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Nevada Mining

Editorial: Are Nevada’s gold mines near the end of the rainbow? (Elko Daily Free Press – August 1, 2018)

https://elkodaily.com/

There’s no doubt that gold drives northeastern Nevada’s economy. Most of us make a living either directly or indirectly on the strength of the mining industry. Often it is hard to tell which direction things are going, so we ask ourselves time and again: How long will it be before our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is empty?

This summer, Mining Quarterly editor Suzanne Featherston is taking a three-part look at that very question. Her series began two weekends ago with a study of the mining industry’s boom-and-bust past.

That was followed last weekend by an analysis of gold reserves in the state, and how long they are expected to last. And coming this weekend in part three, Featherston looks at the exploration side of mining to see who is searching for gold and where they are finding it.

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End of the rainbow II: Gold reserves in Nevada – by Suzanne Featherston (Elko Daily Free Press – July 29, 2018)

https://elkodaily.com/

ELKO — Production. Resources. Reserves. These are terms that help the mining industry define progress and prospects. Yet even with the best science, neither the past nor educated guesses can predict the exact future of mining.

Commenting about the future of mining is like forecasting the weather, said Nevada Mining Association President Dana Bennett, because so many factors can affect the outcome. With caution, people do analyze the data with the hopes of unearthing the mystery of the potentially profitable industry.

“Gold’s there. I suspect for a long time here in Nevada. It’s just we can’t put a number on it,” said John Dobra, a retired University of Nevada, Reno, professor of economics, specializing in resource and mineral economics. “Experience tells us there is a lot of it out there, and it’s kind of silly to think that we have found it all.”

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End of the rainbow: The future of gold mining in Nevada – by Suzanne Featherston (Elko Free Press – July 21, 2018)

https://elkodaily.com/

ELKO — Boom. Bust. Rush. Crash. These words are associated with the cyclical nature of the world’s minerals extraction industry known for making and breaking companies, economies, towns and fortunes.

Nevada – where mining has existed before statehood — has witnessed these ups and downs over time but now is experiencing a rather rare phenomenon in the mining industry.

“There has been a gold rush in Nevada for close to 50 years,” said John Muntean, an economic geologist and associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who works for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

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Barrick Gold has a problem: it is running out of gold – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – July 21, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It’s not just a Barrick problem, either: many major producers have seen their reserves fall dramatically, raising concerns of a supply shock

Gold financier Pierre Lassonde thought it was time to cash in his chips. Thanks to a smart investment in a Nevada gold mine, shares in his royalty company, Franco Nevada, which he ran alongside his buddy Seymour Schulich, had run up from 65 cents a share to $17. By early 1988, Mr. Lassonde was ready to sell the company.

But after talking to the geologist who discovered the mine, he had second thoughts. Brian Meikle told him there was a humongous ore body yet to be exploited. “The discovery of three lifetimes” is how he described it. Similar logic had persuaded Barrick Gold Corp.’s Peter Munk and Bob Smith to buy the property about a year earlier.

That conversation with Mr. Meikle was a defining moment for Mr. Lassonde. He decided to hold on to the company. “[Franco] bought it for $2-million,” he said of the royalty on the mine. “If I had known, I would have bought it personally.” Given the wonderfully apt name Goldstrike, the mine would become one of the biggest in history. Since 1987, it has produced more than 45 million ounces of gold. Franco’s investment has yielded more than a billion dollars.

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New mines accelerated at Barrick’s South Arturo – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – June 27, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Development work and construction of the Phase 1 openpit and the El Nino underground mine at Barrick Gold’s South Arturo operation, in Nevada, have been accelerated, setting the stage for some production from both operations later in 2018, partner Premier Gold Mines said on Wednesday.

The Phase 1 project will be the first openpit mine operated by Barrick using autonomous mining equipment, which Premier said would create an opportunity for reduced mining costs and improved safety.

The joint venture (JV), in which Barrick holds 60% and is the operator, has budgeted $90-million for the entire project, with development capital in 2018 amounting to $17-million.

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Nevada continues to be top gold producer in the nation – by Suzanne Featherston (Elko Daily Free Press – June 7, 2018)

https://elkodaily.com/

CARSON CITY — Gold production in Nevada increased more than 3 percent in 2017 compared to last year while gold prices were up slightly, according to reports released in May by the Nevada Division of Minerals.

