Mining requires deep digging.

Planning a mine requires deep pockets. And patience.

If construction of the Idaho Cobalt Project starts in October or November as its backer hopes, the company will have spent nearly eight years securing permits, not counting exploration that began in 1993.

Publicly traded Formation Capital Corp., Vancouver, B.C., plans the mine about 45 miles west of Salmon. The company received a Draft Environmental Impact Statement from the U.S. Forest Service in late February.

"To get here, we had $14 million into this process, just the permitting effort," Formation Capital Chairman and CEO Mari-Ann Green said in an interview in Boise. The Forest Service is yet to issue a final go-ahead decision.

Formation Capital in January 2001 filed a "mine plan of operation" detailing where facilities would be built, and where material would come in, go out and be stored. The plan was approved in May 2001.

The company spent the summer of 2000 conducting its own feasibility audit of the site. Green said the company conducted 18 studies, involving different science disciplines and types of measurements, starting that year. Formation Capital initiated water-quality baseline studies when it started exploratory drilling in 1995.

"It's not a matter of taking advantage of high prices," Green said. Prices will cycle up and down during the considerable period of time required to find a site, plan a mine and obtain permits, she said.

It took several years just to find the desired mining area in east central Idaho's 30-mile "cobalt belt" and the ideal mining site there, she said. Formation Capital took soil samples and grid-mapped the area by where cobalt is available in sizable and accessible quantities, she said.

"Now, with the Draft EIS, agencies are telling the public they are inclined to let us mine, and this is the last public comment (period)," Green said.

The 60-day comment period is scheduled to end April 23, but it could be extended by another 30 days depending on comments received, she said.

Formation Capital expects the Forest Service to issue a final Environmental Impact Statement, and record of decision filed in the Federal Register, in late July, Green said. The record of decision is subject to a 45-day appeal period, and possibly an additional 45-day period to study and resolve issues brought forth on appeal, she said.

Construction of the mine would take 12 to 14 months, she said. The company would employ 150 in Lemhi County in addition to 39 in northern Idaho.

Formation Capital expects to spend $80 to $100 million combined on the Idaho Cobalt Project and the Big Creek refinery retrofit, Green said.

A report in the Challis Messenger newspaper said Formation Capital has spent a total of $30 million on the project including permitting and exploration.

Green said it will cost $8 to $10 a pound to mine, mill and process the material. Cobalt has risen recently to about $30 a pound.

Annual cash flow discounted for interest, depreciation and taxes is estimated at $30 million a year for 10 years assuming a cobalt price of $13.80 a pound and about $47 million assuming a price of $19.40 a pound, according to a Formation Capital projection. Cobalt is used to make strong, lightweight alloys. Formation Capital also would extract copper and gold from the Lemhi County site.