Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/124506
MINING Pacific Booker suing BC government over cancelled project by Ellsworth Dickson Pacific Booker Minerals Inc. [BKMTSXV; PBM-NYSE MKT] has launched a lawsuit against the British Columbia government over the rejection of its proposal to build and operate the Morrison coppergold-molybdenum-silver, porphyry mine located 65 km northeast of Smithers, north-central BC. Late in September 2012, two senior BC ministers, Environment Minister, Terry Lake, and Energy, Mines and Natural Gas Minister, Rich Coleman, refused to issue an Environmental Assessment Certificate for the $2.5 billion project. The petition to the Supreme Court of British Columbia is seeking to have the decision overturned, an order remitting the company's application for a certificate to the ministers for reconsideration with directions from the court, plus costs and other relief. Pacific Booker has said that the open pit mining project had gone through nearly 10 years of thorough environmental assessments by both provincial and federal agencies that concluded that the project would have no significant adverse environmental, economic, social, heritage and health effects. Consultants Wardrop Engineering Ltd., a Tetra Tech Company, had pre- M AY 2 0 1 3 pared a feasibility study with support by other technical consultants. The study describes the scope, design features and financial viability of a conventional open pit mine with a 30,000 tonnes per day mill. Highlights of the feasibility study are: • Total mineable proven and probable reserves, at net smelter return cut-off-value of CDN $5.60/tonne, is 224.25 million tonnes averaging 0.330% copper, 0.163 g/t gold and 0.004% molybdenum; • The overburden and waste total is 184.12 million tonnes for a strip ratio of 0.82:1; • Recovered metal would be 1.37 billion lbs of copper, 658,090 oz of gold and 10.047 million lbs of molybdenum; • Mine life of 21 years; • Capital cost is estimated at CDN $516.68 million (including a CDN $59.92 million contingency allocation); • Operating cost of CDN $8.15/tonne milled over the life of the mine; • Pre-income tax Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 20.05%, based on metal prices of (four year trailing average as of January 12, 2009) copper $2.75, gold $658.32 and molybdenum $29.23; Net Present Value (NPV) at 8.0% discount rate is CDN $495.9 million; • Payback period on capital is 4.2 years. The rejection of the project resulted in an immediate precipitous drop in the company's shares price – from about $15 per share to about $4.00 per share. The share price has never recovered as the Morrison Project was the company's only asset. After Pacific Booker had completed an Environmental Assessment, they submitted an Application for an Environmental Assessment Certificate to the BC Environmental Assessment Office. The Environmental Assessment Certificate is required to apply for the various licenses and permits required for the construction, operation and maintenance, decommissioning, and reclamation of the proposed mine. n www.resourceworld.com 27