Vancouver — A revised plan of operation at PolyMet Mining‘s (POM-V) wholly owned NorthMet project in northeastern Minnesota is entering the permitting stage.
The company is putting the final touches on an environmental assessment, which will be submitted to the state of Minnesota by early-autumn.
NorthMet is the largest undeveloped non-ferrous metals project in North America.
The polymetallic NorthMet property hosts a drill-defined, open-pit-minable resource of 808 million tonnes grading 0.432% copper and 0.11% nickel, plus 0.116 gram platinum, 0.437 gram palladium, 0.061 gram gold and 1.5 grams silver per tonne. Cobalt values are also present. The study calls for daily mining of 25,000 tonnes initially, with a 4-to-1 stripping ratio.
In 2003, PolyMet revised a previous prefeasibility study and outlined a simpler, more economic development plan. The revision proposes a lower mining and processing rate but targets higher-grade portions.
A polymetallic magmatic sulphide deposit, NorthMet is in the Duluth mafic complex. The property is adjacent to the Mesabi Iron Range, which hosts some of the largest taconite iron-ore mines in the U.S. Being situated in the midst of these mines gives PolyMet a strong infrastructure base and abundant skilled labour.
Development plans call for the creation of an ore treatment plant, using the nearby, idled equipment of LTV Steel Mining, now part of Cleveland-Cliffs‘ (CLF-N) Cliffs-Erie operation. The taconite crushing-concentrating equipment, which had processed 100,000 tonnes of ore per day, represents about 80% of processing requirements for the proposed new facility. The equipment will be used to produce a concentrate that will be treated using PolyMet’s patented PlatSol hydrometallurgical process and solven extraction-electrowinning. The process will produce London Metal Exchange-grade cathode copper and nickel-cobalt as well as platinum-group-metal and gold precipitates.
The PlatSol process was designed to extract the base metals and precious metals from NorthMet ore concentrates.
Through the agreement struck with Cleveland-Cliffs in early-2004, utilization of the “brownfields” Cliffs-Erie facility will provide for an estimated US$179 million in cost savings.
The NorthMet property is subject to a 3% net smelter return royalty to U.S. Steel (X-N), which also collects annual lease payments of US$75,000 from PolyMet.
PolyMet has 50.7 million shares outstanding and trades in the range of 80-90 per share.
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