Published: March 16, 2023 |

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Exploration interest is growing in Nevada for the traditional gold and silver deposits and for lithium and other minerals needed for batteries, according to Nevada Division of Minerals (NDOM) Administrator Michael Visher.

“Claims continue to go up,” Visher said, reporting that as of Feb. 2 there were 253,994 claims on public land, using U.S. Bureau of Land Management figures. “That’s a 5.2 percent increase year over year.”

Visher said that the minerals division believes about 13 percent of the claims are for lithium, but the majority are for gold and silver. About 10 percent are for other battery-related minerals: cobalt, vanadium, zinc, and copper.

The gold price “continues to support continued exploration,” Visher said.

Gold prices have been in the $1,800s to $1,900s in recent months.

Nevada Division of Minerals provides information on the process from exploration and “what comes next” to companies interested in locating in the state, including advising them on permitting, Visher said. “That is part of our statutory requirements — to assist with exploration and extraction in Nevada.”

Visher said there is exploration for “about anything” used in batteries, which have grown in importance with the growth of demand for electric vehicles, and an NDOM report to the Nevada Assembly and Senate natural resources committees in February says there are 44 companies exploring for lithium in the state.

Of the 50 critical minerals that the U.S. Geological Survey has identified, 33 of them can be found in Nevada, although that doesn’t mean the deposits may be economically feasible to mine, he said in an interview.

“It’s the price dictating” the exploration interest, Visher said. Higher prices mean more money for exploration and development.

Visher commented that a recent U.S. District Court ruling that would allow Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass lithium project in Humboldt County to move forward is good news for exploration projects in the state.

Thacker Pass construction will take 30 months, however, so it will be some time before the mine is producing lithium, Visher said.

Albemarle’s Silver Peak operation in Esmeralda County is the only current lithium producer in the state. Its lithium comes from brine solution, rather than from mining clay.

The Washington Post reported Albemarle produces 5,000 metric tons of lithium a year at Silver Peak, enough lithium to power 80,000 electric vehicles, but sales of electric vehicles totaled roughly 7.8 million in 2022.

Another lithium project is Ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium and boron project in Esmeralda County. Rhyolite Ridge is in the permitting stage and will be a mine, not a brine operation.

Visher said there is a pilot plant in Clayton Valley near Albemarle’s Silver Peak operations in Esmeralda County that is testing direct lithium extraction from brine, a process that would use a lot less water. NeoLith Energy, a subsidiary of Schlumberger, is operating the pilot plant. The company says its DLE process for brine can reduce the lithium production time from over a year to weeks.

Visher said NeoLith has temporary water permits but Albemarle holds all the water rights in the basin.

Yet another lithium project in Esmeralda County is operated by Century Lithium Corp., formerly known as Cypress Development Corp. The company said in a news release that its Clayton Valley Lithium Project is in the pilot stage of testing material from its lithium-bearing claystone deposit and is progressing toward completion of a feasibility study and permitting.

On Feb. 9 the U.S. Department of Energy announced a conditional commitment for a $2 billion loan to Redwood Materials as the company constructs and expands its battery materials campus near Reno. The company plans to manufacture anode and cathode components for batteries using new and recycled materials. Currently these components are manufactured entirely overseas.

Visher said this project is good for Nevada, too.

“That’s a big deal. It means we will have more production occurring in the U.S. rather than coming from Asia,” Visher said.

“That is why GM, Toyota, and Apple are investing in mining companies,” so they have reliable supplies in this county, Visher said. “More and more companies are getting off-take agreements.”

The new building will be in Storey County. The company currently has more than 300 employees who recycle used batteries and has supply contracts with Ford and with Panasonic, which makes batteries for Tesla, according to The Associated Press.

PROMOTING NEVADA

NDOM’s promotion of Nevada minerals includes staffing booths at events such as the Elko Mining Expo and more recently, two events in Canada. NDOM went to Vancouver in January for the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) Roundup and to Toronto in March for the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention.

Visher said there was a lot of interest in exploration in Nevada as “investors are looking for more mature projects,” rather than early exploration projects.

Partners in the Nevada booth at the AME Roundup in addition to NDOM included the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Governor’s Office for Economic Development, the Nevada Mining Association, Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority, the Geological Society of Nevada, and the Nevada Mineral Exploration Coalition.

“We try to spread the word on mining opportunities in Nevada,” Visher said.

The Nevada Division of Minerals supports itself through fees, grants, and the sale of publications, rather than receiving state funds.

“We get $10 for each mining claim filed with county recorders,” Visher said.

Of that $10, NDOM uses $4 for its Abandoned Mine Lands program and $6 for general operations.

