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December 22, 011 <br />Barbara Green, Chairperson <br />Mined Land Reclamation Board <br />Division of Mining, Reclamation, and Safety <br />1313 Sherman St., Rm. 215 <br />Denver, CO 80203 <br />Dear Ms. Green: <br />Climax Molybdenum <br />A Freepor`- McMoRan Company <br />Sent by Certified Mail <br />23 2011 <br />Climax Mine <br />HWY 91— Fremont Pass <br />Climax, Cclorado 80429 <br />Phone "19) 486 -2150 <br />Fax 719) 486 -2251 <br />r P- OW r-a• ff... <br />DEt- '2011 <br />Re: Report to Mined Land Reclamation Board of Significant Change to Climax Mine - <br />Reclamation Permit M- 1977 -493 % <br />In July of this year, Freeport- McMoRan Copper and Cold Inc. announced the planned restart of <br />mineral production at the Climax Mine ( "Climax ") in 2012. Please recall that Climax described <br />trio resumption of production to you and other members - )f the Mined Land Reclamation Board <br />during the April 2011 hearing for approval of Amendment AM - 4 to Permit M 1977 - 493. At <br />the time of the AM -06 hearing the restart of the Climax Mire wa still pending. <br />The February 15, 2006 Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law an Order for Amendment AM -05 <br />to Permit M -1977 -493 requires Climax to report to the Board within 90 days when a significant <br />change in the Climax Mine is anticipated. In accordance with the conditions of AM -05, this <br />letter is to report to the Board that a significant change to the Clirmax Mine is anticipated in early <br />2012 with the resumption of continuous production of molybdenum concentrate. <br />As described during the AM -06 hearing, construction activitieis have been ongoing for several <br />years to prepare the site for restart. Within the past few mont1 is, construction work for all major <br />facilities has approached completion and commissioning of srecific facilities and equipment was <br />initiated. During pre- startup commissioning, individual piecres of equipment and systems are <br />tested so that operational issues are discovered and correted. This process of testing and <br />debugging equipment and systems can take weeks and even months to complete. For these <br />reasons, a precise date when there will be continuousjmineral production (i.e., full scale <br />operations) is difficult to predict. Once equipment h as successfully passed both no -load and trial <br />run load- testing, it is then formally signed -off on a/ hd released for safe processing and production <br />of molybdenum concentrate. Our best estimate of- when this may occur such that Climax begins <br />continuous mineral production is sometime between the middle of the first quarter of 2012 and <br />the middle of the second quarter of 2012. <br />