TSX-listed Prophecy Development is working towards securing a positive environmental impact statement (EIS) record of decision for its Gibellini vanadium project, in Nevada, by the first quarter of 2021, the company said on Wednesday, noting that it should pave the way for construction to follow in the same year and first vanadium production by late 2022.
Prophecy reported that it had appointed SWCA Environmental Consultants as its third party contractor to work under the direction of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The contractor would work on the EIS for the Gibellini vanadium project and assist the BLM in the maintenance of the administrative record.
The Gibellini EIS would be one of the first mining EISes done under Secretarial Order 3355 that mandated the final study could be more than 150 pages in length and had to be completed within one year of the publication date of the notice of intent (NOI) for the EIS in the federal register.
The firm stated that the NOI would be published in the first quarter of next year, marking the formal start of the EIS.
Prophecy CEO Mike Doolin stated that the company believed Gibellini to be the only project poised to start vanadium mine production in the US by 2022.
The Gibellini mine, in the Battle Mountain region of Nevada, is forecast to cost $116.76-million to build and will produce 9.65-million pounds of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5), according to a June 2018 preliminary economic assessment (PEA). The PEA estimated an operating cost of $4.77/lb of V2O5, while the price of vanadium is currently trading at $18.40/lb.