Northern Dynasty CEO sees Trump as pro-Pebble

Could this be the year that Northern Dynasty Minerals’ (TSX: NDM, NYSE: NAK) controversial Pebble polymetallic project in southwest Alaska finally makes strides?

Northern Dynasty – together with the state of Alaska and six Native villages – is awaiting news on its legal bid to overturn a 2023 United States Environmental Protection Agency veto against Pebble. A decision in the matter is expected in 2025, and CEO Ron Thiessen is optimistic that the mine could open by the end of 2032 if the courts rule favourably.

At stake is a multi-billion-dollar investment to develop what is considered the world’s largest untapped copper deposit. Besides significant amounts of gold, molybdenum, and silver, Pebble also contains a substantial rhenium resource, a mineral critical for military applications.

And while the project – which is 100 miles from Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fisheries – has faced strong opposition for decades due to its potential environmental impact, Thiessen says President Trump’s push to hike critical mineral production may just be what Pebble needed.

Veto removal tailwind

“There’s a good chance that the veto can get removed in the near term, maybe sometime this summer,” Thiessen told The Northern Miner in an interview in May. “Thankfully, we have an administration that doesn’t really like vetoes and wants to see resource development.”

The veto’s removal would set the stage for the US Army Corps of Engineers, which has its own approvals process, to revisit its refusal. The corps had said the EPA veto blocked its path.

“If the Army Corps of Engineers can do the remand order, I think there’s a realistic possibility a permit could be issued under the remand order next year,” Thiessen said.

That would push Northern Dynasty to start work on a feasibility study, which Thiessen estimates would take two years. If construction of the access infrastructure started in 2027, “you’d get through that by the end of 2028 and then you’d have four years of construction – so something like 2032” for the mine to open, he said.

Long road

Not everyone shares that view. Longtime mining analyst John Tumazos, for one, says Thiessen is too optimistic.

“The project is going to happen but it’s going to take time,” Tumazos, head of New Jersey-based Very Independent Research, said in an interview.

Building Pebble “is going to be a process with multiple phases that are each going to take multiple years,” he added. Thiessen “isn’t going to be the one that builds the mine. This is going to take 10 or 20 years.”

Although Tumazos expects the US Supreme Court to eventually hear Northern Dynasty’s challenge of the EPA veto and to rule in the company’s favour, allowing it to apply for an environmental permit, “I would be surprised if it got permitted in as little as three years even with the support of the Trump administration and the Army Corps of Engineers,” he said.

Bringing in an outside investor to help build the mine – as Northern Dynasty wants to do – would also extend the timeline. Any major miner that looked at Pebble would probably perform its own detailed engineering work, Tumazos said.

Activists dug in

What’s more, organizations that oppose Pebble would still have the legal right to file suits in federal courts. This would create additional delays and conceivably make potential investors hesitant, according to Tumazos.

Conservation groups aren’t giving up the fight. Organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, the Friends of the Earth and the Natural Resources Defense Council – along with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay and commercial fishermen – last year filed to intervene in support of the EPA’s action, arguing that the mine would “irreversibly damage” Bristol Bay and its ecosystem.

“Pebble Mine continues to be an appalling idea that would devastate the Bristol Bay watershed,” Marlee Goska, Alaska attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Northern Miner via e-mail. “The mine would sacrifice the greatest sockeye salmon run in the world, as well as important habitat for brown bears and endangered Iliamna Lake seals. The federal government was right to put a stop to Pebble, and we’ll fight hard if it’s dragged back to life as part of Trump’s reckless and damaging push to fast-track mining.”

Including direct and indirect expenses, Northern Dynasty pegs the cost of building Pebble at $6.77 billion. It’s “most likely” that infrastructure including an access road and a power plant would be paid for by partners such as utilities in return for tolls or lease payments, the company says.

Copper mother lode

Despite the massive price tag, Thiessen says copper’s demand prospects justify the project.

“It’s the copper that will put the mine into production,” he says.

Pebble holds measured and indicated resources of 6.5 billion tonnes grading 0.4% copper, 0.34 gram per tonne gold, 240 parts per million molybdenum, and 1.7 grams silver, according to the 2023 preliminary economic assessment. This equates to 57 billion lb. copper, 71 million oz. gold, 3.4 billion lb. molybdenum, and 345 million oz. silver.

Inferred resources add 4.5 billion tonnes at 0.25% copper, 0.25 gram gold, 226 ppm molybdenum and 1.2 grams silver, containing 25 billion lb. copper, 36 million oz. gold, 2.2 billion lb. molybdenum, and 170 million oz. Silver.

The mine would produce 6.4 billion lb. of copper, 7.4 million oz. of gold, 300 million lb. of molybdenum, 37 million oz. of silver and 200,000 kg of rhenium over 20 years, according to the study.

Fueled by trends such as urbanization and artificial intelligence, copper demand is facing a 70% increase by the middle of the century, BHP (ASX: BHP) CEO Mike Henry said in March. To reach global climate objectives by 2050, the world would need a major copper project to be discovered and put in production every year between now and 2035, according to S&P Global.

”We’re starting to come into a period where every year, there’s going to be a copper deficit,” Thiessen said. “Where is the West going to get its copper?”

Pebble has been on Thiessen’s – and the industry’s – radar for decades. Cominco, then an independent company, discovered the deposit in 1987. After making an initial approach in 1994, Thiessen finally bought the property from Teck Cominco for $14 million in 2002.

Since then, Thiessen has held talks with at least four miners – BHP, Rio Tinto (ASX, LSE: RIO), Anglo American (LSE: AAL) and First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) – about investing in the project. Although some of the approaches resulted in preliminary agreements, none yielded a permanent deal.

Managing salmon impacts

Despite widespread concerns that open-pit mining operations at Pebble would threaten the region’s sockeye salmon fishery, Thiessen is unmoved. He points to Northern Dynasty’s final economic impact study, which showed no measurable impact on fisheries or critical fish habitat.

“I would be deterred if there was a big lake that we would have to destroy and not allow salmon to spawn. That would be a deal killer – but there’s no deal killer here,” he says. “It’s my intention to have a mine built that will not have catastrophic tailings failures and will not harm the fisheries.”

As a mining veteran, Thiessen is only too aware that deposits like Pebble don’t come around every day.

“If I gave up on Pebble, I’d look for another Pebble somewhere else – but I know that the chance of me discovering another one in two or three lifetimes would be remote,” he says. “This is an extremely unique deposit.”