Engineering & Mining Journal

Polymet Mining, owner of the large NorthMet polymetallic deposit in northeastern Minnesota, USA, is hoping that a logjam in the state’s natural-resource regulatory bureaucracy will break early in 2008, allowing the Vancouver, B.C.-based company to move forward with draft Environmental Impact Statement preparation and to eventually obtain permits leading to an anticipated startup of production sometime in the first half of 2009—making it the first nonferrous metal mine in modern times to obtain official approval from this upper Midwestern state.

The company, which plans to spend an estimated $380 million to get the project up and running, plus an additional $72 million in sustaining capital over the course of a projected 20-year mine life, began the permitting process in 2004 and initially expected the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete their evaluation of its operating plans in November 2007. However, the agencies were unable to meet that target and said they needed another few months of study time.

During a conference call with analysts and investors in early November following the extension, company executives expressed confidence that the evaluation would be completed in January 2008 and downplayed any concerns that the regulators were deliberately prolonging the process or encountering unanticipated problems. LaTisha Gietzen, vice-president of public, government, and environmental affairs for PolyMet, said that during a meeting with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, the company had been assured of the state’s interest and support for the project. Chief Financial Officer Douglas Newby noted that the agencies had been previously engaged in similar studies for two other large projects and that "we had the [misfortune] to be third on the list."

Concurrently with the extension, Polymet said that in the latter half of 2007 it had focused on improving certain environmental aspects of the project. The company modified its proposed mining schedule to allow waste rock backfilling in mined-out portions of the pit, and eliminated plans for an overburden stockpile to reduce impact on nearby wetlands. In addition, mine-site water will be collected, treated, and pumped to the plant site where it will be used as process water, resulting in zero surface water discharge and a reduced requirement for makeup water.

PolyMet’s project is located just south of the northeastern end of the famous Mesabi Iron Range. The project comprises the NorthMet orebody—containing copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum, palladium and gold with traces of zinc and silver—and a large former taconite processing complex situated 6 miles to the west of the deposit and connected by a private railroad. The orebody is in the center of a trend of polymetallic nonferrous metal deposits on the northwestern contact of the Duluth Complex, a mineral belt that is believed to be one of the three largest known concentrations of nickel in the world, behind the Norilsk district in Siberia and the Sudbury Basin in Ontario, Canada.