Mineral prices, policies, and perceptions draw gaze North.
As gold and silver prices climbed into uncharted territory, the energy and tech sectors demanded unprecedented quantities of minerals, and securing domestic supplies of those minerals was elevated to a national priority – mining companies, investors, and Washington lawmakers looked north to Alaska’s unmatched mineral potential in 2025.
“Strategically, Alaska is one of the most important states for our nation, with its location, minerals, land, and natural resource assets,” Congressman Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) said during an August tour of Alaska with colleagues from the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.
Long known for the rich stores of gold that drew a stampede of prospectors north at the close of the 19th century, Alaska is also enriched with more than 50 minerals critical to America’s economy and national security. Its vast endowment is legendary among mining executives, who ranked Alaska as the world’s richest mineral jurisdiction in the latest Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies.
That reputation also resonates in Washington.
“It’s an economic gold mine, so to speak,” Trump said upon the October signing of an executive order reinstating the permits to build a 211-mile road that will connect the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska to U.S. supply chains.
The reauthorization of the Ambler Road is a follow-up on a vow made by President Trump to “maximize Alaska’s mining potential” during a video address the day after he was elected for his second term in the Oval Office.
During a U.S. House hearing in September on “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” Alaska Miners Association Executive Director Deantha Skibinski reminded lawmakers that the state’s world-class mineral enrichment is matched by an equally strong environmental, safety, and operational track record.
“With its impressive mineral endowment, superb environmental performance, a workforce with remarkable labor and safety standards, and significant economic benefits, Alaska is the place to start to make our nation a mineral production powerhouse,” she said.
Extraordinary potential for the nation
While the total value of Alaska’s 2025 mineral production is still being tallied, it is expected that mines across the state produced more than $5 billion worth of gold, zinc, silver, lead, germanium, and industrial minerals last year.
From Teck Resources Ltd.’s world-class Red Dog zinc mine in the far Northwest to Hecla Mining Company’s 9-million-ounce-per-year Greens Creek silver mine on the Southeast Alaska Panhandle, these operations serve as economic hubs in remote regions where few alternatives exist.
Key economic contributions from Alaska’s mining sector include:
• $1.8 billion spent on goods and services to support Alaska’s mines, with $1.1 billion directly to Alaska businesses.
• $145 million in local and state government revenues.
• $240 million in royalty payments to Alaska Native corporations, bringing the cumulative total to $3.6 billion since 1989.
• 12,400 total direct, indirect, and induced jobs by the mining sector, paying an average wage of $123,000 – twice the state average.
In addition to being an important and growing sector of the state’s economy, Alaska mines currently provide significant domestic supplies of five of the commodities on the 2025 list of minerals critical to the U.S. – antimony, germanium, lead, silver, and zinc. (The Greens Creek mine also produces a modest copper byproduct.) That list is poised to grow as exploration companies advance projects enriched with cobalt, copper, gallium, graphite, nickel, niobium, PGMs, rare earth elements, and tin.
“Alaska is an extraordinary state with the ability to significantly contribute to our country’s prosperity,” Skibinski testified to Congress.
Streamlining Alaska permitting
Despite its geological promise, Alaska’s ability to contribute to U.S. mineral security is constrained by a national permitting system widely viewed as slow, unpredictable, and prone to litigation.
“Alaska holds some of the world’s most important mineral deposits, but federal permitting remains a big obstacle to putting these resources to work,” said Skibinski.
A 2024 S&P Global study found it takes an average of 29 years to move a mine from discovery to production in the U.S. – second only to Zambia – and much of that timeline stems from federal permitting and post-permitting legal challenges. Industry insiders commonly refer to this multi-decade ordeal as “permitting purgatory.”
To address this, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to leverage FAST-41, a framework created in 2015 to improve the transparency and timeliness of large-project permitting.
Alaska expanded on this federal framework through a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Permitting Council to align state and federal decision-making and reduce duplicative reviews.
“Alaska is heavily reliant on cooperation with the federal government and its agencies. The FAST-41 process is critical to shorten timelines and add certainty to permitting,” said Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, calling the initiative a pilot for similar coordination nationwide. “Let’s start it here, but let’s expand it across the country to all the states.”
Roads to Alaska resources
Infrastructure – the other historic barrier to developing Alaska’s mineral wealth – is also receiving renewed attention. Despite spanning 665,400 square miles, Alaska has roughly 36,000 miles of roads, similar to New Hampshire, which is just 1/70th its size.
This leaves vast mineral-rich regions far from land or marine transport routes, significantly affecting project economics, particularly for bulk commodities like copper and zinc.
