NORTHERN DYNASTY MINERALS LTD

Oral argument was heard on 25 June 2026 and the case is now with the judge. Whether the deposit can ever be mined turns on a single district court decision, more than five years after the permit was refused.

regulatory community update

The Justice Department filed its brief on 17 February 2026 defending the veto. The company said it was surprised, given the administration's stated support for Alaskan development and domestic copper, that this EPA chose to defend it.

regulatory community update

The fifth and final $12 million tranche completed the royalty sale at $60 million in total, and the maximum royalty rates now apply for the life of any mine. Over three years the company financed itself almost entirely by selling future gold and silver from a deposit it is barred from mining.

material agreement

Summary judgment briefs were filed on 3 October 2025 by the Pebble Partnership, the State of Alaska and the two Alaska Native village corporations - four plaintiffs arguing the same veto is unlawful.

regulatory community update

Received the fourth $12 million royalty tranche before the 30 September deadline, alongside an update on the court case and talks with the government. Royalty money, not shares, has funded the company through the litigation years.

regulatory community update

No settlement reached. The company asked the court to set a summary judgment timetable so the legality of the veto is decided rather than negotiated.

regulatory community update

Disclosed that it is negotiating a possible settlement with the EPA, the agency telling the court its officials remain open to reconsidering the veto.

regulatory community update

Iliamna Natives Limited and Alaska Peninsula Corporation sued the EPA over the veto - the same two Alaska Native village corporations that granted Pebble its road and port rights of way in 2018 and 2019, now litigating alongside it.

regulatory community update

The Army Corps declined to engage in the remand of its 2020 permit denial, citing the EPA veto, which it said prevents it from altering its decision. The company said the decision was without prejudice and that it would re-engage with the Corps once the veto is removed.

regulatory community update

The State of Alaska filed an action in the Alaska federal district court on 11 April 2024 seeking to vacate the EPA veto. This followed the company's own March 15 filings.

regulatory community update

Filed two federal actions: one in Alaska district court to vacate the EPA veto, which it called its main focus, and a takings claim in the Court of Federal Claims to preserve a compensation claim. It described the takings case as an insurance policy and planned to ask the court to defer it.

regulatory community update

The US Supreme Court refused to hear Alaska's case against the veto. The state's fastest route to overturning the EPA's determination is closed.

regulatory community update

Closed both: US$15 million of notes to Kopernik and 8,555,000 units in the private placement.

capital raising announcement

Agreed a US$15 million convertible note with Kopernik Global Investors plus a placement of up to C$3.4 million. The notes run ten years at 2% interest and convert at US$0.3557, a 10% premium to the five-day average price, and if the company later raises equity the holder can demand redemption at 150% of principal. Kopernik's principal and chief financial officer, Isabel Satra, joined the board eight months earlier.

capital raising announcement

Retracted comments its own chief executive made in a September interview about the level of engineering done on Pebble, saying they may have left the impression the work was at a more advanced stage of study than the September 2023 assessment supports and were potentially misleading.

other material event

A new independent assessment, effective 21 August 2023, put the 20-year base-case mine at a post-tax net present value of $2.23 billion at a 7% discount, a 16.2% return and a 4.6-year payback. The figures describe a mine the EPA had vetoed seven months earlier.

resource reserve update

The State of Alaska asked the US Supreme Court for leave to sue the federal government directly, arguing the EPA veto breaks the Cook Inlet Land Exchange agreement between Alaska and the United States and is arbitrary under the Administrative Procedure Act.

regulatory community update

The appeal worked: the Army Corps' Pacific Ocean Division refused to uphold the November 2020 permit denial, accepting that the process leading to the record of decision was not properly followed, and sent the application back to the Alaska District. Twenty-nine months after the denial, the company won the administrative fight - three months after the EPA veto made the permit moot.

regulatory community update

Filed its 2022 audited accounts, MD&A, Annual Information Form and Form 40-F; as in previous years, the auditor's report carried a going-concern emphasis of matter. It also filed a new NI 43-101 Technical Report reflecting the EPA's Final Determination.

