Rare Element Resources
Bear Lodge Project
Canadian NI 43-101 Technical Report
October 9
th
, 2014
10135-200-46 – Rev. 0
1-13
1.8 Infrastructure
The project area is located 7 air miles or 12 road miles (11 or 19 kilometers)
northwest of the town of Sundance, Wyoming, which is on US Interstate Highway 90,
and 22 air miles (35 kilometers) west of the South Dakota state line.
The REO direct shipping ore or pre-concentrate will be shipped from the mine
approximately 40 miles (64 kilometers) south along State Highway 116 to Upton,
Wyoming. Tailings generated from beneficiation will be disposed in close proximity to
the Hydromet plant.
All necessary infrastructure, such as housing, food, fuel, skilled labor, mining
supplies, etc., would be available in the nearby towns, or further to the west in Gillette
or to the southeast in Newcastle. Water rights at the mine site are available through
permits issued by the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office. The water supply at the
hydrometallurgical plant is available from the City of Upton. At the mine site, a power
line, which will be upgraded, runs to within a mile of the project area. Electrical power
would be initially supplied by diesel generated power and eventually by the Powder
River Energy Corporation (PreCorp) starting in year 10 of operation. Power costs are
reported to be some of the lowest in the United States. Power for the
hydrometallurgical site will be fed from a sub-station at a nearby industrial park.
Supplies can be trucked to the site 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Gillette, which is
located on both US Interstate Highway 90 and rail lines. A Burlington Northern rail
transport line is also located at Moorcroft, 34 miles (54 kilometers) west of Sundance,
and at Upton, 40 miles (64 kilometers) south. The Powder River Basin is one of the
world’s major coal mining regions and it contains multiple large mines and two coal-
fired power plants. Gillette, the largest city in the basin, would be a major logistics
center for any development at the Bull Hill Mine. The current size of the total mine site
property controlled by unpatented mining claims and one leased section is
approximately 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) and is sufficiently large to
support a mining operation, with no foreseeable obstacles regarding expansion. The
hydrometallurgical site is located on approximately 400 acres (160 hectares) of
private land west of the city of Upton adjacent to an existing industrial park.
