U.S. GoldMining Inc. was honored to host United States Congressman, Nick Begich on a site visit to its 100% owned Whistler Gold-Copper Project (the “Whistler Project” or “Project“) on September 21, 2025. Rep. Begich represents the State of Alaska in the House of Representatives and is a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The visit reflects ongoing national-level interest in responsible resource development opportunities in Alaska’s West Susitna Mineral District, including the Whistler Project.
Rep. Begich’s visit follows Senator Lisa Murkowski’s tour of the Whistler Project in August 2025, further underscoring the importance Alaska’s congressional delegation is placing on the State’s resource opportunities. During his tour, Rep. Begich met with members of the Company’s technical and operational teams, who shared updates on its ongoing work at Whistler, including both district-scale exploration activities and advancement of the Project’s PEA (previously announced on June 9, 2025).
New Mexico doubled oil production from 2019 to 2024, reaching over 2M barrels/day.
Texas remains the top oil-producing state with 5.7M barrels/day, leading the Permian Basin output.
The U.S. is in the midst of a historic oil boom. For the past two years, the country has set oil production records, hitting over 13 million barrels of crude per day in 2024. This visualization maps oil production by state, highlighting where energy extraction is most concentrated. The data for this map comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Texas and New Mexico Dominate
Texas leads the nation by a wide margin, producing 5.7 million barrels per day in 2024.
Northern Dynasty Minerals (says it has received another $12 million payment from its royalty investor while it continues to have talks with the US government on the approval of the company’s flagship Pebble project in Alaska.
The payment is part of a royalty financing agreement signed with an unnamed investor in July 2022 for Pebble, touted as one of the world’s largest copper-gold-molybdenum resources. However, the proposed mine has faced stern local opposition and undergone a protracted period of review due to its location near the Bristol Bay watershed, where some of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fisheries reside.
Under the royalty agreement, the investor can make five payments to the company totaling $60 million. The latest payment represents the fourth tranche, bringing the total royalty investment to date to $48 million. The maximum payment would give the investor the right to purchase 10% of the payable gold production and 30% of payable silver production from the Pebble project.
“We appreciate the continued support from our royalty investor and are pleased to see the fourth payment of $12 million completed,” said Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty’s president and CEO, in a press release.
“This $12 million investment, when combined with the several million dollars of inflow from the exercise of stock options and warrants this summer, and when added to our second quarter closing cash balance of C$25.2 million ($18.5 million), gives us a strong treasury position as we move the project forward.”
Want an update on the mess California has made of its once robust oil and gas industry?
The federal court decision may end an 11 year legal dispute and could have significant implications for state oil and gas revenue.
A U.S. District Court judge in Anchorage has ruled against the state of Alaska in an 11-year-old legal dispute that has significant implications for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and state finances.
There are 20,000 acres of potentially oil-rich land between the two waterways, and the state of Alaska had sought ownership of the area — sited just to the east of the Prudhoe Bay oil field — for oil and gas drilling.
While the federal government is now advancing plans for oil and gas leasing in the disputed area, the decision to keep it under federal control means that if oil and gas are discovered there, the state of Alaska would receive far less revenue than it would if it were state-owned land.
The Trump administration is exploring ways to bring the Alaska project to fruition given its struggles to attract funding.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday the Trump administration will “probably” offer federal government credit support to a proposed massive liquefied natural gas pipeline project in Alaska.
Such a move would ratchet up the U.S. government’s already deep involvement in getting the Alaska LNG project started despite its struggles to attract private-sector investors. The 800-mile $44 billion pipeline would bring natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope south to a proposed facility to process it into LNG for Asian markets.
“I’m sure it’ll likely be some mix of American companies, Asian companies,” Wright said of the potential financiers during a New York City press conference. “The U.S. government will probably support it a little bit, from my department, with credit support or whatever.”
Wright called the project an economic and geopolitical priority for Trump, noting it would supply allies in East Asia with energy. He said the “prospects for Alaska LNG look quite strong,” predicting construction could begin in about 12 months.
Continues drilling deep into the 2025 season; focuses on an inaugural gold resource for Chicken Mountain.
