AlaskaReport.com




Red Dog Mine yields $200 million to Alaska Natives

November 26, 2007

The Red Dog Mine has finally turned a profit and Alaska Native companies may get $200 million annually from it.

The Red Dog Mine has finally turned a profit and Alaska Native companies may get $200 million annually from it.

By federal law, NANA keeps 38 percent of the royalties.

KOTZEBUE, Alaska -- Alaska Native companies may get $200 million from an 18-year-old Arctic zinc-lead mine that has finally turned a profit, mine officials said.

The money will come from Teck Cominco Ltd., a Vancouver, British Columbia, company that runs the Red Dog Mine near Kotzebue in the Brooks Range foothills of northwest Alaska, the officials said.

The mine, the world's largest producer of zinc concentrate, generated $2 billion in gross last year, due in part to a rise in zinc prices, the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News reported.

Teck will make the first of its 25 percent royalty payments on Red Dog net proceeds in January to the NANA Regional Corp., one of 13 Alaska Native regional corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 to settle aboriginal land claims.

The mine and concentrator properties -- the Northwest Arctic borough's largest employer -- are leased from NANA.

By federal law, NANA keeps 38 percent of the royalties and share the rest with Alaska's other Native corporations, the newspaper said.

The other regional corporations will get their share a little less than a year later, after NANA completes its fiscal year.


>