U.S. Metals & Minerals Industry Boasts $116 Billion in Project Spending

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Industrial Info is tracking 909 active and unconfirmed projects in the U.S. Metals & Minerals Industry that have a total investment value (TIV) of almost $116 billion. An improving real estate market, a recovering automotive industry, and rapidly increasing demand from the booming domestic Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Industry are all helping the industry offset the effects of tumbling commodity prices, which are constraining--and sometimes eliminating--traditional domestic mining projects.

Almost half of the TIV--more than $56 billion--can be found in four states: Alaska, with 31 projects worth $21.8 billion; Arizona, with 41 projects worth $15.16 billion; Nevada, with 13 projects worth $13.08 billion; and Minnesota, with 18 projects worth $6.01 billion.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing active Metals & Minerals projects in the U.S. by region.

Alaska's largest project is Donlin Gold LLC's (Anchorage, Alaska) $5 billion construction of a gold mine and processing plant, which is to be located between Crooked Creek and Iditarod. The project, which is in its permitting stages, involves constructing a 158 million-ton-per-year open pit operation and a 59,000-ton-per-day flotation and pressure oxidation mill. Gold production is expected to reach 1.3 million ounces per year over a 27-year mine life. As currently scheduled, the project will kick off in about two years. Donlin Gold is equally owned by NOVAGOLD Resources (Vancouver, British Columbia) and Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX) (Toronto, Ontario).

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Arizona and Nevada are part of the Rocky Mountains region, which leads all other U.S. regions with 231 projects valued at $47.14 billion. One of the largest projects in Arizona is Rosemont Copper Company's (Tucson, Arizona) $1.23 billion construction of a copper-molybdenum mine and mill in Sahuarita. The project, also in its permitting stages, involves building a 27 million-ton-per-year open pit sulfide-ore mine, which eventually will be ramped up to 33 million tons per year. A 75,000-ton-per-day flotation plant also will be built, and ramped up to 90,000 tons per day by mid-mine life. The facility is expected to produce 243 million pounds per year of copper, 5.4 million pounds per year of molybdenum, and 2.9 million ounces per year of silver over a 21-year mine life.

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Although Minnesota is a distant fourth in TIV, it has one of the largest projects under construction: the $1.1 billion first phase of Essar Steel Minnesota LLC's (Hibbing, Minnesota) restart and pellet plant addition at the Butler Taconite Mine in Nashwauk. The mine site, which had been closed since 1985, will return to life with two taconite mining pits, a flotation ore-processing plant, and a 4.1 million-ton-per-year iron pellet production plant that will be expandable to 7 million tons per year. The new mine life is expected to last about 15 years. The project is part of a three-phase, $2.7 billion complex project that also includes a steel mill. Essar Steel Minnesota is a subsidiary of Essar Group (Mumbai, India).

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Roughly 78% of the TIV--more than $90.5 billion--is related to 447 projects that are still in the planning stages, which means that numerous factors could increase, decrease or eliminate the projected spending. Construction has begun on 370 projects with a TIV of almost $16 billion, while 92 projects with a TIV of about $9.5 billion are in the engineering stages.

Construction on 399 projects worth almost $31 billion is expected to kick off through July 2015. This represents a TIV increase from the same time frame at the beginning of the year, when $21.4 billion in projects were expected to kick off from January through December. For more information, see January 3, 2014, article - U.S. Metals & Minerals Industry Slates $21.4 Billion in Project Starts for 2014.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, three offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.