General Moly (NYSE Amex and TSX: GMO) provided an update to the Company's permitting progress on the Mt. Hope project in Nevada.
During the week of December 13, 2010, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) held a meeting with the Company and the Cooperating Agencies to finalize edits to the Mt. Hope project's Draft EIS (DEIS). Although edits to address the majority of comments to the DEIS were finalized at or shortly following that meeting, some comments and associated analysis are taking longer to finalize and incorporate than anticipated.
Based on the pace at which these edits are being completed and additional Cooperating Agency reviews the BLM has determined necessary, it is unlikely that the DEIS will be released for publication until the second quarter of this year. Once the DEIS is released for publication by the Battle Mountain, NV office of the BLM, we estimate the Notice of Availability process to publish the DEIS in the Federal Register will take an additional 1-2 months, although other DEIS publications have taken longer. The Company's current expectation is that the Record of Decision (ROD) will occur 6-9 months following DEIS publication and that production at Mt. Hope will occur approximately 20 months following initiation of project construction.
Bruce D. Hansen, Chief Executive Officer, said, "As we have indicated before, we are in a phase of the permitting process where we participate and contribute, but we do not control. We continue to support the BLM, its independent EIS contractor and other stakeholders to finalize these edits to the DEIS as quickly as possible and are working to expedite the DEIS publication to the extent that we are able."
Source: General Moly