Tectonic Metals Inc. Sept. 25 announced that it is in the midst of a phase-two 2025 drill program at Flat focused on defining and expanding the extensive gold mineralization outlined so far on this project in an area of Southwest Alaska that has produced more than 1.4 million ounces of placer gold.
Lying about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the 39-million-ounce Donlin Gold project, Flat is a 99,840-acre package of predominantly Alaska Native land owned by Doyon Ltd. in the Flat Mining District, the third richest gold mining jurisdiction in Alaska.
Tectonic’s current drilling is focused on Chicken Mountain, a roughly four-by-3.7-mile geophysical and geochemical anomaly that is drained by five creeks that have produced nearly 1 million oz of placer gold.
So far, 87 holes have been drilled along a roughly 1.9-mile stretch of the Chicken Mountain intrusion, all of which have cut gold mineralization.
Scale and innovation are essential to staying competitive in the oil and natural gas industry, particularly in unconventional plays, according to ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance. In a wide-ranging interview, Lance said OPEC+ will capture market share as US shale output plateaus and pointed to LNG and conventional projects in Alaska, Canada, Brazil, Guiana and beyond as critical for meeting future demand and supporting ConocoPhillips’ long-term growth. He also highlighted how operational efficiencies, such as improving the ratio of frack spreads to rig lines, enable the company to manage capital intensity and offset natural production declines.
From Our Friends at the American Petroleum Institute
bp no longer expects global oil demand to peak this year, projecting growth through the 2030s instead. In its latest Energy Outlook, the oil major forecasts demand reaching 103.4 million barrels a day by 2030. @bp_plc#oildemand#energyoutlook
Energy Secretary Chris Wright is ordering a new study to bolster oil and gas development, a move that could guide future administration actions on pipelines, permitting and regulations.
In a letter posted to the DOE site Monday, Wright directed the National Petroleum Council, a federal advisory committee, to deliver the “Future Energy Systems” study for presentation at the council’s meeting in December. DOE-sanctioned studies can be significant for signaling where the administration is headed on policy and what it will be pushing for with Congress and industry.
The analysis should “recognize and leverage the vast potential of domestic oil and natural gas resources and industry expertise to advance administration goals,” Wright wrote to Alan Armstrong, chair of the petroleum council.
The recommendations are intended to inform the National Energy Dominance Council, a panel in the White House created by President Donald Trump and led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to coordinate and set energy policy.
Wright said the study should initially focus on permitting and “gas-electric coordination” to help ensure that infrastructure can meet growing electricity demand.
A University of Alaska Fairbanks project to map out the Pacific Northwest’s critical mineral potential won an approximately $7.5M federal grant this winter. But researchers haven’t received a single cent of that funding.
The funds, awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy during the Biden Administration, were frozen and put under review in February. Brent Sheets, who oversees the project at UAF’s Institute of Northern Engineering, said the pause came as a surprise, considering President Trump’s push to ramp up the domestic production of critical minerals, which are prized for their importance in manufacturing and national security and are often in limited supply.
“The outcome of our project will be a regional assessment supporting the Department of Energy’s efforts to develop a nationwide critical minerals and materials prospectus,” he said.
The project, based out of UAF, would have distributed those funds across Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Its first objective would have been to assess, identify and prioritize sites in the region for critical mineral potential. It would also look at each site’s strategic importance along with how easy and how cost-effective it would be to mine the minerals
Today’s Key Takeaway: As Alaskans, you will have the opportunity to access numerous jobs created by the Alaska LNG (AKLNG) project. To make the most of this opportunity, it’s essential to research the skilled labor required for these positions. Identify the specific skills in demand and explore local institutions or training programs that offer the necessary education or certifications. Additionally, it’s important to be aware that passing a drug test may be a prerequisite for employment in many of these high-paying positions.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan stopped in Fairbanks Friday with the U.S. Secretary of Labor, the officials billing the trip as a chance to tour a local training center and meet with labor leaders.
The visit from Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer comes amid the Trump administration’s continued support for the Alaska Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project, an undertaking that would require significant skilled labor, and the stop at the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center raises a question that’s recurred over the years.
If the gasline is going to get built, where will the workers come from to construct, operate and maintain it?
