YUKON – North American Tungsten Corp. (NTC) has received environmental approval to develop its Mactung tungsten project northeast of Ross River. The approval came from the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment board and has been further certified by both the federal and territorial governments.
The approval marks the end of a process that began in 2008. Certain terms and conditions must be incorporated into the project design and operations to further mitigate the impact of the mine.
The Mactung underground mine has a proposed life of 11.2 years, but that could be extended a further 17 years with an open pit, according to the technical report filed in May 2010. The indicated resource is 33 million tonnes at a grade of 0.88% WO3, and the inferred resource is 11.9 million tonnes at 0.78% WO3. The mine could produce 114.0 million lb of tungsten annually over its life. A 2,000-t/d mill to treat scheelite ore is planned at the mine site.
"I can't express strongly enough the importance of this decision to our company," NTC chairman and CEO Kurt Heikkila said. "This decision forms the basis for our next set of efforts to be one of the largest tungsten producers in the western world."
Additional information about the Mactung deposit is available at NATungsten.com.
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