annual report

The EPA issued its Final Determination on 31 January 2023, vetoing mining at Pebble and precluding development on over 300 square miles of Alaska land. Nine years after the 2014 proposed determination, and after the favourable 2020 impact statement, the agency rather than the permitting process put the deposit out of reach.

regulatory community update

The EPA issued its determination to veto mining at Pebble. The Pebble Partnership said the proposed determination should have been withdrawn instead.

regulatory community update

Sold a stream on Pebble's gold and silver rather than issuing shares: $12 million received up front for 2% of payable gold and 6% of payable silver over the mine's life, after notional payments of $1,500 an ounce for gold and $10 for silver, with the buyer able to add further $12 million tranches to $60 million over two years. The first substantial non-dilutive money in this record, secured against metal from a mine that has no permit.

material agreement

The EPA said it would push ahead with the pre-emptive veto of Pebble under the Clean Water Act. Eight years after the 2014 proposed determination, and three years after the agency withdrew it, the veto process restarts.

regulatory community update

Filed 2021 annual accounts and Form 40-F. The auditor's report again carried a going-concern emphasis of matter, as in previous years. The release itself is misdated "April 8, 2021" for filings covering the year to 31 December 2021.

annual report

The completed preliminary economic assessment, with the September figures marginally restated: 15.7% return and $2.3 billion net present value at forecast prices, $4.7 billion at prevailing prices, and 6.4 billion lb of copper over the life of the proposed mine.

resource reserve update

The EPA asked the court to vacate its own July 2019 withdrawal of the veto proposal, which would revive the 2014 proposed determination against Pebble. The regulatory relief won in 2019 is being handed back voluntarily by the agency.

regulatory community update

A preliminary economic assessment put the project as designed in the permit application at a 15.8% return and a $2.3 billion net present value at a 7% discount and forecast long-term prices, rising to $4.8 billion at prices then prevailing, with expansion cases running 90 to 101 years and $5.8-8.5 billion. It values the same mine plan whose federal permit had been refused ten months earlier.

resource reserve update

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the environmental groups' challenge to the EPA's 2019 withdrawal of the veto proposal must be heard on its merits, reversing the April 2020 dismissal the company had welcomed. The 2014 veto proposal is back in play.

regulatory community update

The Army Corps accepted the appeal as complete and eligible, starting the formal administrative review of the permit denial.

regulatory community update

The Pebble Partnership submitted its request for appeal to the Army Corps' Pacific Ocean Division Engineer in Hawaii during the week of 21 January 2021, ahead of the 60-day deadline. It noted the July 2020 impact statement had found Pebble would not have measurable effects on fish populations.

regulatory community update

The State of Alaska said it would appeal the permit denial in its own right, Governor Dunleavy calling the decision flawed and a dangerous precedent. The state becomes a second, separately funded party fighting the denial.

regulatory community update

The Pebble Partnership said it was preparing a request for appeal of the Army Corps' 25 November denial, to be filed within the 60-day window. It said it would challenge the decision on procedural, substantive and legal grounds.

regulatory community update

The permit was refused. The Army Corps ruled the mitigation plan filed nine days earlier non-compliant and found Pebble "not in the public interest", denying the Clean Water Act permits after a two-and-a-half-year review that had ended in a favourable impact statement four months earlier. The company called the decision politically motivated.

regulatory community update

Filed the compensatory mitigation plan with the Army Corps two days before the 18 November deadline, saying it fully met the agency's requirements.

regulatory community update

Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier resigned after an environmental group covertly videotaped him making comments about Alaska's elected and regulatory officials. Former Pebble CEO John Shively was named interim CEO pending a leadership search.

director officer appointment

The Army Corps sent the Pebble Partnership a letter setting out its expectations for compensatory mitigation of about 3,000 acres of wetlands and 100 miles of streams, which the company called a normal, anticipated step. It said it expected to submit a compliant plan within weeks.

