Mining firm moves headquarters to Idaho, changes name

As expected, the company formerly known as Midas Gold has changed its name to Perpetua Resources and officially moved its headquarters to Boise from Canada. The firm stated it would move to Idaho when the mining company came to an agreement in January with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Forest Service on its voluntary clean-up of the abandoned Stibnite Mine in Valley County.

The name change will also prevent confusing the firm with the similarly-named Midas Mine in the historic Midas District in northern Elko County, Nevada. The Midas Mine is currently owned by the Hecla Mining Company.

The firm will continue to trade its stock on the Toronto exchange, but under the new name and the new ticker symbol of PPTA starting on Feb. 18. The company’s stock also debuted on the Nasdaq exchange under the same ticker symbol of PPTA, also on Feb. 18. The company announced the move, name change and NASDAQ listing on Feb. 16.

Perpetua Resources is in the middle of the long process of obtaining permits to reopen the Stibnite mine to mine gold and antimony. The mine is named for the mineral stibnite, which is naturally-occurring antimony trisulfide. Antimony is a federally-designated critical mineral, which is the new name for what used to be called a strategic mineral under the Stock Piling Act of 1939.

The cleanup of the mine site has three phases. By agreement with the EPA and NFS, Perpetua Resources will not do phases two and three if it does not succeed in gaining the permits it needs to operate the Stibnite Mine. It will do the first phase even if it does not obtain its permits for the property. The first phase will remove 325,000 tons of historical mine wastes and divert flowing surface waters away from contamination sources. These steps will reduce the heavy metals at the site.