“I am proud that Doyon is headquartered in Fairbanks, on the north bank of the Chena River, my hometown. I appreciate this opportunity to work with the board and the excellent management team we have in place throughout the Doyon Family of Companies. And I confident that Doyon will continue to grow and prosper.”

The source of this money comes from two factors coinciding at the same time. As Zinc prices increase, so is Nana’s share of their Red Dog mine profits. Just as recent as November, they paid their largest ever dividend of $15/share.

Of course, through the ANCSA 7(i) agreement - all Alaska Native shareholders will benefit. This unique “sharing” provision in ANCSA is just one of the many aspects that differentiate ANCs from other for-profit corporations.

Read the article from the Fairbanks News-Minor here.

Congressman Young spoke about the importance and urgency for the federal government to finally settle Sealaska’s final land conveyances.

Young said, “One of the things that I believe is that both the Native Land Claims Act and the Statehood Act have not been fully implemented as far as ownership of land.” He said after almost 50 years of statehood, Alaska is still short 50 million acres of land that the state does not have title to.

 

There is a huge amount of land that Sealaska, the landless groups and the Native Land Claims Settlement haven’t gained title to also and that’s been going on since 1971, said Young.

 

H.R. 3560, The Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization Act, is bipartisan legislation introduced by Young in November 2007 that will allow the Sealaska Native Corporation to receive its remaining land conveyance under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 - after more than 35 years since the Act was signed into law.

 

If passed, “This legislation will redress the inequitable treatment of the Native Regional Corporation for Southeast Alaska - Sealaska Corporation - by allowing it to select its remaining land entitlement under Section 14 of ANCSA from designated federal land in Southeast Alaska,” Young said in November.

 

When announcing the bill, Young said, “It’s unfortunate that after more than 35 years since the passage of ANSCA, Sealaska has still not received conveyance of its full land entitlement. As a result of its small land entitlement, it is critical that Sealaska complete its remaining land entitlement under ANCSA in order to continue to meet the economic, social and cultural needs of its Native shareholders, and of the Native community throughout Alaska.”

 

“Primarily there is a dispute between the agencies,” said Young, “and I don’t think agencies should go contrary to what the Congress passed in the law.” On Monday he said, “We ought to take and get these things done as fast as possible.”

For the full story, click here.

Anchorage Daily News

(02/02/08 03:25:12)

Carlton Smith, Kootznoowoo Permanent Fund Settlement Trust chairman, said two more distributions will be made this year, for a total payout of nearly $1,000 per shareholder.

Smith says that the ending balance for 2007 was nearly $14 million, an increase of nearly $1 million over the previous year. The trust was created in 1991 and funded in 1994 with $9.5 million.

As you can read in the following article of the “Fairbanks Daily News - Miner”, there has not been any reason given for his departure.

Doyon plans to name interim president and CEO next month

By Eric Lidji
Published December 13, 2007

Doyon, Limited plans to name an interim president and CEO in January, and start immediately searching for a permanent replacement for the position, the company announced Wednesday. (more…)

RED DOG MINE: Zinc profits could bring a $200 million annual distribution in future.

By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
ebluemink@adn.com

Published: November 26, 2007
Last Modified: November 26, 2007 at 01:33 PM

Alaska Natives may soon receive a new cash infusion due to a bluish-white metal found in the Northwest Arctic.

The big boost in Alaska Natives’ share of profits expected from the world’s largest zinc mine could pump $200 million to Native companies around the state in the coming year, and possibly for years to come.

The source of this largesse is the 18-year-old Red Dog Mine, carved out of Native land in the Brooks Range foothills, about 59 miles inland from the Chukchi Sea.

Red Dog’s zinc is used to galvanize steel and its biggest customer is the auto industry.

The story of zinc at Red Dog could play out much like today’s high oil prices, which are goosing state revenue from the North Slope oil fields.

After opening in 1989, the open-pit mine struggled due to many years of low zinc prices. But prices rose a couple of years ago and this fall, Teck Cominco, the Canadian company that runs the mine, finally recouped the cost of building it.

That is triggering the increase in royalties paid to Natives. The recent high zinc prices are helping too.

Teck pays the royalties to Kotzebue-based NANA Regional Corp., which owns the land. By federal law, NANA keeps 38 percent of the royalties and shares the rest with Alaska’s other Native corporations.

This sharing is a unique provision of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, the federal law that created Native corporations and required them to share their timber, mineral and oil and gas profits. The ultimate goal: spreading the wealth between corporations that have valuable resources on their land, and ones that don’t.

JOBS OVER PROFITS

Due to a rise in zinc prices, the value of Red Dog’s production — which also includes lead and silver — topped $2 billion last year, more than all the state’s other mines combined, according to state figures.

Though some in Kivalina, a nearby village, remain concerned about environmental contamination from the mine, Red Dog has been one of NANA’s biggest business ventures.

According to NANA executives, Red Dog’s value is not so much its profits as its jobs for NANA shareholders. The mine is the largest private employer by far in the Northwest Arctic borough, where there are few other jobs outside government and nonprofits.

“The reason for (building) Red Dog was jobs,” said Helvi Sandvik, president of NANA Development Corp., the business arm of NANA Regional.

Royalties are less important to NANA, she said.

Company executives hope the mine will continue to operate for decades, but it will need to expand to new ore deposits to do so. The mine will run out of ore at its current operation in 2012.

Royalties take the stage

As long as zinc prices remain high, and the mine keeps running, bigger royalties from Red Dog will be felt around Alaska.

The reason is an agreement signed by NANA and Teck before the mine opened, stating that when Teck pays off its development costs for the mine, it will begin paying a heftier royalty to NANA. The increased royalty begins at 25 percent, and every five years it increases by five percentage points until it hits 50 percent.

Until this fall, NANA’s royalty was set at 4.5 percent.

NANA has waited a long time for this change. The company originally expected the shift to a larger royalty a decade ago, but the price of zinc plummeted, and stayed low, NANA officials said.

Teck officials say they are satisfied that the agreement is moving to the next stage.

“It strengthens the partnership (with NANA),” said Jim Kulas, the mine’s environmental superintendent.

The cash infusions will begin early next year, when NANA will receive its first 25 percent royalty on Teck’s net proceeds from Red Dog. The payment is expected in January. The other regional corporations will get their share a little less than a year later, after NANA completes its fiscal year.

That’s not the end of the sharing, though.

In turn, the other regional corporations in Alaska must pass along half of what they receive to village corporations and “at-large” shareholders who don’t own stock in a village corporation.

It’s up to the regionals and the village companies to decide how to divvy up the rest.

Many choose to pass the money along to their shareholders as dividends, but other companies put the money to other uses.

RED DOG TURNS PROFITABLE

It’s only since about 2005 that Red Dog has turned a substantial profit.

“As soon as the mine opened, the price of zinc fell to historic lows,” Sandvik said.

In 2005, however, NANA’s share of Red Dog profits hit $6.5 million and nearly doubled in 2006.

NANA’s income from Red Dog is expected to quadruple this fiscal year — rising to $51 million.

In the future, if zinc prices stay at around $1 per pound — a little lower than where it stands today — the Native corporations including NANA will share $200 million each year. NANA will keep $75 million and share the rest.

The executives at NANA aren’t miffed that they will get a smaller share of Red Dog profits than their colleagues at other Native companies.

NANA, in turn, receives income from natural resource projects on land owned by other Native corporations, such as the Arctic Slope Native Corp., which has been sharing millions of dollars it has received from its Alpine oil-field leases for the last few years.

That’s the beauty of Native profit-sharing, Sandvik said.

“We don’t have oil, but we happen to have zinc,” she said.