Pebble Partnership files for permits

Pebble Partnership Ltd. filed a permit application Friday with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its proposed large copper, gold and molybdenum mine near Lake Iliamna, 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, the company said in a press release.

PPL’s application was for a wetlands permit under Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act.

Applications for state permits will be filed later, most likely in January, Pebble spokesman Mike Heatwole said. Pebble Partnership is a subsidiary of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., of Vancouver.

The project has been stalled in recent years by an attempted preemption by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would have blocked the mine, but new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has dropped the action.

PPL President Tom Collier said filing for the permits will initiate a National Environmental Impact Statement process for the mine development.

“Since I have been with the project my main focus has been to initiate the permitting process so that Pebble can be fairly and objectively evaluated by the independent experts hired by the Corps of Engineers,” Collier said in a statement.

Heatwole said separately that the EIS will probably take three to five years, a schedule that is similar to that for the Donlin Gold project, another planned mine that is nearing the end of its federal permitting.

Northern Dynasty has spent about $750 million so far in exploration and will spend another $150 million to get the project through the regulatory process, Heatwole said.

Details of the application, including how a Pebble mine could be built and what environmental mitigation measures are proposed, will become public once the Corps deems the application complete, he said. That could occur in a matter of days but it could also be weeks.

In a related development Northern Dynasty signed an option agreement Dec. 18 with Quantum Minerals Ltd., also of Vancouver, under which First Quantum has made an early option payment of $37.5 million toward a $150 million option payment made over four years. The deal gives Quantum the right to eventually acquire 50 percent of Pebble for $1.35 billion.

PPL also unveiled a revised project plan in November for a smaller mine compared with its initial plan. Collier said the company believes the scaled-down mine would pass muster with federal and state regulatory agencies and would eventually be accepted by local communities which opposed a large mine design.

Collier estimated the footprint of Pebble’s major mine facilities (pit, tailings storage facility) will be substantially smaller than previous planning iterations and has been reduced to approximately 5.9 square miles.

The smaller mine plan for Pebble will not use cyanide for secondary gold recovery. Cyanide raised concerns for many people, although it is commonly used in the processing of ore and is used in Alaska mines like Fort Knox. The smaller mine plan mining infrastructure like tailimgs storage facilities out of the Upper Talarik drainage, and includes the following:

• A mine operating life of 20 years.

A tailings storage facility with enhanced environmental safeguards, a buttress on the embankment and segregated pyritic tailings in a separate, lined storage facility.Power plant fueled by natural gas from a gas pipeline from the Kenai Peninsula across Cook Inlet to the project site with compressor stations on the Kenai Peninsula and at a port facility to be constructed at Amakdedori on the west side of Cook Inlet.An 83-mile transportation corridor from the mine site to a year-round port site located on Cook Inlet near the mouth of Amakdedori Creek consisting of: a 30-mile road from the mine site to a ferry terminal on the north shore of Iliamna Lake; an 18-mile lake crossing utilizing an ice breaking ferry to a ferry terminal on the south shore of Iliamna Lake; a 35-mile private double-lane road to the Amakdedori Port.Spur roads from the transportation corridor to the communities of Iliamna, Newhalen, and Kokhanok.A port facility and jetty on Cook Inlet with docking for both ships and supply barges.

Pebble is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold accumulations but the plan by Northern Dynasty to build a mine located in watersheds that support rich salmon fisheries has prompted opposition from communities and Alaska Native tribes as well as Alaska commercial fishing groups.

The mineral deposit is estimated to contain some 26 million tonnes of copper, 70 million ounces of gold and 1.5 million tonnes of molybdenum in measured and

indicated resources at a 0.3 percent “copper equivalent” cut off.

A “tonne” is a British weight measure also used in Canada. It is equal to 2,200 pounds, compared with a “ton,” the common U.S. weight unit, which is 2,000 pounds. The term “copper equivalent” is a way of measuring the value of ore than contains several minerals, in this case copper, gold and molybdenum, converted for simplicity to the copper value.

The term “cut off” means the minimum concentration of the ore in rock that would be mined.

“The Pebble resource is on State of Alaska land and could generate hundreds of millions in annual economic activity for Alaska as well as generating revenues for state and local governments. “It could also provide much needed year-round jobs for Southwest Alaska,” Collier said. “All Alaskans have a stake in knowing whether we can safely and responsibly operate a mine at Pebble and the place to determine this is through the rigorous permitting process,” he said.