February 23, 2011
Northern Dynasty Receives Positive Preliminary Assessment Technical Report for Globally Significant Pebble Copper-Gold-Molybdenum Project in Southwest Alaska

Wardrop completes independent Preliminary Assessment report based on concept, pre-feasibility and feasibility-level study programs completed by Pebble Partnership and Northern Dynasty

Preliminary Assessment describes and assigns potential economic value to three mine development cases comprising 25, 45 and 78 years of open pit mining and a nominal processing rate of 200,000 tons per day

For the Pebble Project, the 45-year Reference Case yields a 14.2% pre-tax IRR, a 6.2-year payback on initial capital investment of $4.7 billion and a $6.1 billion pre-tax NPV at a 7% discount rate and long-term metal prices.
At current prevailing metal prices, the 45-year Reference Case yields a 23.2% pre-tax IRR, a 3.2-year payback on initial capital investment and a $15.7 billion pre-tax NPV at a 7% discount rate

For Northern Dynasty's 50% share of the project, the 45-year Reference Case yields an 18% pre-tax and 15.4% post-tax IRR, a 4.7-year pre-tax and 5.3-year post-tax payback on initial capital investment and a $3.6 billion pre-tax and $2.4 billion post-tax NPV at a 7% discount rate and long-term metal prices. At current prevailing metal prices, the 45-year Reference Case yields a 30.2% pre-tax and 25.1% post-tax IRR, a 2.6-year pre-tax and 3.1-year post-tax payback on initial capital investment and an $8.3 billion pre-tax and $5.6 billion post-tax NPV at a 7% discount rate for Northern Dynasty's 50% interest.

The 45-year Reference Case produces 31 B lb copper, 30 M oz gold, 1.4 B lb molybdenum, 140 M oz silver, 1.2 M kg rhenium and 907,000 oz palladium while mining only 32% of the mineral resource

For the 45-year Reference Case, cash costs per payable lb of copper after by-product credits total --$0.11

February 23, 2011, Vancouver, BC -- A National Instrument 43-101-compliant Technical Report on a Preliminary Assessment of the Pebble Copper-Gold-Molybdenum Project (the "Pebble Project") in southwest Alaska, completed for Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX: NDM; NYSE Amex: NAK) by Wardrop, a Tetra Tech Company ("Wardrop"), confirms that Pebble is an economically robust project with the potential to become one of the most important metal producers of the 21st century. The Preliminary Assessment updates and substantially revises project economic analysis last done by Northern Dynasty in 2004, and so constitutes a material change for which a material change report containing the full executive summary will be shortly filed at www.sedar.com and at www.northerndynasty.com, along with a complete copy of the Technical Report. ...<snip>...

See Complete Article at Northern Dynasty Web Site: http://www.northerndynastyminerals.com/ndm/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=444069&_Type=News-Releases&_Title=Northern-Dynasty-Receives-Positive-Preliminary-Assessment-Technical-Report-...