For 80 years, there has been a great deal of waxing and waning interest in what lies inside Hudson Bay Mountain.<\/p>\n
According to 72,000 metres of drilling and 2.6 kilometres of tunnelling, there are between 131 and 692 million pounds of molybdenum lurking there just waiting to be turned into engine parts, heating elements, drills, sawblades and additives for lubricants.<\/p>\n
By most reports, the Davidson deposit (previously known as the Yorke-Hardy or Glacier Gulch deposit), is one of the highest-grade molybdenum deposits in the world.<\/p>\n
And yet, since 1944 when it was first discovered, it has never been mined.<\/p>\n
Various proponents have come and gone over the past eight decades. Some have made attempts at developing a mine, while many others have simply optioned the property only to turn around and sell it again.<\/p>\n
In the early 2000s, a rise in molybdenum prices generated new interest in the Hudson Bay Mountain property and by 2005, when moly hit its historical peak of around $46US per pound, Blue Pearl Mining (later Thompson Creek Metals) had taken it over and started work toward achieving an environmental permit.<\/p>\n
Blue Pearl filed with the BC Environmental Assessment Office in 2008, but by 2013, the project was once again dead. Since then the mineral rights have changed hands a couple of more times with no real activity on the site.<\/p>\n
Enter Moon River Moly. In 2023, Moon River optioned the property from Generation Mining and began work on a preliminary economic assessment (PEA).<\/p>\n
Smithereens with an interest in the Davidson deposit may remember the name Ian McDonald. McDonald founded Blue Pearl and became CEO of Thompson Creek when Blue Pearl acquired that company.<\/p>\n
McDonald is also back as director and chair of the Moon River board of directors.<\/p>\n
In April, the company published its technical report for the PEA.<\/p>\n
Highlights from the report include: a 20-year mine life based on 2.5 million tonnes of ore milled per year; an initial capital cost of $575 million; annual average production of 10 million pounds of molybdenum; a 3.3 year payback on investment; and $1 billion in direct income and mining taxes over the lifetime of the mine.<\/p>\n
The report acknowledges "local resistance regarding development and mining of the deposit from the eastern side of the mountain," during the Blue Pearl days. The report noted Smithers is a major tourist area and the mine site would have been highly visible from town.<\/p>\n
Moon River proposes to build the mine on the other side of the mountain. <\/p>\n
It also promises an "underground mine, with underground processing facilities, using all-electric mining equipment [that] minimizes the surface footprint resulting in a very low carbon emitting operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For 80 years, there has been a great deal of waxing and waning interest in the molybdenum that lies inside Hudson Bay Mountain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":115883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n