Monday, April 30, 2012

No gold rush on Oregon's federal lands even with record prices

With mountain snows melting and gold prices at $1,620 per ounce, miners should be stampeding into Oregon's historic minerals districts around Baker City, Sumpter, Granite and Grants Pass. It's not happening. In fact, mining seems to be on the wane. Take previous hot spot Baker County: It has 802 active claims, down from 1,057 six years ago when gold brought $575 an ounce. Several factors appear to be dampening gold fever across Oregon. It takes seven to 10 years on average to get approval for a permit to develop a mine on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service or U.S. Bureau of Land Management, said Mark Compton, spokesman for the 2,000-member Northwest Mining Association in Spokane. "If we could improve the permitting time line, we would see more investment in the U.S. mining industry," Compton said. "That would lead to more jobs, as well as decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of minerals." The Metals Economics Group, which monitors mining companies worldwide, reported recently that only 8 percent of spending on minerals exploration occurs in the United States -- down from 20 percent in the 1990s. The U.S. is tied with Papua New Guinea for last place among the 25 leading nations where mining occurs because of permitting delays, according to Behre Dolbear Group Inc., minerals industry advisers. That's better than last year, when the U.S. was dead last...more

And just multiply that regulatory drag across our entire economy.  Way to go Feds.

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