www.AlaskaAlliance.com 2024 Meet Alaska Conference & Trade Show 27 Building Alaska for over 40 years • Heavy Civil • Oil Field • Marine Transportation • Camps PALMER: 907.746.3144 | DEADHORSE: 907.670.2506 | KENAI: 907.283.1085 ONLINE AT CRUZCONSTRUCT.COM Reducing the need for helicopter support was important to ensure the summer program stayed on track because there is typically a 30-40 percent downtime with helicopter operations due to weather and other factors, Schaffner said. The helicopters were often limited by low-visibility conditions in Nome, the main staging area for flights. Graphite One was also able to develop staging areas for equipment and supplies on the Kougarak Road (the Nome-Taylor highway) which also reduced reliance on helicopters. Graphite One now operates a 60man camp at the exploration site and another 24-person camp in Nome which helps support the exploration. The project site is 17 miles off Mile 28 of the Kougarak Road. Schaffner said completion of the mine in 2029 and the start of concentrate shipments will coincide with completion of the Nome deep water port project which is now underway. Nome now has a port with limited water depths, but the new project being built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will allow larger vessels to call at Nome. This will be a seasonal port similar to that serving the Red Dog Mine further north, with shipments made the summer open water season, Schaffner said. The logistics are one of the more complex parts of the project with a need to store up to 180,000 tons of concentrate at site or Nome though the winter until ice conditions allow for shipments to begin in late spring. Because of the light weight of the concentrate, the shipping will be done using containers, Schaffner said. The graphite produced and shipped from the mine will be in a concentrate that is about 95 percent graphite. It will be processed further in the Lower 48 to 99 percent graphite. Once in production, Graphite One is expected to employ about 100 to 150 in the mining operation, but when the shipping and logistics are added the number of jobs created is expected to reach about three hundred. An economic impact evaluation will be completed as part of the feasibility study by done by the end of the year. Graphite is now considered to be a strategic mineral for the U.S. because of its importance in high-technology products, from cellphones to drones, and because of that having domestic source of graphite is important to national security. Currently 95 percent of the graphite needed for batteries is produced and processed in China. China began producing graphite at a large scale in the 1990 with the aim of undercutting other sources and dominating the world supply of the material. The strategy has been successful. The last graphite mine in the U.S. shut down in 1996. — Tim Bradner
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