ix. The question “How many large mines are operating in Alaska?” can be answered with one hand plus an extra finger. Six large-scale mineral producers collectively employed nearly 2,700 workers in 2019. Alaska’s mines produced nearly $4 billion worth of non-fuel minerals in 2021, from vast quantities of zinc and lead to precious gold and silver. More projects are lined up to join them, aiming to enlarge the statewide mineral portfolio to a second or third handful of mines, extracting copper, cobalt, and rare earth elements (REE). What follows is an overview of Alaska’s mines, those in production and in the advanced exploration or permitting stages.

Fort Knox is an open-pit gold mine northeast of Fairbanks. The mill has the capacity of processing up to 45,000 tons per day, with large volumes of lower grade ore and mineralized waste materials processed in the heap leach. In December 2021, Fort Knox celebrated its 25th anniversary.

Kinross Fort Knox spent a total of $377 million in Alaska in 2021, a contribution of 6 percent to the gross domestic product of the Fairbanks-North Star Borough. Between contractors and Kinross employees, Fort Knox accounts for approximately 4 percent of jobs in the Interior region. The company also received the Business of the Year award from the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce.

As of September 2022, Hecla’s Greens Creek mine, located on the City and Borough of Juneau’s slice of Admiralty Island, had produced 4.8 million ounces of silver, nearly 24,000 ounces of gold, 10,000 ounces of lead, and almost 26,000 ounces of zinc. Last year Hecla conducted underground drilling in the Southwest Bench, 200 South, East, and West ore zones focused on resource conversion and performed exploratory drilling in the East and Gallagher Fault block zones. Assay results from Southwest Bench, 200 South, East, West, and 9A areas confirm and expand the mineral zones.

The headframe adjacent to Ambler Metals’ camp at the Bornite copper-cobalt deposit, part of the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in the advanced exploration phase.

NANA

Also over the past year, Hecla Mining made a significant investment in infrastructure, working on a camp expansion and upgrade as well as the reconstruction or replacement of road bridges. Eighty-seven percent of the mine’s power was generated by hydro, which significantly reduced the operation’s carbon footprint. In partnership with Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, the company completed the longest automated underground truck haulage route in North America.

The company expects the US Forest Service to begin taking public comment in January on its Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a request to expand the mine’s tailings storage facility by approximately 13.7 acres. For the only mine operating inside a national monument, it’s a tricky project, but one that could extend Greens Creek’s operations for another decade. According to a Hecla spokesperson, “The expansion is designed to avoid any new Monument disturbance outside the existing lease boundary, avert any disturbance to the fish-bearing reaches of Tributary Creek, eliminate the need to construct a new, ‘remote’ tailings facility, and continue the use of a ‘dry-stack’ tailings disposal method.”

North of Juneau, Coeur Alaska’s Kensington Mine is the second largest private employer in the capital city, with more than 400 full-time employees.

In its 2022 second quarter report, Coeur Alaska anticipated full-year production to be 110,000 to 120,000 ounces of gold. Kensington’s gold production for the April-to-June quarter increased 23 percent versus the first quarter, driven by mill throughput that set a quarterly record.

Kensington Mine has been engaged in permitting efforts for the last several years. Coeur Alaska proposed an amendment to its Plan of Operations (POA 1) to increase tailings and waste rock storage capacity to reflect positive exploration results, improved metal prices, and ongoing operational efficiencies. On February 24, 2022, the US Forest Service released the final Record of Decision in support of POA 1. Coeur Alaska will continue to work with federal, state, and local regulators to execute the plan and permit associated facilities.

Coeur Mining, parent company of Coeur Alaska, increased its exploration investment for 2022 by approximately $11 million due to positive drilling results. The Q2 report states that approximately $1.6 million was invested in Kensington’s exploration efforts in the first half of 2022, and late 2022 exploration drilling is focused on continued expansion and infilling of Elmira, Johnson, Kensington, Jualin, and Raven targets.

The Red Dog Mine in summer 2019.

NANA

Because of its remote location, Kensington generates electricity from a diesel power plant. Coeur Alaska has a long history of advocating for hydropower, but until the Sweetheart Lake project south of Juneau is completed in 2025 or 2026, the company is trying to offset its carbon emissions by other means.

