Pebble Project Drill Program Achieves Million Foot Milestone

VANCOUVER - Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. reported that the Pebble Limited Partnership surpassed one million feet of core drilled at the Pebble Project, one of the most important concentrations of copper, gold, molybdenum and silver in the world.

The million foot milestone exemplifies the scope and scale of the Pebble Partnership's many comprehensive technical and scientific work programs designed to fully understand the mineral resource, geological endowment and natural environment at Pebble. Located on Alaska state land designated for mineral exploration and development, the US Geological Survey has listed the Pebble resource lands as the most extensive mineralized system in the world.

"Drilling to this footage is a milestone that very few projects achieve, and is indicative of the significance of the Pebble deposit and the extraordinary lengths to which Pebble is going to design a comprehensive mine plan at the highest level of confidence," said Northern Dynasty President & CEO Ron Thiessen. "Reaching one million feet is just one example of the Pebble Partnership's methodical and ongoing efforts to advance intensive geological, environmental and engineering studies, and our continued belief in Pebble's potential to become one of America's great metal producers of the 21st century. It is also a reflection of the Pebble deposit's importance as a globally significant resource of copper, gold, molybdenum and other key metals utilized by modern society."

Since 1988, some 1,075 core holes have been drilled at Pebble. The one millionth foot of core comes from a mineralized granodiorite at a depth of 1715 feet in drill hole DDH-12551, where detailed hydrogeological monitoring within the Pebble deposit is ongoing. Equivalent to 189 miles or 305 kilometers, the one million feet of core at Pebble includes drill programs led by Cominco (now Teck), Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Partnership, as tabulated on page 2. The core drilling programs have been carried out across the Pebble property, with over 800,000 feet focused on exploration and delineation of the Pebble deposit as well as the collection of environment and engineering data related to its potential development.

At the Pebble Project, drill core is transported by helicopter from the drill site to the village of Iliamna some 19 miles southeast at the end of each day, where samples are photographed, logged and sawn in half. Half of the core is stored in Iliamna, and the other half is bagged. Drilling and core processing activities at Pebble have employed 58 people from 12 local villages in the Bristol Bay region. These positions include drill helpers, geology assistants, core sawyers, core layers, core yard laborers, pilots and reclamation workers.

After core samples are bagged, they are transported by air charter from Iliamna to Anchorage, AK and then by air freight to Fairbanks, AK. There the entire sample is dried, weighed, further crushed and transported by air freight to Vancouver, BC for assay analysis.