The state is pushing ahead with infrastructure projects that will connect two of Alaska’s most mineral-rich regions to the state’s nascent highway system – the Ambler Road in Northwest Alaska and the West Susitna Road in Southcentral. And policymakers in
Washington and Juneau are doing their part to help ensure those connections are made.
The Ambler Road – a 211-mile industrial access project that would connect the Ambler Mining District to Alaska’s Highway system about 250 miles north of Fairbanks – has been considered an important asset to Alaska and the nation for more than 50 years.
This district hosts two near-development mine projects and dozens of other exploration targets enriched with high-grade copper, zinc, silver, gold, cobalt, germanium, gallium, and other minerals critical to America’s economic well-being and national security.
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) intends to fund, permit, and build the Ambler Road, and then recoup its costs and generate revenues for the state through tolls – following the same model used successfully for the Delong Mountain Transportation System that has delivered zinc, lead, silver, and germanium from Red Dog for nearly 40 years.
AIDEA also leads development of most of the 100-mile West Susitna Road, which would open a district west of Anchorage enriched with gold, copper, silver, and high-grade antimony. The road has drawn support from local, state, national, and international officials.
“Reliable road access means a stronger local economy and more opportunities for recreation and responsible development,” said Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Borough Mayor Edna DeVries.
Unleashing the Ambler District
Few Alaska projects illustrate the convergence of policy, geology, and national security as clearly as those found in the Ambler District.
Congress mandated access to the Ambler region in the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Federal agencies approved the required permits during Trump’s first term, but those permits were later withdrawn. Eight months after returning to the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to reinstate them.
“Now we’re starting again – and this time we have plenty of time to get it done, and it’s going to be done properly,” the president said in October.
The district hosts deposits enriched with more than 9 billion pounds of copper and 3 billion lb of zinc, along with substantial silver, gold, lead, cobalt, gallium, and germanium.
“The road will provide access to a mining district that has the potential to strengthen the United States’ ability to secure domestic supplies of copper and other critical minerals essential to national defense, energy infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and the rapid growth of AI data centers,” said Trilogy Metals President and CEO Tony Giardin
On the same day the White House reauthorized the road, the U.S. Department of War purchased a 10% stake in Trilogy Metals Inc. – one of the most direct federal equity investments in a U.S. mining company to date.
With White House and Pentagon support, Giardini says, “The Ambler Mining District is ready to play a vital role in supporting America’s strategic and technological leadership.”
A West-Su antimony mission
While the West Susitna Road itself does not require federal intervention, the high-grade antimony found at the terminus of the proposed western extension of Alaska’s highway system has drawn intense Pentagon interest.
Antimony is essential for ammunition, flame retardants, night vision equipment, and other defense and industrial applications – and Beijing’s restrictions on the exports of Chinese antimony to the U.S. have sharply escalated supply concerns.
“China and Russia control the market for antimony and all its derivatives, putting the United States at risk of interruptions that could jeopardize national security,” Jeffrey Frankston, acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Resilience, said in October.
In response, the Pentagon has turned to high-grade stibnite – an antimony mineral – deposits in Alaska, including Nova Minerals’ Estelle project.
In October, the Department of War awarded Nova subsidiary Alaska Range Resources a $43.4 million DPA Title III grant to mine high-grade antimony at Estelle and refine it into military-grade antimony trisulfide at a new facility planned for the Port MacKenzie industrial area just west of Anchorage.
“This is a defining moment for Nova Minerals and for U.S. critical mineral independence,” said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen, who expects deliveries to begin by 2027.
Fairbanks-area antimony
Nova will not be the only company poised to deliver high-grade Alaska antimony into 21st-century American supply chains – United States Antimony Corp. and Felix Gold Ltd. are both rapidly advancing stibnite mining projects on the outskirts of Fairbanks.
U.S. Antimony, which secured a War Department contract for the delivery of up to $245 million of antimony metal bars destined for the National Defense Stockpile, has identified and secured properties in Alaska enriched with high-grade stibnite that could provide feedstock for its antimony refinery in Montana.
The first ore is expected to be delivered from Mohawk, the site of a past-producing gold mine on the outskirts of Fairbanks. Because of the very high-grade nature of the stibnite, Mohawk will be closer to a small quarry than a traditional mine.
The small environmental footprint is expected to allow U.S. Antimony to deliver antimony metal refined from Mohawk ore to national stockpiles under its DLA contract.
“It’s incredibly meaningful for all our employees to play such a strategic role in strengthening our nation’s defense readiness,” said U.S. Antimony Chairman and CEO Gary Evans.
