More money for Ambler road
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority approved a further $700,000 cash infusion to complete permitting for the Ambler industrial road project. The road would be built if a mine is developed in the Ambler Mining District and the developers commit to tolls for use of the road to pay for bonds AIDEA would issue.

South32 option decision on Ambler
Australia-based South32 will decide in late January whether to exercise its $145 million option to become a 50-50 Joint Venture partner with Trilogy Metals in that company’s Ambler minerals program in the western Brooks Range. Included in the deal would be Arctic, a high-grade copper deposit; Bornite, a lower-grade deposit with large potential resources, and several other discovered prospects in the region.

Kensington’s mine life extension
Coeur Alaska said it could reach 124,000 ounces of gold at its Kensington Mine near Juneau this year, up from 82,000 ounces/year in 2012. Capacity of Kensington’s mill, through investment, has been increased from 400,000 tons per day in 2012 to 650,000 tons/day in 2018. With its current resource base and storage for waste rock the mine has three to four more years but new exploration and a planned expansion of storage could add at least a decade. Kensington employs 390 workers directly, spends $54 million in Juneau.

A significant achievement is reducing the 50 percent annual turnover that plagued Coeur at the mine startup to about 20 percent now.