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Jacob Howdeshell, the business manager for Laborers’ Local 942 and the chairman of the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center Trust, said in an interview.
Just outside the small town of Hope, Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula, a salmon stream scarred by more than a century of gold mining is coming back to life. This large-scale river restoration project was funded by NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Habitat Conservation. The aptly named Resurrection Creek once again offers spawning and rearing habitat for all five species of Pacific salmon—Chinook, coho, pink, chum, and sockeye.
Through the combined efforts of our partners, restoration crews are reshaping the creek’s channel, rebuilding gravel beds, and reconnecting the stream to its natural floodplain. These changes are already boosting salmon populations in an area where recreational salmon fishing supports both culture and the economy. The project also reduces flood risks in Hope and provides local workers with jobs.
NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation awarded the National Forest Foundation $3.9 million for this project. Additional major project partners include:
The Trump Administration is advocating for the World Bank to increase its financing for oil and gas projects, a reversal of its previous policy to cease funding new fossil fuel ventures after 2019.
This push prioritizes energy security, especially for upstream gas developments, and also extends to other development banks to finance fossil fuel projects.
The article notes a trend of North American banks and asset managers withdrawing from net-zero alliances following President Trump’s election, indicating a shift away from climate-focused lending in some sectors.
The Trump Administration is pushing the World Bank to boost funding for oil and gas in what would be a U-turn in the lender’s policy not to finance new fossil fuel projects.
Back in 2017, the World Bank Group said it would no longer finance upstream oil and gas after 2019. But the group noted that “In exceptional circumstances, consideration will be given to financing upstream gas in the poorest countries where there is a clear benefit in terms of energy access for the poor and the project fits within the countries’ Paris Agreement commitments.”
The U.S. Administration is now pushing for more developments, especially upstream gas, prioritizing energy security to any concerns about climate change, development officials have told the Financial Times.
The U.S. is also pushing other development banks to finance fossil fuels, including gas pipeline projects, according to FT’s sources.
(Bloomberg; Sept. 18) – ExxonMobil will pursue fossil fuel growth long into the future to meet demand that it says will “not materially change” between now and 2050. The oil major is not concerned with “chasing the narrative of the week” but will invest in oil and gas projects that it believes will be needed for decades to come, Dan Ammann, president of the company’s upstream division, said at the BloombergNEF Barrel of Tomorrow in the Age of AI summit in Houston on Sept. 18.
Exxon plans to double its sales of liquefied natural gas by 2030 and is investing heavily in oil growth in Guyana and the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico. “We take a long-term view based on the fundamentals, and we invest behind that,” Ammann said. “Our long-term view of the global energy equation is that the demand for energy is going to continue to grow.” Exxon has not deviated from its fossil fuel focused strategy despite global climate goals, he said.
“To support our nation’s growth, ensure energy security, achieve our environmental goals, and stay competitive globally, policy reform must enable companies to build in America.”
In a piece initially published in The National Interest, Nick Loris highlights Maryland’s Purple Line light rail as a key example of why we need permitting reform. Once celebrated as a model for green transit, the project is now years behind schedule and billions over budget, slowed down by lawsuits and a broken permitting system.
Why NEPA has become a significant source of delay for energy, infrastructure, and conservation projects nationwide.
How bipartisan permitting reforms like the SPEED Act could streamline reviews, limit frivolous lawsuits, and unlock faster progress on clean energy, infrastructure, and economic growth.
What Happened to the Santos Takeover Attempt? LNG Global Newsletter, September 19, 2025
Deal Breakdown: A massive, proposed takeover of Santos by an Abu Dhabi–backed consortium has collapsed. Reuters reported that Santos shares slumped after the $18.7 billion ADNOC-led deal fell apart.
Collaborates with RecycLiCo to test hydrometallurgical tech to refine Nikolai nickel, cobalt, PGMs for U.S. supply chains.
In a step toward establishing Alaska as an alternative to China, Indonesia, and others for nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals (PGM), and other critical minerals, Alaska Energy Metals Corp. (AEMC) is exploring the potential of utilizing RecycLiCo Battery Materials Inc.’s hydrometallurgical technology to refine concentrates from a future mine at its Nikolai project.