regulatory community update

Added rhenium to the Pebble resource for the first time: 2.6 million kg in the 6.5 billion tonnes measured and indicated at 0.41 ppm, plus 1.6 million kg inferred, on 58,000 assays from 699 holes. With total US rhenium resources around 5 million kg, the company said Pebble raises the domestic total by 84%. Copper, gold, molybdenum and silver figures are unchanged.

resource reserve update

The Pebble Partnership welcomed a pending White House review of the project and of the final impact statement. The permit decision was now being taken above the level of the reviewing agency.

regulatory community update

The Army Corps published the final environmental impact statement, more than 2,000 pages and the product of a two-and-a-half-year review involving eight federal and three state agencies plus the borough and recognised tribes. Only the record of decision remained.

regulatory community update

Closed at US$35.3 million, 24,150,000 shares at US$1.46 with the over-allotment exercised in full, nine days before the final environmental impact statement was published.

capital raising announcement

The Army Corps named its preferred development option for Pebble - the "least environmentally damaging practicable alternative" - built around an all-land transport route from the mine site to a port.

regulatory community update

A federal judge in Alaska, Sharon Gleason, dismissed the case brought by anti-Pebble groups against the EPA's July 2019 withdrawal, leaving the withdrawal standing.

regulatory community update

The Canadian material change report puts the two raisings together: 53,423,824 shares issued for about US$19.7 million, of which US$15.5 million came from the 18 December 2019 underwritten offering at US$0.37 a share. That single pair of raisings added roughly 53 million shares at a third of the price the company had got a year earlier.

other material event

The EPA formally withdrew the 2014 proposed determination on 30 July 2019, removing the pre-emptive veto that had sat over Pebble for five years. The company said this let the Army Corps proceed to a record of decision in 2020.

regulatory community update

The EPA restarted the process of withdrawing its 2014 proposed determination - the Obama-era move to veto Pebble under Clean Water Act section 404(c) before any permit application had been filed.

regulatory community update

A second right-of-way deal, with Iliamna Natives Limited and its 150-odd shareholders in the village closest to the deposit, extending the land access first secured from Alaska Peninsula Corporation in November 2018.

material agreement

A federal court in California dismissed the securities class action brought against the company and several officers and directors in February 2017, ruling for the defendants on every claim and closing the case. The company said it did not know whether the plaintiffs would appeal.

other material event

The Army Corps published the draft environmental impact statement for Pebble. Northern Dynasty said its own first read showed no data gaps or impacts that would stop a permit being issued.

regulatory community update

The Pebble Partnership signed a right-of-way agreement with Alaska Peninsula Corporation, an Alaska Native village corporation with more than 900 shareholders, securing use of its land for the mine's transport infrastructure.

material agreement

Alaska elected Mike Dunleavy, a Republican who favours resource development, as governor, and voters defeated Ballot Measure 1, a salmon-habitat initiative Northern Dynasty describes as anti-Pebble. The first event in this record where a public vote, rather than an agency, decides the project's environment.

regulatory community update

Northern Dynasty and First Quantum were unable to reach agreement on the option and partnership transaction contemplated in the December 2017 framework agreement, so it was terminated in accordance with its terms. The announcement was made on 25 May 2018.

material agreement termination

Extended to 30 April 2018 the deadline under its December 2017 framework agreement with First Quantum Minerals, which contemplated First Quantum taking an option to buy into Pebble. The company warned there was no assurance any transaction would be signed.

material agreement

Filed the technical report behind a slightly larger Pebble resource: 6.456 billion tonnes measured and indicated at 0.40% copper, 0.34 g/t gold, 240 ppm molybdenum and 1.7 g/t silver (57 billion lb copper, 71 million oz gold, 3.4 billion lb molybdenum, 345 million oz silver), plus 4.454 billion tonnes inferred at 0.25% copper. The increase came from a change in the planned processing method that altered assumed metal recoveries, not from new drilling.

resource reserve update

The Army Corps of Engineers accepted as complete, earlier in January 2018, the Clean Water Act permit application Pebble submitted in December 2017, and started the EIS process. Under a May 2017 settlement, the EPA will not act under section 404(c) until a final EIS is done, provided that is within four years and Pebble files permit applications within 30 months.

regulatory community update