Greenland gold mine may start next year
A Toronto-based mining company, Crew Development, said this week that it may start production next year on Greenland’s first gold mine.
Crew said in a company statement that it believes the Nalunaq deposit, discovered in 1993, has potential well beyond what is reflected in its current estimates.
The Reuters news agency reported that the company will ship gold ore for processing to a plant outside of Greenland.
"We are considering processing the ore at a plant in Newfoundland, Canada, to begin with," Jon Steen Petersen, Crew’s vice-president of exploration, said in the Reuters report. "In two years’ time, we hope to be able to prove sufficient resources at the gold deposits to initiate processing in Greenland."
Crew owns 82 per cent of the company, while the Greenland firm NunaMineral, holds the remaining 18 per cent.
Nalunaq, on the southern tip of Greenland, is believed to contain a stockpile of about 20,000 ounces of gold.
The total measured and indicated resources are about 500,000 tonnes of gold ore with a gold content of 400,000 ounces or 12.4 tonnes, Petersen said.
Crew will soon release a final feasibility study on financial and technical aspects of the project.
Later this year, application for a mining licence is expected to be processed by Greenland officials.
Massive hydro project stirs controversy in Iceland
The New York Times reported this week that a massive hydroelectric project planned by Iceland’s state-owned power company is creating a major political controversy in the small circumpolar nation.
The $3-billion Karahnjukar hydro project is expected to create 2,000 construction jobs and between 600 and 1,000 permanent jobs.
The plan calls for the damming of two rivers, draining them through 24 miles of tunnels, and then pouring the water through turbines to generate 700 megawatts of electricity.
When finished, the plant would sell power to an aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminum company. Alcoa may invest $1 billion in the project.
Iceland’s economy, based on renewable resources industries like fishing, has been fading recently. Its tourism industry has not done well, either.
For that reason, the government hopes that the project will help keep Iceland’s dying rural towns populated.
The current plan was approved by 44 of the Iceland parliament’s 63 members, which included 12 members of the opposition. In a poll, 47 percent of Icelanders who responded supported the plan, and 30 percent opposed it.
Environmentalists are enraged because the project would be located in Europe’s second-largest wilderness area. Europe’s largest wilderness area is Norway’s Svarlbard Island, in the High Arctic.
Grizzly threat in the Yukon
The Associated Press reported this week that a 30-mile stretch of the Firth River that was closed to paddlers last week because of the threat of grizzly bears has been reopened.
The section was opened Monday, Ron Larsen, chief park warden in Ivvavik National Park, told AP.
The Firth River begins in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but is not navigable until Margaret Lake in the Yukon’s Ivvavik Park. From there, the river descends 80 miles northeast to the Arctic Ocean at Nunaluk Spit.
The section beginning at Sheep Creek was closed after 19 grizzlies were found feeding on 22 caribou carcasses in the area.
Earlier this month, caribou were crossing the Firth River, which had unusually high water levels, leaving 22 dead. On July 9, park wardens counted the 19 grizzlies feeding on the caribou and closed the river to paddlers.
Larsen said Ivvavik staff flew over the area on Friday and couldn’t locate bears in the area. On Sunday, two wardens began rafting down the closed section of the river. Larsen said the wardens sent a message that three caribou carcasses remained but the bears had left.
Last Friday, Larsen said it could be seven to 10 days before the river was reopened to paddlers.
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