Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd (
TSX: NDM,
OTCQB: NDMWF,
Forum) is well-known to Canadian mining investors. The company’s flagship property is its Pebble Project.
Pebble is one of North America’s largest undeveloped polymetallic deposits. The project boasts a massive resource (measured and indicated) of 57 billion pounds copper, 70 million ounces gold, 3.4 billion pounds molybdenum, and 344 million ounces silver. There is an additional inferred resource of 24.5 billion pounds Cu, 37 million ounces Au, 2.2 million pounds Mo, and 170 million ounces Ag.
The project hosts $100’s of billions worth of these metals (at current prices). More than $750 million (USD) has already been invested in Pebble yet mine construction has not yet commenced. Why not? In two words: environmental concerns.
The Pebble Project is located in a remote area of Alaska. The property is adjacent to both a national park as well as an important, environmentally-sensitive watershed. In order to make the project economically viable, a massive capital investment is required. In turn, this necessitates an enormous mining operation in order to generate revenues sufficient to repay that capital investment over a reasonable time horizon.
According to
a Northern Dynasty report, the project “is expected to support either an open pit mine, a high-volume underground mine or a combination of both.” Regardless of the final decision, any mining operation would involve a processing rate of 10’s of thousands of tonnes per day.
It is such large-scale mining operations which produce the enormous quantities of waste and “tailings” that give the mining industry a bad name in the eyes of many. In order to make the project viable in its remote location a massive-scale mining operation is required. However, it is precisely mining operations of this size/scale which are
least likely to obtain environmental approval in such an environmentally sensitive area.
This takes us to the current buzz surrounding NDM. Trading was halted on Northern Dynasty’s stock on Wednesday, with nothing publically reported to indicate the reason for the halt.
Where do mining investors go to learn the “latest word” on a company when there is nothing official that has been released? To the Stockhouse bullboards.
Stockhouse is Canada’s #1 financial portal, hosting one of North America’s largest small-cap investor communities. In particular, as a North American mining hub, NDM has a
large following on Stockhouse with numerous investors participating in a discussion of this subject (mystery?).
Investors in NDM and those merely interested in the potential of the Pebble Project can seek their answers on the Stockhouse bullboard. Choose the most-plausible explanation, or for more experienced mining investors, offer your own opinion. With $100’s of billion at stake and with plenty of critics and proponents on both sides of the environmental fence, this is a subject well-suited for open debate on a public forum.
Stockhouse: come for the investment news, stay for the informed discussions.