Each one in plain English, with the numbers worked through for a shareholder.
17 Apr 2024regulatory community update▼ BadMajor
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.
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.
15 Mar 2024regulatory community update● NeutralMajor
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.
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.
A sixth extension, this one open-ended: the Army Corps will not say how it will handle the remanded application until the Supreme Court acts on Alaska's case.
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.
Took the first $2 million of the second royalty tranche and amended the July 2022 agreement to allow the money in instalments and to push out the original 25 July 2024 expiry - the buyer paying more slowly than the original terms contemplated.
Refiled the August 2023 assessment to correct typographical and formatting errors, which the company says changed or replaced certain figures and tables - the second document in three months withdrawn and reissued.
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.
The Army Corps was granted what the company calls a fourth extension, this one 60 days, pushing its answer on the remanded application to 26 September 2023.
27 July 2023regulatory community update▲ GoodMajor
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.
Refiled the technical report, effective 19 May 2023, to answer British Columbia Securities Commission comments. The regulator required contained-metal figures to be removed from the resource table and more disclosure on the cut-off grade and on whether the resource has reasonable prospects of eventual economic extraction.
The Army Corps' Alaska District asked for and received more time - to 23 June - to say how it would handle the remanded application. The first of a run of such extensions.
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.
Isabel Satra joined the board. She is a principal and chief financial officer of Kopernik Global Investors, the investment manager that eight months later bought the company's US$15 million convertible notes.
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.
The State of Alaska and industry groups issued statements against the veto, the state calling it a dangerous precedent for federal action on state land.
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.