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Wow. It seems to me that EPM, before it clinches the deal, must...

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jefferies2

8,444 Posts.

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13/06/21

12:19

Post #: 53819076
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Originally posted by nro: ↑

Ive promised that I will do my best to offer what I understand may be some concerns and benefits with the operation to other posters in the last few days who asked me to as many know.

I spotted the below post from Jeffereies which suggested my findings so far may well have merit. I cant be sure. I dont claim to be an expert. But its spurred a lot of questions for me that there appears to be no answers for I can find.

Post #: 53817721
"I am hoping EPM succeeds, but I think it needs a skeptical eye.Search the words
That report shows that after the cryolite ran out in 1987, three other mining companies did field research at the mine that EPM is now proposing to buy. They walked away. There are many reasons why a mining company might walk away - including lack of funds needed to go ahead. But one reason could be that they decided further mining was not feasible or profitable. After all, the remaining cryolite and the quartz are deep down, as the report shows."

What I spotted was this. Its the physicality of the mine.
Here is the photo of the pit from the companies report.

https://www.eclipsemetals.com.au/projects/ivittuut-project/Looks good so far even though contamination of the sea may be a threat.
But then I saw this.
Here is a photo more often found on Google. This one from a tourist site who seems to focus more upon the open pit lake.

http://arctic-hunting-group.com/galleri-ivittuut-en.htmYou can surely see my first concern already.
Pits can often form water retention bodies. But this one is far more concerning to me not only due to size but extreeme sea proximately.

Whats even more concerning is how it matches sea level so identically

The pit appears 60m in depth. Then the resource commences and goes a considerable way further down. The width of the pit suggests many hundreds of thousands of liters of water all coming potentially from the sea not meters away.
The sea further wraps around this very deep pit so there is holding back on all sides. The mine was dug some rough 60 years ago (roughly I think). Will this wall still adhere to the far more safety conscious practices of today?
More so you can see further back there are water catchment areas where the water fails to seep away. So is the surrounding terrain further channeling down into this point before going out to sea or is that sea level throughout the soil? They would all appear to match.

Greenland I believe do have seasonal changes and the ice melts and falls. Seepage would be offered too surely.
Would this mean the mine would need to operate in the cold season and not in the warm as the fjords fill and spill and the ice melts etc
Youd want to be working in the warm season surely as the arctic cold can cause difficulties with mining equipment. But perhaps these roles would be reversed.

Is there an intention to dredge such a huge body of water continuously to access 60m under seas level plus?
Will that thin strip of land hold back the sea during mining? Id assume its held so far. But how deep can a mine there afford to go? It doesnt appear to allow much more width expansion to open up the cut of the mine. The opposing bank to the sea looks much higher and sheer faced too. Id suspect the open cut days would be over. But again Im no professional. This is just a glaring hazard to me my research fails to offer much to get around this beyond shaft mining. Which youd guess could be very dangerous here for obvious reason.

Can the mine go another forty to a few hundred meters under sea level? Wall collapses and project delays from such a catastrophe would surely constitute a major risk to the operation if it could be conducted even with marine mining techniques. Even then how can you mine radioactive thorium underwater. I can only assume its impossible unless technically driven. But yet the environmental risks must be huge in a country that isnt open to it. Bad time to be buying operations that risk environmental worries and Im sure youd know about this if you have been watching the political scene in Greenland. Id think it better to be a seller of such projects rather than a buyer after the political and populous uproar over Greenland Minerals even when they have supplied their projects application completed with and done to the worlds best practices and passed by the regulatory authorities after 7-8 hard years of thorough Environmental Impact Application (EIA) processing. If that operation took this long. How long would this one?

I can only assume a huge dredging operation would need to be involved.
Everyone knows the nightmare of mining alongside the sea.
Will this create an extreeme hazard for employees to work within?
Will blasting of quartz have devastating potential if that wall breaks?
Does that wall already leach and hence why water is there? It only looks as thin as a road and then theres a deep sea beyond. Can you see my concern?
Is EPM intending on using costly deep water mining equipment to access what appears to be just quartz. The second most abundant mineral in the world. Surely not. But if that wall is seeping then what other way would there be?

Will the Greenlandic authorities ever allow it in a clearly environmentally conscious country who picket against such potential worries as we have recently seen for GGG?

All these questions come to mind. All to me appear to either be costly or dangerous or both. Certainly all of it will be a major headache and may cause considerable delay potential even if such worries can be reduced surely. Working in a slurry surely wont bode well for mining equipment. Its a major concern for operators as you can imagine.

Maybe this is why the interested miners mentioned in Jefferies report saw the former owners report for sale and apparently walked away
Maybe this why why the seller who I believe operates another mine in Greenland turned his back on this one.
If the report was intended to assist with sale. It looks like this project may have been on the market for around a decade now. Maybe more. Isnt this as long or near on to how long the owner owned it? Im not sure but maybe other posters can help.
Would anyone know if this is accurate and why no one has shown interest for this long.
If not, and I havent seen it so far.

I just feel from thinking this through its fraught with difficulties and concerns. But again. This is all just my opinion based on my research do far.

But what I cant find is where this major concern has been announced to market and why when asking the former owner or the spokesman about potential concerns with the mine several times on HC....was there nothing mentioned about all this and the questions met with silience?

I really hope I have this wrong or it could change everything for me in pursuing an investment ....much like these other miners who have apparently walked away from this particular opportunity if whats been said is true. As its a bit of a worry and could be a catastrophic headache if things went wrong.

I hope not to upset anyone here. Just thought if I had already bought into this it would surely be something Id prefer to know. I hope you can see the justification in my worry too.

Does EPM

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Wow. It seems to me that EPM, before it clinches the deal, must assure itself that it will get GoG's permission to pump that water out to sea. That's critical, otherwise it will be buying an inaccessible dud.

And presumably, if the water filling the pit is pumped out and mining resumes, then mineral enriched water will have to be continuously pumped out to sea. That may not matter, if the minerals in solution are are not environmentally damaging.

It's curious that this issue was not addressed in the G B Associates Ivigtut Annual Report 2013, which merely showed the pit with no water in it. I wonder whether it was full of water in 2013. Google Earth might provide the answer. I'll have a look.

EPM Price at posting: 2.6¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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