RE: NDM Consortium AnnouncementI'll bet BHP is in the mix. Here is a local article:
jjlalaska
Web posted Sunday, July 15, 2007
Northern Dynasty working to mine partners in Pebble
By Tim Bradner
Alaska Journal of Commerce
An exploration drill rig sits on the tundra near Illiamna at the Pebble Mine. Pebble mine owners Northern Dynasty is working with several companies in seeking partners to further develop the resources. FILE PHOTO/Rob Stapleton/AJOC
Northern Dynasty Mines Inc. hopes to have additional partners in its big Pebble Mine project by the end of the year, company officials said.
Northern Dynasty has signed confidentiality agreements with 15 to 18 major mining companies, which gives those companies access to data gathered in Pebble's exploration. Bruce Jenkins, the company's chief operating officer, said there is a short list of companies seriously interested in Pebble, but he would not identify the firms.
Rio Tinto LLC, one of the world's largest mining companies, is currently the only other partner, with a 19.8 percent stake.
Pebble is a large copper-gold-molybdenum deposit on the Alaska Peninsula, located 18 miles north of Illiamna and 200 miles southwest of Anchorage.
“Rio Tinto's commitment is a significant endorsement of our project,” in the world minerals industry, Jenkins said.
Northern Dynasty's plan has been to form a consortium of major mining companies and smelter companies to develop Pebble. Capital costs for the project are expected to be more than $3 billion, but more precise estimates can't be made until exploration of a newly discovered ore body is complete and engineering teams develop a plan for the mine, Jenkins said.
Northern Dynasty's 2007 budget is now set at $95 million, of which $60 million is pegged for exploration in the Pebble East deposit, a deep ore body with higher-grade ores than was discovered previously in a shallow ore body now called Pebble West.
Eight drill rigs are now working on gathering cores from Pebble East so that geologists can further define the resource estimate.
The company's latest estimate for the deep Pebble East deposit is 3.379 billion tons of ore, with 4.1 billion tons estimated in the near-surface Pebble West deposit. The Pebble West resources are measured and indicated as well as inferred. Measured and indicated means enough drilling has been done to give Northern Dynasty a high degree of confidence in the estimate, while less work has been done in estimating the inferred resources.
All of the Pebble East resources are inferred because there has been less drilling than was done in Pebble West. The goal for the 2007 drill program is to get enough information to class some of the Pebble East resources as measured and indicated as well as finding the boundaries of the ore deposit, Jenkins said.
Pebble East is turning out to be a much larger, deeper deposit than was previously thought. The boundaries of the ore body, and even the depth, have not yet been established by the drilling, Jenkins said.
“It's now clear to us that we will have to continue with some drilling in 2008,” to get more information, he said.
Until the amount of ore is determined, the engineering teams won't be able to complete their work on an optimal design for the mine, Jenkins said. It looks now that the mine plan won't be ready until mid-to-late 2008, which would mean applications for permits to state and federal agencies won't be made until mid-2009, Jenkins said.
Draft copies of the company's environmental studies will be provided to state and federal agencies several months in advance of the applications for permits, however. Jenkins said he anticipates the studies will be made available in late 2008. Northern Dynasty's studies are the only significant research being done on the environmental impacts of a mine at Pebble.
When the mine plan is done, the public will get the first glimpse of what kind of outfit Pebble will be. When the permit applications are submitted, all of the environmental research the company is doing will also be available.
“It is clear that Pebble East will be an underground mine, and an option for us is to develop Pebble West as a smaller open-pit project, mining only the higher-grade ores,” Jenkins said. “We really won't know for another year,” when the mine plan and engineering is done.
Other aspects of the Pebble plan, such as a road connecting the mine to Cook Inlet, 70 miles east, is still on tap, as well as a plan for a slurry pipeline to deliver ore to a loading terminal that would be built.
Jenkins also said the latest estimate for power needed for the mine is 250 megawatts to 260 megawatts. The company's plan is still to rely on a long-distance overland transmission line from the mine to the west side of Cook Inlet, and then an underwater cable across the inlet to a link with Homer Electric Association on the Kenai Peninsula.
Jenkins said alternative energy is also being considered, including hydro and geothermal power-generation possibilities. Northern Dynasty has signed an agreement with Homer Electric to investigate options for power supply to the mine.
Tim Bradner can be reached at tim.bradner@alaskajournal.com.
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------