Nevada’s mines produced 5.64 million ounces of gold in 2017. This total was up 3.2 percent from the 2016 production level of 5.47 million ounces. The average annual price of gold increased slightly from $1,251 per ounce in 2016 to $1,257 per ounce in 2017.

Nevada continues to be the nation’s top gold-producing state, contributing 72 percent of the total U.S. gold production in 2017 of 7.88 million ounces, as reported by the U.S. Geological Survey.

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The Mining Millionaire Americans Couldn’t Help But Love – by Gregory Crouch (Smithsonian Magazine – June 6, 2018)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/

Unlike the other one-percenters of his age, John Mackay gained his countrymen’s admiration. But in an ironic twist, it means he’s little known today

John Mackay’s was once the most beloved rags-to-riches story in America. A penniless Irish immigrant brought to New York City as a child, he’d risen from the infamous Five Points, the nation’s most notorious slum.

When Mackay sailed from New York en route to California in 1851, he had no name, no money, and not a single influential friend on earth. He’d possessed nothing but strong arms, a clear head, and a legendary capacity for hard work. In the eyes of the times, his road to riches had made no man poorer, and few begrudged him his success.

But in part because of his likability and unsullied reputation, John Mackay is mostly forgotten today. In contrast to titans of industry like Andrew Carnegie or railroad magnate and telegraph cable monopolist Jay Gould, who Mackay would famously defeat, Mackay commanded the admiration of people worldwide.

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Gold Giant Barrick Faces Grilling After Fall to Bottom of Pack – by Daniel Bochove (February 12, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. executives will have some explaining to do when the company releases full-year results Wednesday.

Even with rising gold prices and a strengthened balance sheet, the world’s largest gold producer left shareholders with the worst returns among its top North American peers last year and the third-worst performance in the 15-company BI Global Senior Gold Valuation Peers index.

That’s a sharp reversal of the heady gains a year earlier when the Toronto-based company appeared unable to put a foot wrong. In 2016, Barrick’s Canadian shares soared 110 percent as it unveiled a sweeping plan to streamline the company. That same year its biggest rival, Newmont Mining Corp., rose 89 percent.

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Nevada mining industry to spend hundreds of millions in 2018 on expansion – by Rob Sabo (Northern Nevada Business Weekly – January 15, 2018)

Northern Nevada Business Weekly

ELKO, Nev. — Northern Nevada’s largest gold mining companies remain bullish on their operations in Northern Nevada for 2018 and beyond. Newmont Mining Corp. and Barrick Gold North America continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of development capital into surface and underground mining operations in Nevada.

The price of gold rose from $1,158 an ounce in January of 2017 to just under $1,350 an ounce in January of the new year — a figure that justifies continued investment in both companies’ Northern Nevada operations. Nigel Bain, executive director of Barrick’s U.S. operations, says the company has several major developments and infrastructure improvements slated for 2018.

CORTEZ HILLS UNDERGROUND EXPANSION

Workers on Barrick’s Deep South project will continue developing deeper access declines underneath the company’s existing underground mining activities at Cortez Hills, part of the Cortez mine area, which is the largest gold mining complex in the state of Nevada.

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Barrick, Premier ink wide-ranging Nevada focused exploration, development pact – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – January 10, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Gold major Barrick Gold has signed a comprehensive exploration and development agreement with Premier Gold Mines that include toll-milling and exploration earn-in options for both companies at the McCoy-Cove and Rye projects.

Premier announced on Wednesday that, under the terms of the agreement, Barrick will have an option to earn a 60% interest in the exploration portion of its McCoy-Cove property (the joint venture (JV) property) by spending $22.5-million in exploration before June 30, 2022.

Further, Premier will retain 100% ownership over the Cove deposit portion of the McCoy-Cove property, which includes the high-grade Helen, 2201 and CSD/CSD Gap deposits. Premier will also secure a one-time bulk sample processing arrangement for the planned test-mining programme at its 100%-owned portion of the McCoy-Cove property.

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Great Deposits – The Comstock Lode – by Andrew Watson (Geology For Investors – November 2017)

 

https://www.geologyforinvestors.com/

Flying over Nevada on a clear day is one of the great joys of being an economic geologist. The Basin and Range country has abundant structural features, intrusions, deformed bedding and pits and plenty to keep one occupied.

