Winter has settled upon the mining explorers seeking mineral riches in the vast and underexplored lands of Alaska and northern Canada. Not only the annual return of the short cold days for which these mineral exploration companies are accustomed, but a deeper and longer lasting financial winter that is chilling investments these explorers depend on for equity financings to fund the search for metals that the world needs and wants.
The Far North reaches of North America is not the only region in the grip of this financial winter, but it does serve as a microcosm of the freezing of venture capital available to the sector around the globe.
“Neither retail nor professional investors have the capacity, or appetite, to fund equity raisings, and so equity markets remain constrained,” IntierraRMG, a global mining research firm, wrote in a May report.
The frozen equity markets are having a chilling effect on the banks accounts of mineral exploration companies.
“Cash holdings for the junior companies are now at critical levels (with overall cash balances of under US$10 billion for explorers). Many of the smaller companies will be unlikely to survive until the end of this year unless there is a dramatic reversal of fortune,” said IntierraRMG Editorial Director Chris Hinde.
Despite these inclement financial conditions, more than 50 companies mounted multimillion-dollar exploration programs at promising mineral projects across Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and northern British Columbia in 2013.
From the informative News Nuggets in our weekly online newsletter to the in-depth analysis in our monthly edition, North of 60 Mining News keeps readers up to date on the developments of these companies as well as the issues and events important to mining in Alaska and Canada’s Far North.
Drawing on this unparalleled coverage, we have compiled Mining Explorers 2013, the fifth edition of the annual magazine that delivers the most in-depth and comprehensive coverage of the exploration companies that invest in the future of Alaska and northern Canada.
To stay up-to-date on whether a break in the financial winter will come in time to provide a freshet of venture capital for the mining explorers seeking to unlock the vast mineral potential of Alaska and Canada’s North in 2014, please visit us at www.miningnewsnorth.com.
Thank you and I hope you enjoy Mining Explorers 2013.
—Shane Lasley, publisher, North of 60 Mining News
