Boy does POM look good. I never really looked at it before. 808 million tons open pit?- it is sort of a low grade deposit but with rising metals prices it looks on the sruface like it could be a bonanza if base metals prices hold as I expect them to do. Lots of PD!
"The NorthMet Project is located in northeastern Minnesota, near the Mesabi Iron Range and 6 miles south of the town of Babbitt. PolyMet has a 100% leasehold interest for the mineral rights on the 4,162 acres that make up the NorthMet property. The infrastructure is excellent. Available to the Project are low-cost power, well developed roads and railway networks, and supply-equipment centers that support the numerous operating iron ore mines, the nearest being two miles from NorthMet. There is an abundant supply of skilled labor locally.
The NorthMet deposit is the largest undeveloped non-ferrous metal project in the U.S. It is a polymetallic magmatic sulfide deposit containing platinum, palladium, gold, copper, nickel, cobalt, and silver, hosted near the base of the Duluth Mafic Complex.
The Northmet Property
In early 2003 a new management team took over the NorthMet Project in anticipation of a new cycle of value in the base metals industry. The approach to the development of the NorthMet Project was altered to take into account the somewhat depressed state of the mining industry. A technical rework of the pre-feasibility material has resulted in a technically simpler project, lower daily tonnage, higher grades and considerably less capital. This approach reduces technical risk and financial exposure. At current metal prices this approach appears to produce acceptable economics. The plan is to proceed through a feasibility study with one or more industry partners.
Location
The NorthMet Project is located in northeastern Minnesota, south of the Mesabi Iron Range and 6 miles south of the town of Babbitt. It is surrounded by the excellent infrastructure of the Iron Range. NorthMet is 2 miles (3km) south of the active Northshore open-pit taconite mine and 8 miles (13km) east of LTV's taconite mine and processing operations. It is flanked to the south by the LTV railroad and the LTV restricted access road and to the north by taconite waste rock disposal areas.
Project & Deposit
A total of 175,000 feet of drilling has been conducted on the NorthMet Project. The NorthMet deposit is the largest undeveloped non-ferrous metal project in North America. It is a polymetallic magmatic sulfide deposit containing primarily copper, nickel and platinum group metals ("PGM"), hosted near the base of the Duluth Mafic Complex. The database for the model included 102 drill holes and 4,200 assayed samples. Using this data, an open-pit minable resource of 808 million tonnes containing 0.432% copper, 0.109% nickel, 0.116 g/t platinum, 0.437 g/t palladium, 0.061 g/t gold, and 1.5 g/t silver at a 4:1 stripping ratio. PolyMet has a 100% leasehold interest for the mineral rights of the 4,162 acre NorthMet property. PolyMet pays the lease holder USX (U.S. Steel) US$75,000 per year. The property is subject to a 3% Net Smelter Return ("NSR") royalty payable to USX.
Operating Assumptions
Open-pit mineable resource. An initial mine design at 25,000 tonnes ore per day has been planned as a starting tonnage with a view to doubling or tripling throughput.
Mineral Processing
A conventional crushing milling flotation circuit will produce a bulk concentrate. Metals will be extracted from the concentrate using the PlatSol process. Based on a pilot plant test, the overall process recoveries would be as per the table below:
Platinum & Palladium Gold Copper Nickel Cobalt
71.4% 72.4% 92.2% 71.4% 42.6%
The process produces a copper cathode, a nickel/cobalt hydroxide, and a concentrate of platinum group metals. The nickel concentrate and PGM concentrate will be processed offsite.
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