Sunrise Resources upbeat on continuing work in Nevada

The AIM-traded firm said all of the supplemental environmental reports previously in preparation had now been completed and submitted to the lead regulator, the Bureau of Land Management.

It said the reports analysed the impact of the CS Project on various natural resources, for example water, air quality, wildlife, soils, land use, vegetation and geology, on a cumulative basis, taken with other existing or proposed developments in the project's wider area.

It said those impacts were considered by the company's environmental consultants to be “minor or negligible” in most cases, except in respect of the mine area itself, where there was a “moderate but localised” impact on soils and geology as the board said would be expected for any mining operation.

The information from the reports, the company's baseline studies and plan of operations were now being combined into the environmental assessment document, Sunrise said.

It explained that the preparation of that assessment was almost complete, and on approval of the supplemental environmental reports by the Bureau of Land Management, that document would be submitted and put forward by the bureau for public comment as a part of the final permit approval process which is now an expedited process under recent government directives.

“Since the last permitting update, the Bureau of Land Management has introduced a hydrological baseline study as a new permitting requirement for mining projects,” the board said in its statement.

“Whilst completing the supplemental environmental report and drafting the environmental assessment, the company has completed and submitted this baseline study to the bureau for approval so as not to delay the permitting process.”

Sunrise Resources said the permitting timeline remained on track.

On the subject of mine planning, the firm said it had been advancing its plans for the initial production of perlite and pozzolan using mobile processing equipment typically used in the quarry industry.

It said it had been working with equipment suppliers to cost and source the required process plant, and had received cost proposals for the rental of the various plant items in line with the firm’s objective to develop the project at minimal capital cost.

The development option aimed to produce a horticultural grade perlite and a finely crushed natural pozzolan for direct feed to customers' grinding facilities.

On the marketing front, the board said that following the reporting of further successful commercial scale perlite expansion tests, the company had received “strong enquiries” from a number of potential new perlite customers.

It said it now planned a series of larger commercial-scale tests, and intended to process the 100-ton perlite bulk sample currently located on site to produce additional supplies of crushed and screened horticultural grade raw perlite for supply to those new customers.

Consideration was also being given to processing a bulk sample from its NewPerl Project at the same time, for which a permit had already been granted.

“I am pleased to be reporting that our mine permitting process remains on track for completion towards the end of the next quarter,” said Sunrise Resources executive chairman Patrick Cheetham.

“Our project has generated further strong interest amongst the attendees of the Perlite Institute Annual Meeting held last week where customer discussions continue to reinforce the opportunity for a new supplier of raw perlite.

“The latest United States Geological Survey commodity summary shows a growing market for perlite with a 12% annual rise in US consumption in 2018 and a 22% rise over 2015, driven in part by increased use of perlite in the expanding cannabis market in North America.”