River Valley could host PGM mine: New Age Metals economic study sees open-pit potential, east of Sudbury.

• Date: 01 August 2019

The River Valley area, east of Sudbury, looks ripe for a potential open-pit platinum group metals (PGM) mine. After crunching the numbers in an economic study, New Age Metals announced there's enough palladium in the ground at its River Valley PGM project to support a large-scale mine for at least 14 years, creating 325 jobs in the process.

The Vancouver-based junior miner released a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on June 27 of its property in Dana and Pardo Townships, 60 kilometres east of Sudbury.

On its 15,800-acre property, the company is proposing a $495-million bulk mining operation that would produce 119,000 ounces of palladium a year.

The main use of palladium is in the auto industry for catalytic convertors. Most of the world's palladium supply is mined in South Africa and Russia.

Since first acquiring the property in 1998, New Age (formerly known as Pacific North West Capital) has been expanding and touting this project as the "largest undeveloped primary PGM resource in...