Drilling Pebble: work continues into new year at aggressive pace.

• Author: Liles, Patricia
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: MINING ISSUE

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While the public focus on the Pebble project has involved heated debate between environmental activists and pro-development advocates, exploration work on the Southwestern Alaska copper-gold-molybdenum deposit continues in 2007 at a swift pace.

Eight diamond-core drill rigs are working at Pebble, including three that were specially designed to tap the recently discovered Pebble East mineralization, which can run deeper than a mile below the surface.

Exploration crews plan to work well into December, according to Sean Magee, vice president of public affairs at Northern Dynasty Mines Inc., the owner and operator of the Pebble project.

"Our goal is to drill 240,000 feet this year and we're behind schedule for getting that done, so some will probably leak into 2008," he said in late September. "We're working as aggressively as we can, and don't plan to reduce manpower or drill rigs working into the fall."

More than 180 people were on site in late September, according to Northern Dynasty. So far, drill crews completed 22 holes, with seven more in progress, for a total of about 120,000 feet, Magee said.

Even in a year where exploration work throughout Alaska is growing by leaps and bounds, Pebble stands out--in terms of spending, employment and results.

GIGANTIC MINERAL RESOURCE

Based on drilling completed through 2006, Pebble's developers have identified a total of 67.3 billion pounds of copper, 81.7 million ounces of gold and 4.054 billion pounds of molybdenum in the near-surface Pebble West mineralization and the deeply buried Pebble East zone.

Those numbers estimating the total contained metals will likely increase as drilling crews continue to tap mile-plus deep holes into the Pebble East zone to identify the north-south width of the high-grade, deeply buried mineralization.

The value of known mineralization at Pebble is more than 11 times that of the Alaska Permanent Fund, which topped $40 billion in July.

Based on recent market prices of $3.60 per pound for copper, $732 per ounce for gold and $35 per pound for molybdenum, Pebble currently has a potential market value of nearly $450 billion.

Steadily climbing metal prices in the last three years, combined with the discovery and continued success in finding more mineralization in the Pebble East zone, has helped grow that value, and the economic feasibility, of the hard rock mine project.

To create the value growth through geological work, in addition to completing...