Environmental Problems For UNB??????Canadian company enters option to buy molybdenum property
Posted Feb 25, 2005 - 10:01 AM
Associated Press
HELENA — A Canadian company is expanding its presence in southwestern Montana.
United Bolero Development Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia, says it has signed an option to buy molybdenum property northwest of Helena for $5 million plus 600,000 shares in the company. The site known as Bald Butte is about 75 miles from a potential molybdenum mine, in the Pioneer Mountains, that United Bolero said in December it was acquiring for $10 million and 500,000 shares. ‘‘The company is very much interested in Montana,'' United Bolero board member Joe Bardswich said Thursday from Virginia City, where he lives.
‘‘Montana is rich geologically.''
Interest in molybdenum mining has risen because the metal, used chiefly in the production of steel, sells for about $30 a pound compared to about $2 in the 1980s. Much of the increase is tied to molybdenum demand in China as that country's infrastructure expands.
Bardswich said United Bolero entered the latest deal after examining information from Gulf Mineral Resources Co. Gulf's data, compiled after drilling at Bald Butte in the 1980s, indicate the property may hold about 1½ pounds of molybdenum per ton of rock, he said.
Bardswich said the Bald Butte deal was reached with some Montanans, people he declined to name. Some of the same people also were involved in the deal for Cannivan Gulch, the site in the Pioneers, he said.
United Bolero will further examine Gulf's information and anticipates exploratory drilling at Bald Butte, perhaps as early as this summer, Bardswich said. No government permits have been sought but the company is ‘‘well aware of the ... regulations,'' he said.
Patrick Plantenberg of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality said Thursday that he had no specifics about the company's interest at Bald Butte and could not comment about which regulatory requirements may apply.
United Bolero's plan for exploratory drilling at Cannivan Gulch, 30 miles southwest of Butte, has been submitted to officials with the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
Ranger Charlie Hester of the Wise River Ranger District said Thursday that an environmental review will take place, but he could not say how soon the Forest Service will decide whether to approve or reject United Bolero's plan. A license must be obtained from DEQ for the company to proceed with exploration at Cannivan Gulch, Plantenberg said.
Bardswich said that ‘‘in terms of geological supervision,'' there would be some advantage to working at Cannivan Gulch and Bald Butte simultaneously