Northern Dynasty Sinks Along With First Quantum Alaska Deal – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – May 25, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. plummeted Friday after the collapse of a pact with First Quantum Minerals Ltd. to finance the controversial Pebble mining project in Alaska.

The two companies were unable to reach an agreement on a proposed deal disclosed in December, Northern Dynasty said Friday in a statement. The arrangement would have given a unit of First Quantum an option to earn a 50 percent interest in Pebble in return for $150 million paid over four years to fund permitting.

The project at one of the largest copper and gold deposits has been fraught for years. Effectively banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, shares of Northern Dynasty surged after Donald Trump’s election victory.

The shares climbed further in January 2017 during nomination hearings for Scott Pruitt, a climate-change skeptic, to become head of the EPA.

Since then, the stock has slipped. Earlier this month, opponents disrupted First Quantum’s annual general meeting in Toronto and took out a full-page ad in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper vowing to continue fighting the project.

For the rest of this article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-25/northern-dynasty-crashes-pre-market-as-first-quantum-pact-ends