Liberty Gold’s (TSX: LGD) Black Pine project in southeastern Idaho is advancing in permitting after officials confirmed the start of a federal environmental review.
The United States Forest Service has published a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS), the Toronto-based developer said Friday. The EIS, in coordination with federal and state agencies, is due first as a draft followed by public review before it’s finalized under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“This milestone reflects the completion of the pre-NEPA technical and baseline workstreams and positions the project to advance through a coordinated environmental review process,” Liberty CEO Jon Gilligan said in a release.
“Importantly, as a FAST-41 covered project, a publicly disclosed federal and state permitting schedule is now in place, providing transparency, accountability and a clear path forward.”
Shares of Liberty Gold rose 5.6% by mid-Monday in Toronto, giving the company a market capitalization of $645 million (US$463 million).
Coordinated review
Separately, the company plans by year’s end to release a technical report on Black Pine. The project, located in the Great Basin area, about 380 km southeast of the state capital, Boise, represents one of the country’s few large-scale oxide gold deposits.
It hosts 502.7 million indicated tonnes grading 0.3 gram gold per tonne for 4.8 million oz., according to a resource update issued in February. Inferred resources total 157.1 million tonnes at 0.21 gram for about 1 million contained ounces.
Black Pine ranks third in the U.S. Intermountain West region behind AngloGold Ashanti’s (NYSE: AU; JSE: ANG) Beatty District projects in northern Nevada, which host about 19.7 million oz. gold; and Hycroft Mining’s (Nasdaq: HYMC) namesake project in southern Nevada, with 14 million ounces.
The Forest Service’s notice follows the January commitment by Idaho’s government to align the project’s permitting process with the FAST-41 framework, making it the first precious metals mining project where both federal and state agencies are aligned under a single, coordinated permitting framework.
Black Pine has an after-tax net present value of US$550 million (C$744 million) at a 5% discount rate, a 32% internal rate of return and all-in sustaining costs at $1,380 per oz., according to a 2024 prefeasibility study. That was based on a price assumption of $2,000 per oz. gold.
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