Pele’s flagship property is its 100-percent owned Eco Ridge Mine uranium project, near Elliot Lake in Northern Ontario. In October 2007, Pele received a positive Scoping Study which outlined a NI 43-101 compliant resource of 6.4 million pounds of “indicated” U3O8 (5.68 million tonnes grading 0.051-percent U3O8) and 36.1 million pounds of “inferred” U3O8 (37.26 million tonnes grading 0.044-percent U3O8) and which provided the basis for an economically-viable, environmentally-compliant uranium mining and processing operation.
1 In 2008, Pele commenced the permitting process by filing a Project Description with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the Federal Government’s Major Project Management Office. The document details Pele’s approach to sustainable development at Eco Ridge.
Drilling has also confirmed the presence of extensive Rare Earth Elements (REE), occurring as Rare Earth Oxides in conjunction with uranium oxide (U3O8) in the Main Conglomerate Bed at Eco Ridge. To-date, all 30 drill intersections that have been analyzed for REE have contained significant REE. Although Yttrium and heavy REE comprise a minority of the deposit’s overall rare earth content, these minerals have far greater economic value than the light REE and have demonstrated good recoverability. Preliminary leach testing at SGS Canada Inc. indicates potential recoveries of approximately 64-percent of combined Yttrium and heavy REE. The Elliot Lake mining camp was a global producer of Yttrium during the 1980s as a by-product of uranium production.
REEs are critical components in many high-tech applications including hybrid motor vehicles, flat screen monitors, high-power magnets and a wide range of military applications. Although demand for REEs is growing rapidly, over 90-percent of global production is controlled by China, which has recently imposed restrictions on their export. The extensive REE mineralization at Eco Ridge represents a potentially large future source of these strategically critical metals.
Pele’s Project Description explains how its mining, processing, and waste management plans at Eco Ridge make innovative use of proven technologies to build a modern, state-of-the-science facility, significantly more advanced and environmentally-friendly than historic operations at Elliot Lake. The underground mine will be developed by ramps from surface, using trackless development and longhole slashing to leave more than 60-percent of the broken ore underground within designed containments for bioleaching. Underground bioleaching was used extensively for commercial uranium production in the Elliot Lake camp during the 1980s and 1990s.
The balance of development material (less than 40-percent) will be trucked to surface and deposited on a heap leach facility (“HLF”). The leach cells will be designed to fully contain the leach solutions and to allow for progressive decommissioning. The HLF will be operated, decommissioned, and reclaimed using methods successfully employed at other modern mine sites around the world. No tailings pond will be required at Eco Ridge.
Environmental impact will also be minimized by relying on underground and surface bioleaching and through a processing operation that recycles leachate in a closed circuit until it is piped to the uranium recovery facility where it will be clarified and processed in a solvent extraction circuit. The uranium will then be extracted in a stripping circuit, and then washed, dried, and packed into drums for shipment. Preliminary analysis of this design indicates that the Eco Ridge Mine can be operated in a manner that generates no liquid effluent requiring treatment.
In August 2009, Pele announced the commencement of a long-term research study to further minimize environmental impact at Eco Ridge. The study, which is currently underway at MIRARCO, a leader in applied research and innovation for the mining industry, housed within Laurentian University in Sudbury, will monitor progressively larger micro and bench-scale tests which simulate various biologically-mediated heap-leach scenarios. The study will provide detailed information on long-term mineralogical, geochemical and microbiological studies, assisting in mineral recovery optimization and the preliminary modeling of cost-effective low-maintenance closure strategies. Large-diameter core drilling has been completed at Eco Ridge to supply a 300-kilogram representative sample of the Main Conglomerate Bed for use in the study.
Local support for the project is excellent, as exemplified by Pele’s recently-announced 21-year lease agreement with the City of Elliot Lake in respect of surface rights to key mining claims at Eco Ridge. The Lease includes the City's surface rights to a total of 48 surface patents comprising approximately 796 hectares and includes an option for Pele to purchase the surface rights under certain circumstances. The surface rights covered by the Lease include areas planned for mine portals and other surface plant, equipment, and related infrastructure.
With its excellent regional infrastructure, well-understood geology, and politically-stable and mining-friendly jurisdiction, Elliot Lake is an ideal location for the development of a long-term uranium supply. More than 300 million pounds of U3O8 were mined from similar deposits near Elliot Lake by Rio Algom and Denison Mines from 1956 to 1996.