NDOM also receives a $1,000 one-time fee for exploration well permits for lithium in brine that “pays for our time,” and a one-time fee of $20 per acre for potential disturbance on public land. A portion of that goes to the AML program, which the NDOM administers to reclaim dangerous old mine sites throughout the state.

ABANDONED MINES

In 2022, Nevada field work for the AML program included inventorying 639 hazards, securing 872 hazards and revisiting 1,392 hazards, with staff, eight summer interns and a contractor, Environmental Protection Services.

Sean Derby, who is chief of the AML program, said the contractor does the hard closures that “make access almost impossible” on abandoned mine sites that need the extensive work, while interns and volunteers install fences and barricades for adits to old underground workings.

He said there are 24,626 inventoried AML sites in Nevada and 20,420 of them have been secured. However, the estimate is that there are 50,000 to 60,000 abandoned mine sites in Nevada.

“I go out into the field a lot and every time I think we have a complete picture, we find more,” Derby said.

The major hard closure project in 2022 was the Forman Shaft in Virginia City that required special attention so it wouldn’t impact historical features, including stone that was cut by hand, he said.

The project is probably “the biggest wildlife compatible closure in North America,” Derby said, reporting that the Nevada Department of Transportation and Carson City provided access to fill materials, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was another partner.

SAFETY CAMPAIGNS

NDOM also promotes its “stay out, stay alive” safety campaign to warn people against the hazards of old mining sites, adding a new video campaign that debuted in December 2022 featuring “Jimmy King, the king of bad ideas.”

Visher said in February that there had been more than 100,000 views of the video.

In conjunction with the new campaign, the division also is giving away license plate frames that read: “Abandoned Mines. Danger. Unsafe Mine. Don’t be stupid. Stay out. Stay alive.”

Derby said the campaign and closures of abandoned mines have prevented accidents and deaths.

“This is our 10th year without a fatality,” Visher said.

NDOM also recognizes companies for reclamation projects in Nevada. Visher said NDOM is looking for nominees for the 2023 reclamation awards and needs to get the word out, especially since there was only one award presented in 2022, to Kinross Gold Corp.’s Bald Mountain Mine for its RBM Pit partial backfill reclamation project.

The awards committee is made up of NDOM, the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Nevada Department of Wildlife. They additionally recognized Coeur Mining’s Sterling Mine revegetation test-plot program. The project wasn’t eligible for a 2022 award, however, according to the minerals division.

“We’re actively trying to get more submissions” from mining and exploration companies, Visher said. “It would be nice to have photos of what was occurring.”

NDOM is accepting nominations through July 14.

Along with mine production, NDOM also tracks oil and gas and geothermal production. Figures in the presentation to the Nevada Legislature’s resource committees state that there are 10 active oil fields in the state and 26 active geothermal plants. There also are 469 permitted commercial and industrial geothermal wells in Nevada.

The division administers the state reclamation bond pool, as well. The pool was created to help small exploration and mine operators comply with state and federal bonding requirements. In its report to the Nevada legislative committees, NDOM stated that the pool has a “handful of current plan-level participants.”

ONLINE DATA

In addition, the division is involved in providing funding and assistance with reports, such as the annual Mineral Exploration report that recently came out looking at the year 2021, and special reports such as one on oil and gas in Railroad Valley and a geothermal report for Soda Lake near Fallon.

There also is a new map every two years that updates active mines and energy producers in Nevada, and that was released in February and is free.

NDOM is the primary funding provider for the studies that are done by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Visher said the division has been busy, as well, moving data from hard copies to online, “even historic mining claims and plans,” so people can download information they need.

There is a one-stop shop for explorationists, called the Nevada Mineral Explorer. It is described as an interactive, user friendly, online map-making tool that hosts a large variety of datasets useful for mineral exploration.

The Nevada Mineral Explorer is a joint effort between the minerals division and the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology. The NBMG hosts the web application, but it can be accessed from both the NBMG and NDOM open data sites, said Rachel Micander, a geologist and information specialist with the bureau.

“Both Lucia Patterson (NDOM) and I maintain and update the datasets that feed into the web application,” Micander said.

Additionally, the division presents Earth Sciences Workshops for schools each year in cooperation with the Nevada Mining Association Education Committee. One workshop this year is March 14-15 in Las Vegas, and the other one is June 21-22 in Winnemucca. NDOM also offers public outreach and minerals education throughout the year.

NDOM has eight employees at its office in Carson City and three in Las Vegas, and the division is overseen by the Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources.

By: Adella Harding, Elko Daily Free Press