Rare Element Resources
Bear Lodge Project
Canadian NI 43-101 Technical Report
October 9
th
, 2014
10135-200-46 - Rev. 0
17-55
Water
The Hydromet process is designed to recover and recycle water and chemical
reagents for reuse. The plant will consume 1,142 tons per day of water, with the
main consumption being the cooling tower evaporation. Evaporation in the
process, and water of hydration in the tailings will also consume water. The plant
is designed to be a zero discharge plant.
Operating Factor
17.9.4
The operating factor is defined below:
% Operating Factor = (Nominal Capacity/Design Capacity) x 100
Operating factor incorporates both planned and unplanned maintenance and hours
lost when the process chemistry deviates from its design.
An Operating Factor of 80% was used to design the PUG.
An Operating Factor of 95.9%, or the equivalent of 350 days of operation per year
was used to design the Hydromet Plant.
Storage Capacities
17.9.5
Physical Upgrade Plant
17.9.5.1
Run of Mine
Three stockpile areas will be installed upstream of the PUG Feed Hopper to
accommodate mine schedule and ore type crushed. Two of these stockpiles
areas will have a diameter of 300 feet (91 meters) and will be located near the
Jaw crusher Feed Hopper. The third stockpile area will be used for storage of the
low grade ore and will have a capacity of 1.6 million short tons.
Surge Storage Capacities
The crushed ore will be stockpiled by grade at the PUG site to accommodate
unplanned downtime.
Hydromet Plant
17.9.5.2
Surge Storage Capacities
The Hydromet Plant surge storage capacities are designed to accommodate
transportation delays between the source of the product and the Hydromet plant.
