineral exploration companies that summited the Rocky Mountains to connect with investors. Mineral explorers in good financial shape hardly noticed the relatively low concentrations of capital atop Beaver Creek Mountain, those in decent shape may be winded but are hopeful they have enough f...
NIKOLAI, ALASKA – Alaska Energy Metals Corp. President and CEO Greg Beischer has returned to finish what he started when he first landed in Alaska as a young geologist for INCO Ltd. in 1995 – outline a world-class nickel deposit at Nikolai, a project that lies on the northern margins of an energy metals enriched geological terrane that arcs across the 49th State. "Alaska Energy Metals is positioning itself to supply domestic markets with a source of critical and strategic met...
From the Pentagon's multi-million-dollar investment in Graphite One Inc. to China's restrictions on the exports of gallium and germanium, Alaska's current critical minerals supply and future potential was in the headlines and subtext of American news stories over the past month. Alaska as a future source of minerals critical to the clean energy transition grabbed headlines after the mid-July news that the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Graphite One Inc. $37.5 million to...
Australia-based Mine Discovery Fund launches Wiseman Metals to explore Doyon-owned copper & critical minerals properties; more deals to come. Since emerging on the Alaska mineral exploration scene in 2021, Felix Gold Ltd. has amassed more than 150 square miles of gold-enriched properties in the Fairbanks Mining District and is working toward establishing an inaugural resource at one of the most prospective gold targets discovered so far on this enormous land package. As Felix...
Alaska's unparalleled potential to be a major domestic supplier of the minerals and metals critical to the clean energy transition attracted some of North America's top commodities investors and analysts to Anchorage for the second annual Alaska Sustainable Energy conference. The 49th State's rich mineral resources, however, may remain on lockdown due to a "permitting pandemic" that plagues not only Alaska but the entire United States. "Our country is suffering from a...
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...
The Northwest Territories capital city of Yellowknife is emerging as a northern link in North America's electric vehicle supply chain. Already home to Canada's only rare earths mine, a 160-kilometers (100 miles) area around this northern mining town happens to be enriched with the lithium and cobalt that is in massive demand for EV batteries, along with numerous other minerals critical to both Canada and the United States. A roughly 9,600-square-kilometer (3,700 square miles)...
From competing offers for an exploration company with large and intriguing mineral projects in the Yukon, to the world's largest gold miner making a US$17 billion bid to buyout an Australian mining company with two producing assets in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, February was a big month for mergers and acquisitions in the North of 60 Mining News coverage area. Three M&A proposals were put forward in February that would create a shift in the North of 60 mining sector...
British Columbia's Golden Triangle is poised for a mining boom that raises the bar when it comes to achieving the higher environmental, social, and guidance expectations for companies that produce the gold, silver, copper, and other metals the world needs and wants. While this mineral district in BC's northwest corner is famed for its rich stores of copper, gold, and silver – and to a lesser degree, nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals, and other critical minerals – the ESG...
With mineral exploration expenditures nearly doubling over the past year, Nunavut has dethroned Yukon as the most popular Canadian territory to discover and expand deposits of industrial, precious, and critical minerals. According to preliminary estimates published by Natural Resources Canada, roughly C$232.4 million (US$173.7 million) will be spent on exploration and deposit evaluation in Nunavut this year, a 95% leap from over the C$119.2 million (US$89.1 million) invested...
PhotonAssay tech offers a modern, faster alternative to fire assaying for gold analysis. Assays are the very crux of mineral exploration – timely results returned from the lab help guide the search for orebodies and let investors know that the dollars being poured into drilling and sampling is money well spent. With assay lab turnaround times in a post-COVID world being measured in months instead of weeks, mineral exploration geologists are without an important tool for v...
From antimony historically mined near the Interior Alaska city of Fairbanks to the zinc and germanium produced at the Red Dog Mine, America's 49th State is a past producer, and a potential future source of the minerals and metals deemed critical to the United States. Earlier this year U.S. Geological Survey updated and expanded its list of critical minerals to include 50 minerals and metals essential to the economic or national security of the U.S. and which has a supply...
Underwater mining conjures images of the dredging up gold-rich marine placers off the beaches of Nome, Alaska, diamonds from the ocean floor of the coast of Namibia, or collecting potato-sized nodules of manganese off the deep-ocean floor. Arctic Canadian Diamond Company, however, has a completely different use for submersible mining technology – recovering diamonds from the bottom of previously mined pits that have since filled with water at its Ekati Mine in Canada's N...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, America's tenuous relationship with China, and global competition for the enormous volume of mined materials needed to build the envisioned clean energy future has elevated the urgency for the United States to bolster domestic critical mineral supply chains. For many, these geopolitical and economic realities have elevated the development of Alaska's incredible critical mineral resources to a national imperative. The urgency of this matter is why...
"Grade is king" is an adage that guides mineral exploration and mining. The premise behind this basic axiom of the mining business is the less ore that needs to be mined and processed per ounce of precious metals, pound of base metals, kilogram of critical minerals, or carat of gemstones produced, the more profitable an operation will be. The kingliest of orebodies would be of such high grade that a mining company would simply need to dig up the ore, crush it, and then ship it...
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...
The global transition to low-carbon energy and transportation is both an incredible opportunity and daunting challenge for Alaska's mining sector. On the one hand, Alaska is incredibly enriched with the minerals and metals required to build electric vehicles, solar panels, wind farms, and other clean energy technologies. On the other, America's Last Frontier is burdened by a lack of affordable, low-carbon energy options in the remote reaches of the state where many of these...
What if remote mines and communities across Alaska and Canada's North could plug into batteries the size of cargo containers that could deliver multi-megawatt levels of zero-carbon electricity for at least eight years without needing a charge? This is the type of power source Westinghouse Electric is delivering with its eVinci microreactor, a 5-megawatt-electrical power module expected to generate heat and electricity at the United States Air Force's Eielson Base just outside...
While Golden Triangle is an apt and easily marketable moniker for northwest British Columbia's incredible mineral endowment, Tahltan Territory more accurately and thoroughly encapsulates the rich deposits of copper, gold, silver, nickel, platinum group elements, and other metals for which this region has gained international renown. Extending east from the Alaska border to the Cassiar Mountain range and north from the Nass and Skeena Rivers into the Yukon, the roughly...
