Nov. 16--There was an air of apprehension among the 600-plus Alaska miners who gathered Nov. 5 in Anchorage for the Alaska Miners Association's annual convention.

The state's minerals industry is at a high plateau -- production revenues and development and exploration spending surpassed $4 billion last year, a record -- but there are new worries that the world financial crises will cause this to unravel by cutting funds for development and new exploration.

Miners are an optimistic lot, though. One sign of that is the record number of exhibitors signed up for the miners' association convention trade show this year, a signal of confidence among suppliers and contractors, said Steve Borell, the association's executive director.

There were warning notes, however.

"Those of us who managed to save some cash should survive, but not all of us will be here next year," at the 2009 convention, said speaker Greg Beischer of Millrock Resources Inc.

In the current downturn, share prices of small and large mining companies have dived, and as many as 50 percent of the small "junior" mining companies, who finance their exploration through equity offerings on Canadian stock exchanges, could be casualties of the recession.

Even big companies aren't immune. Anglo American and Teck are cutting back, although those companies' Alaska projects haven't been affected so far.

Others at the convention shrugged off the bad financial news as just another dip in a cyclical minerals industry.

"I've been in this business for 30 years and I've seen all this before," said Don Stevens, of Stevens Exploration, an Anchorage-based geologic consulting firm. "The companies that don't survive are those that are poorly managed. Companies that are well managed and that have retained some cash will get through this."

Rick van Neuwenhuyse, president of NovaGold Resources, even sees positives.

"It means costs will come down," he said. Construction cost inflation has doubled the cost of developing new mines in the past two to three years, van Neuwenhuyse said. He welcomes lower fuel prices and a cooling-off in markets for steel and other construction materials.

If companies have the cash, there are some real deals out there, van Neuwenhuyse said. In a downturn, properties can be acquired on the cheap.

In fact, van Neuwenhuyse started NovaGold just that way a decade ago. The company acquired most of its assets during period of gold price slumps, he said. That includes the company's holdings in the large Donlin Creek gold project near the Kuskokwim River, where it is now a 50 percent partner with major miner Barrick Gold. NovaGold acquired the Alaska Gold Co. property in Nome as well as Rock Creek during period of price slumps. Rock Creek has just started producing gold.

The pain is mostly felt among companies working in industrial metals like copper and zinc, where a falloff in industrial activity has caused prices to dip sharply.