At the same time, Felix Gold is rapidly advancing toward the establishment of a mine at its Treasure Creek project about 15 miles north of Fairbanks that can begin delivering military-grade antimony into U.S. supply chains in the coming months.
“The grades we’re seeing allow us to operate at production scale with minimal environmental footprint,” said Felix Gold Director Joe Webb. “The starting operational approach is straightforward: excavate, hand-sort, bag ultra-high-purity stibnite, stockpile, and ship it to our own U.S. smelter once operational.”
This hand-sorting startup operation is reminiscent of historic production at Scrafford, a mine on Felix’s Treasure Creek property that produced an estimated 2.4 million lb of antimony from ore averaging 38.6% stibnite.
Samples with grades as high as 50.26% antimony have been collected from trenches dug at NW Array, an emerging deposit about one mile east of the historic Scrafford Mine.
As drilling traces these high-grade veins to depth, Felix Gold is executing its plan to scale up antimony production at NW Array.
This plan begins with the collection of a 1,600 metric ton bulk sample of some of the highest-grade antimony exposed in trenches at the NW Array, which the company plans to expand into a 5,000-metric-ton-per-year antimony mine early this year.
Alaska anchors U.S. graphite
Antimony is not the only critical mineral in Alaska receiving top-level federal attention. In 2023, the Pentagon awarded Graphite One a $37.5 million DPA Title III grant to accelerate feasibility studies for developing a mine at Graphite Creek – the largest graphite deposit in the U.S.
The resulting study outlines a 20-year operation producing 175,000 metric tons of graphite per year, supported by a processing and manufacturing facility in Ohio that will refine the concentrates shipped from Alaska into materials for lithium-ion batteries and other commercial graphite products.
In November, Graphite One reported that garnet-bearing schist within the planned mining area hosts elevated levels of five of the rare earths used in powerful permanent magnets – neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and samarium – along with scandium and yttrium used in high-performance alloys.
The company is now investigating the potential of recovering the rare earths found alongside the graphite.
“The presence of two Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III materials – graphite and REEs – in a single deposit further underscores Graphite Creek’s position as a truly generational deposit,” said Graphite One President Anthony Huston.
With the Pentagon grant accelerating Graphite Creek to the feasibility stage, other federal agencies have now stepped up to carry that momentum through permitting and mine development.
In mid-2025, Graphite Creek was approved for streamlined permitting under the federal FAST-41 program.
After coordinating with the federal agencies involved in permitting Graphite Creek, the Permitting Council outlined a 13.5-month permitting timeline, putting the project on track for a federal permitting decision in September.
As Graphite Creek permits were moving through the FAST-41 process, the Export‑Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) invited Graphite One to apply for a $670 million loan to build a mine at the western Alaska project.
If approved, the loan would cover more than 60% of the estimated $1.1 billion needed to build a mine at Graphite Creek.
Huston says the federal support for Graphite Creek, “underscores the U.S. government’s keen understanding of the urgency to end the United States’ 100% dependence of foreign sources of graphite supply.”
Metals policies, prices converge
The surge in federal support for Alaska mining projects coincides with a historic bull market in metals, adding fuel to the building momentum for mining across the Last Frontier.
Gold, silver, and copper – three pillars of the current value and future growth for Alaska mining – have all reached record levels in 2025.
Gold soared roughly 65% in 2025, breaching $4,500 per ounce amid safehaven buying and inflation pressures, and silver rocketed more than 150%, to a high of $80 per ounce, fueled by industrial demand and investor speculation.
Copper, the essential metal of electrification, hit an all-time high of $5.84 per pound before year’s end – a price that supports both mine expansion and new development.
Antimony, propelled by supply shocks and defense demand, surged more than 500% over two years to about $27 per pound.
These are likely not short-term spikes but signs of a structural realignment of global metals markets – one where Alaska’s resources are increasingly central to both U.S. economic policy and industrial strategy.
Projects like Donlin Gold, Graphite Creek, Ambler Metals, and Estelle are building on the foundation of Alaska’s current $5 billion mining industry, opening the door for a larger pipeline of production that could redefine Alaska’s role in the nation’s mineral independence.
With the White House, Pentagon, and industry aligned on the need for secure domestic mineral supply chains, Alaska’s mining sector appears to have reached a long-anticipated inflection point – where policy, price, and mineral potential have finally converged.
“It is now up to us Alaskans to execute a strategy of energy and mineral self-sufficiency while maintaining our high standards to protect our people and our environment – something that we have a demonstrated track record of achieving,” Van Nieuwenhuyse told North of 60 Mining News.
By – https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/story/2026/01/15/mining-explorers-2025/stars-align-for-alaskas-mining-industry/9474.html