Alaska’s Pebble Project Has Potential To Become A Leading Metals Producer

VANCOUVER, BC - "With a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Record of Decision (ROD) for the proposed Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum mine project in southwest Alaska expected this summer, Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said, “It appears more and more likely that Alaska could become home to another significant metals producer. The lead federal regulator for the Pebble Project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has signaled its intent to publish a Final EIS and a ROD shortly thereafter. The Draft EIS published by the USACE last year, and subsequent contributions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the State of Alaska, tribal entities and other cooperating agencies, point toward a positive outcome for the federal permitting process.

We have reason to believe that Pebble will be judged to be a project of merit, and will receive its key federal permits under the Clean Water Act and River & Harbors Act this summer. The next steps facing the company and the project will be to secure a major funding partner and acquire the state permits necessary to take Pebble into production. State permitting for Pebble is expected to take 2 - 3 years to complete, followed by a four-year construction phase. Once operating, Pebble will be among the leading metals producers in the United States. As described in the Project Description, each year during 20 years of production the proposed Pebble mine would produce mineral concentrates containing, on average: 318 million lb copper; 362,000 oz gold; 14 million lb molybdenum; and 1.8 million oz of silver.”

"Collier continued, “Pebble has the potential to be the third largest copper producer in the United States (producing ~12% of US output annually) and the fourth largest gold producer (producing ~6% of US output each year). It also contains rhenium, a relatively rare element used in jet engines and high-octane fuels, and palladium, a precious metal employed in fuel cells and catalytic convertors, among other applications. Depending on prevailing market prices, about 60% and 30% of the annual value of production at Pebble will be derived from copper and gold respectively, with the balance coming from other metals. There's absolutely no doubt there is growing domestic and international market demand for the metal commodities Pebble will produce. Whether it's surging demand for copper to facilitate the US and global transition to a low carbon future, the increasing demand for gold we're seeing in the current economic climate or the other strategic metals our mine will produce, the world needs Pebble.