In 2021 Coeur Alaska committed $52,000 to the Juneau Carbon Offset Fund (JCOF), a special project of Renewable Juneau, a nonprofit that works toward clean energy for Juneau. The contribution divides into $35,000 to offset crew transport vessel emissions and to support heat pumps for lower income families and $17,000 for JCOF to seek third-party certification as an official carbon offset project. In 2021 Coeur Alaska’s contribution through JCOF helped to offset 1,572 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Coeur Alaska strengthened its commitment in 2022 by contributing another $50,000 to JCOF.

Pogo is an underground gold mine northeast of Delta Junction with a vast network of more than 90 miles of subterranean roads winding to depths more than 1,000 feet below the surface. The quartz veins yield an average of 0.5 troy ounces of gold per ton of rock, which makes Pogo a high-grade gold mine. The onsite mill processes up to 3,500 tons of ore daily.

The mine’s website notes that “extensive exploration efforts are underway to identify additional ore reserves” at Pogo, saying that the mine site shows five known deposits, but that “the extent of these deposits is not clearly defined, creating the possibility to extend the life of the mine. Pogo has a robust exploration program and the technical services team is working hard to ensure that Pogo will operate for many years into the future.”

Red Dog is one of the world’s largest zinc mines. It is located on land owned by NANA Corporation and is operated by Teck Resources Limited.

Approximately 80 percent of revenue from Red Dog derives from zinc. To turn the concentrate into metal, the material is shipped to smelters around the world, but only during open-water season. After October, concentrates are stockpiled near shore until ships return in the spring. So far in 2022, fifteen ships have carried away 700,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate.

With less than a decade left in Red Dog’s operational life, Teck is doing additional exploration on state land known as the Aktigiruq and Anarraaq (A&A) deposits. By further exploring these two zinc deposits, Teck will have a better idea of the zinc-lead content within each one. These studies will help determine the viability of potential mining, though it will take several more years to reach an investment decision.

As another part of the exploration program, Teck applied for a permit with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to build a 10-mile road extension to the A&A deposits, along with related facilities and bridges.

The entrance to Coeur Alaska’s Kensington Mine is nestled in a valley above Berners Bay, north of Juneau.

Coeur

“The biggest shift in Red Dog operations this summer has been increased social interaction made possible by looser COVID-19 restrictions given the state of the pandemic, which has increased employee morale,” says Elizabeth Rue, senior director of communications for NANA. “The pandemic brought restrictions that didn’t allow for much social interaction. That has shifted now with workers gathering again at tables in the dining room and using facilities like the gym.”

In continuous production since 1943, Usibelli Coal Mine in Healy is the state’s only operating coal mine, with an annual production of approximately 1 million tons of coal, which powers Alaska’s interior.

In 2021, Usibelli attained Phase III bond release for 367 acres of its Poker Flats area by successfully showing the diversity of vegetation coverage. The company had pledged $2.5 million for cleanup when mining began there nearly forty years earlier, and the completion of reclamation released the last $411,000 held by DNR. For his work, the company’s reclamation engineer, Rich Sivils, earned the 2022 Reclamationist of the Year award from the American Society of Reclamation Sciences.

Located in the upper Kuskokwim River region, Donlin Gold is one of the largest undeveloped open pit gold deposits in the world, with reserves estimated at 33.8 million ounces. Developers expect to produce 1.3 million ounces annually during its twenty-seven-year operational life.

The exploration budget for 2022 was the largest in a decade, based on 2021 drilling results. Barrick Gold and NOVAGOLD, which are 50/50 owners in the venture, say assay results from this summer’s drilling support recent modeling concepts and strategic mine planning work. The mine is being developed on land owned by Calista Corporation and The Kuskokwim Corporation, the joint corporation for ten villages in the region. All federal permits are in hand, as are all but a few state permits.

In May, the environmental law group Earthjustice filed suit on behalf of the Native Village of Eek and the Orutsararmiut Native Council, the tribal association for Bethel, challenging DNR’s decision to issue Donlin Gold twelve water sourcing permits.

Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) is proposing to develop the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry deposit in southwest Alaska as an open pit mine.

In July, a wildfire damaged some exploration equipment at a supply camp about 17 miles from the village of Iliamna. No one was injured, but the mishap followed a disappointment in May when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed determination to prohibit the discharge of mine waste into streams. That proposal is currently under appeal, as is the US Army Corps of Engineers’ permit denial from November 2020.

Kensington Mine extracts gold from the foot of Lion’s Head Mountain. Coeur Alaska is seeking to expand its tailings storage capacity to reflect Kensington’s improved output.

