Angus & Ross PLC, a U.K.-based exploration and resource company, is planning to reopen an old zinc-and-lead mine on Greenland's west coast, about 400 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.
The Black Angel mine was famous for the high quality of its zinc ore but was shut in 1990 because of low world prices and the difficulties of operating so far north, says Jerome Davis, a professor of oil and natural-gas policy at Canada's Dalhousie University. Mr. Davis was a consultant who worked on closing the mine 17 years ago.
With today's milder temperatures, however, miners and engineers can now work in the area for about eight months of the year, up from six months before the mine was closed, says Andrew Zemek, chief executive of Angus & Ross. At the same time, zinc prices more than quadrupled to a record high of $4,580 per ton in November 2006 from their levels in 2000. Yesterday, zinc was trading at about $3,530 a ton.