Rubicon Minerals is a Canadian company active in gold exploration. Rubicon owns more than of exploration ground near Red Lake, Ontario, Canada, and has made significant discoveries of gold on this property. The property is near to Goldcorp's Red Lake Mine. As of August 2018 the company had a market capitalization of $80 million.
Early years
In the late 1980s Rubicon explored what is now the McFinely property in the Red Lake area, finding gold along a historically gold-producing trend about in length. Rubicon Minerals' stock began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange in November 1997. In September 1999 Rubicon announced encouraging assay results from a large sulphide discovery on the Palmer project near Haines, Alaska. The company acquired the McFinely property in 2001 following several years of litigation and began drilling in November 2002. Drilling on the water-based part would be carried out in winter when the lakes were frozen. In September 2003 Rubicon graduated to trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and was delisted from the Venture Exchange. In September 2004 Rubicon was listed on the American Stock Exchange.
Africa and Newfoundland
In February 2004, Rubicon made a partnership agreement with IAMGold Corporation through which IAMGold would invest in exploratory drilling at Rubicon's Avalon gold project in Newfoundland in exchange for a 55% interest. In February 2006, Africo Resources, which was 38.8% owned by Rubicon, released results from drill holes at its Kalukundi copper and cobalt deposit in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The inferred resource was now 12.15 million tonnes of ore grading 2.45% copper and 0.61% cobalt. Later that year Rubicon spun off Africo and Rubicon's Newfoundland assets into two separate companies. The Newfoundland gold and base metal assets were held by Paragon Minerals Corporation. Shortly after the spin-off was completed in December 2006 Rubicon's share prices dropped by 10%.
In February 2006 Rob McEwen, the former chairman and CEO of Goldcorp, said he was investing C$10 million in Rubicon, and was also selling of land near the Pogogold mine in Alaska to Rubicon in exchange for additional shares. McEwen was to become a strategic advisor to the company. Shares rose by almost 40% when the news was released. In May 2007 McEwen announced that he owned or controlled about 32.8% of Rubicon's current outstanding common shares. In December 2009, Rubicon Minerals was added to the Toronto Stock Exchange's benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index. At this time, in addition to the Red Lake property the company owned more than around the Pogo Mine in Alaska, and in northeast Nevada. McEwen's share was now 21.5%. In November 2010 Rubicon Minerals shares shot up after the company announced that part of their Phoenix project in the Red Lake area had an estimated inferred resource of 4 million ounces of gold. Drilling results indicated a grade of gold per ton of ore. In July 2011 Agnico-Eagle Mines made a CDN$70 million investment through non-brokered private placement of common shares. Rubicon continued to develop the Phoenix gold project, and in October 2011 announced that it now had a grid power connection from Hydro One, replacing the former diesel generators. Rubicon reduced its gold reserves by 88% on January 11, 2016. In December 2016 Rubicon announced it had completed a restructuring transaction and shares in the stock would resume trading.