Every so often the occasional grid drilling pattern, hinting of what will or what just didn’t quite comes into view. The driver is of course gold, with Nevada dominating US gold production claiming 78% of the total. The perceptive might wonder why then is it called the “Silver State” – the answer is the Comstock Lode.

Like all great deposits, the Comstock Lode did many things; it broke Nevada away from Utah, it pushed mining technology ahead by leaps and bounds, it was critical in kick-starting the study of hydrothermal alteration, it brought the first elevator to Nevada, and it made a few people very, very rich.

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Barrick’s Digital Reinvention Takes Shape in a Nevada Desert – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – October 30, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Elko, Nevada is no Silicon Valley. A recent front-page story in the local paper hailed inductees to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame, a nod to the town’s cowboy past. Inside, a full-page spread detailed the aspirations of the kids vying for homecoming king and queen.

Yet it’s here, in an unremarkable warehouse in the foothills of the Ruby Mountains, that Barrick Gold Corp. has created an in-house coding hub to design software for its nearby Cortez operation — one step in its plan to use technology to revolutionize the business.

From underground WiFi to sensors that track the output of every miner, it’s all part of what Cisco Systems Inc. Executive Chairman John Chambers calls an “audacious goal” by his Barrick counterpart John Thornton to drag gold mining into the 21st century.

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State’s Abandoned Mine Lands program looks back on 30 years – by Adella Harding (Elko Daily Free Press – September 7, 2017)

http://elkodaily.com/

Thousands of potentially dangerous deserted mine workings from the past dot Nevada’s landscape, but the state’s Abandoned Mine Lands program has been securing these sites for 30 years, decreasing related accidents and fatalities.

Over the years, people have fallen into old mines or drowned in old pit lakes, but there have been no reported accidents at abandoned mines in more than three years, thanks in part to the program. “These aren’t playgrounds,” said Robert Ghiglieri, chief of the abandoned mines program for the Nevada Division of Minerals. “It’s not worth the risk to go into these.”

From 1961 to 2011, 20 people died in accidents at abandoned mine sites. The last fatality occurred March 2011, when a 28-year-old man fell 190 feet down a mine shaft in Pershing County. The last reported abandoned mine accident was in 2013, when a 17-year-old male incurred minor injuries in a fall down a 60-foot mine shaft in Lyon County.

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Agreement between Western Shoshone and Barrick mining benefits both – by Sally Roberts (Northern Nevada Business Weekly – July 10, 2017)

Hostilities have long persisted between Nevada’s mining companies and the state’s Native American population. That was particularly true in the Elko area in the early years of this century.

“There were many many years of bad, difficult communications with Placer Dome, which had a different way of approaching the concerns of the Western Shoshone,” remembers Brian Mason, a member of the Western Shoshone, and now program manager of Native American Affairs for Barrick Gold Corporation.

Mason began his work in mining with Placer Dome’s environmental restoration department. Whenever Placer Dome opened the permitting process for a project, which includes public comment, it faced 200 to 300 objections from tribal members, he said. That led to lawsuits and court delays.

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[Klondex Mines/Nevada] Reprieve for an Ancient Site: A Mining Company and a Tribe Find a Way to Work Together – by Stephanie Woodard (In These Times.com – July 3, 2017)

http://inthesetimes.com/

Preparations are underway to hand over to Western Shoshones 3,269 acres of Native sacred sites in Nevada. “We’ll have prayers, dancing, drumming and food,” says Joseph Holley, councilman and former chairman of the Battle Mountain Band of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshones, in Nevada. “There will be time for Paul to talk about what’s been happening over the past eight years and how he is helping us protect this place.”

Holley is referring to Paul Huet, the chief executive officer of Klondex Mines, a Canadian firm that in late 2016 purchased an existing gold-mining operation within a Western Shoshone cultural landscape called Tosawihi (pronounced DOS-a-wee). Purchased as part of the mining deal, the portion that Klondex will hand over to the Battle Mountain Band on August 18 is a spiritual hub.

Though 83 percent of Nevada is owned by the federal government, the Klondex purchase and handover of this unusual tract will allow it to remain privately owned by those who value it most. The Battle Mountain Band will hold and administer the lands on behalf of all Shoshones, according to Holley.

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