Alaska

Alaska has world-class endowment — Donlin, Pebble, Red Dog, Greens Creek — and a state political framework that broadly supports mining. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act creates a structurally constructive framework where Native Corporations are often partners rather than opponents.

The headline risk is federal permitting unpredictability. The EPA's Pebble Mine veto under the Clean Water Act in 2023 — after 15+ years of state-level work — demonstrates that even fully state-permitted projects face residual federal-level political risk. Infrastructure is the other binding constraint: most projects require dedicated road, port, or pipeline build-out adding hundreds of millions to capex.