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Getting coal, minerals on the right track Alaska Miners Association chief proposes 400-mile rail line to haul stranded coal, minerals to Red Dog port or Nome Patricia Jones Petroleum News Contributing Writer
Northwest Alaska contains vast reserves of high-quality coal, an energy source considered “stranded” by a lack of transportation infrastructure.
In an April 11 energy research workshop at the University of Alaska Fairbanks the executive director of the Alaska Miners Association presented a rail-based transportation plan to access those coal fields and other mineral deposits in the western part of the Brooks Range. Steve Borell’s industrial transportation plan involves a 400-mile rail system stretching from the Native-owned Aluaq coal project near Cape Beaufort, south through Kotzebue and across the Seward Peninsula to Nome.
His proposed route also would connect with the existing state-developed road and ship-loading system used by the Red Dog lead and zinc mine, offering the proposed rail system additional industrial usage.
Borell said his suggested route does not cross any existing federal conservation systems.
“We need to define the right of way and lock it down tight so it cannot be violated by any future state or federal set-asides,” he said.
No endorsements — yet His rail idea, dubbed the “Brooks Range to Norton Sound Railroad,” hasn’t been endorsed by companies, Native corporations and communities in the region. They “may be aware of some parts of this presentation, but nothing more,” he said.
Borell told Petroleum News that the Murkowski administration has previously discussed the need for a rail line to access mineral and coal deposits in northwestern Alaska.
“This should be the route,” he said. Benefits to Red Dog His concept involves more than hauling coal. Included on his list of potential users is Red Dog Mine, which needs economical power for its mill and additional ore-loading capacity at its port.
Currently, Red Dog produces its own power using diesel-fired generators that consume 17 to 18 million gallons of fuel a year. “They must lower their costs … for survival,” Borell said. Being able to purchase power from a coal-fired power plant built at the new mine and operated on a regional basis could greatly help Alaska’s largest mine.
Red Dog’s port also is operating nearly at capacity due to seasonal restrictions on shipping lead and zinc concentrate. During the three to four months of ice-free shipping, shallow-draft barges are loaded with ore from the existing dock, then ferried and reloaded onto deeper-draft, ocean-going ships. This creates a bottleneck, Borell said.
To eliminate the bottleneck, “the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) the port owner, and the Corps of Engineers are studying the direct loading of ocean-going ships by extending the loading trestle and dredging a deep-draft channel 16,701 feet in length and a deep-sea berth and turning basin 3,485 feet in length,” he said.
Borell thinks the expanded port facilities could also be used for some limited coal shipments but he believes that a ship loading trestle at Nome will be required in the long term. Gravel sales possible Other industrial users could include villages needing economical freight shipping and power and Western Alaska gravel producers.
“San Francisco International Airport alone will need more than 60 million tons of gravel over the next 10 years for construction,” Borell said. “In California, it’s not possible politically to mine gravel. Today, that resource comes from British Columbia, but it could come from Alaska.”
Nome, which Borell believes could be the end of the rail line, already has vast stockpiles of gravel — old mining tailings — that could be shipped to the West Coast.
Nome also has considerable privately owned land available for rail and a port development, he said, including about 14,000 acres held by NovaGold Resources, a mineral exploration firm. Needs Native support His proposed rail transportation system first needs local support, Borell said. “It must have acceptance by the Native peoples in the area. Without that, it cannot proceed.”
Arctic Slope Regional Corp. currently is working to develop its Aluaq project, located within the Deadfall Syncline. State geologists have identified 500 million tons of high-quality coal in that occurrence, with 5 billion tons possible.
“Husky Oil drilled for oil in NPR-A to the east of Aluaq in the 1970s,” Borell said. “They found coal in every hole, some with massive coal seams 200 feet thick.”
But one coal mine — even one that could produce 10 million tons a year for 30 years and operate a coal-fired regional power plant — wouldn’t be enough to warrant building a rail line.
Borell suggested ASRC lease out or develop four or more additional areas — properties with potential for comparable levels of coal production. “It would take that kind volume and quantity to justify the railroad.”
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