Coeur

Northern Dynasty Minerals has been the lone partner in PLP since 2014, when Rio Tinto relinquished $18 million in shares (originally purchased for ten times as much), gifting them to the Alaska Community Foundation and Bristol Bay Native Corporation’s Education Foundation. However, Northern Dynasty found a new investor in July. A private asset management company made a $9.4 million installment toward a two-year pledge of $47 million for the project. PLP says the new investment will move permitting forward.

Survey work, mapping, and sampling began in 2007 at Bokan-Dotson Ridge near the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island. In 2020 and 2021, developer Ucore Rare Metals conducted additional mineralogy and metallurgical studies for REEs. As early as next year, Ucore aims to begin building an ore separation facility in Ketchikan, at first processing REEs imported from Canada before extracting ore from its own mine.

Graphite Creek, north of Nome, is North America’s largest high-quality graphite deposit. Interest in graphite has grown in recent years due to its use in lithium-ion batteries and other high tech applications. Proposed annual production for the Graphite Creek project is more than 55,000 tonnes per year, with nearly 42,000 tonnes of battery-grade material produced each year.

Additional funding for the project was completed in February 2021, and the pre-feasibility study resumed in March 2021. A summer 2021 field program included infill and step out core drilling and additional core and sonic drilling for geotechnical data collection in the proposed mill site and dry tailings/waste rock storage area. The drill program generated additional information to update the resource model and provide technical data for the feasibility study. Other work included access route engineering, surface water and groundwater hydrology studies, wetlands mapping, and aquatic life surveys.

The Livengood gold project northwest of Fairbanks is the largest North American gold-only deposit by reserves that is not wholly owned by a major or producer, according to its developer, International Tower Hill Mines. A pre-feasibility study released in late 2021 includes a mine plan for enough ore to support an annual production rate of approximately 317,000 ounces per year over an estimated twenty-year mine life, producing a total of approximately 6.4 million ounces of gold.

The Niblack copper/gold/silver/zinc project, located 27 miles southwest of Ketchikan on Prince of Wales Island, comprises 6,200 acres of federal and state mineral claims and 250 acres of patented (private) lands and related mineral exploration permits. The site was mined from 1905 to 1908. Onsite infrastructure includes 3,300 feet of underground development, a water treatment plant and discharge system, a dock and barge camp, and 1.5 miles of road. In June, the US Forest Service authorized a surface exploration project plan of operations for the developer, Blackwolf Copper and Gold. The authorization allows for further drilling in unexplored areas.

An aerial view of Donlin Gold’s base camp, where workers not only eat and sleep but also inspect drilling cores to be shipped out for further analysis.

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

Far from the Matanuska Valley—nothing to do with it, really—Palmer VMS (volcanogenic massive sulfide, a type of ore deposit associated with ancient deep-sea volcanoes) is an advanced exploration project 37 miles from Haines. The project is operated by Constantine Metal Resources as a joint venture with majority partner Dowa Metals & Mining Co. and has two resources, the Palmer Deposit and the AG Zone Deposit. The two combined contain 4.68 million tonnes of indicated zinc equivalent and 9.59 million tonnes of inferred zinc equivalent. A preliminary economic assessment from 2019 was amended in March, but the amended technical report did not change the mineral resource estimates, economic analysis, conclusions, and recommendations.

East of NANA’s Kotzebue headquarters, the corporation has an exploration agreement and option to lease with Ambler Metals for the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP). Ambler Metals, a partnership between South32 and Trilogy Metals, began its summer field program for approximately 33,000 feet of drilling and around 4,000 soil samples. The copper, zinc, gold, lead, silver, and cobalt in the Ambler Mining District, including UKMP, may extend NANA’s revenue base beyond Red Dog.

The UKMP consists of a 448,217 acres of Native, state, and patented lands. The two most advanced projects are the feasibility-stage Arctic copper-zinc-lead-gold-silver VMS deposit and the Bornite copper-cobalt carbonate replacement project.

The 2022 exploration program was budgeted at approximately $28.5 million.

As of this month, the US Bureau of Land Management is concluding the public input phase of scoping for a new environmental review of a 211-mile access road to the Ambler Mining District from the Dalton Highway. A right-of-way through Gates of the Arctic National Park had been granted in 2020, but after the change of administrations, the Interior Department decided the environmental impact statement was insufficient.