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Message: Plus Northern Miner REE

MDN

(MDN-T) may be best known for its 30% interest in the producing Tulawaka gold mine in Tanzania

operated by

Barrick Gold

(ABX-T, ABX-N) and a portfolio of exploration projects in the surrounding

Lake Victoria gold district. But some investors are probably just as interested in the junior's 67.5 % stake

in Crevier Minerals, a private company in Quebec with a large tantalum and niobium resource.

Iamgold

(IMG-T) owns the remaining 32.5 % stake in Crevier Minerals (Les Mineraux Crevier), whose

project 50 km north of Girardville in the Lac Saint-Jean region of Quebec, has NI 43-101 measured and

indicated resources of 25.4 million tonnes grading 0.196% niobium oxide and 234 parts per million

tantalum oxide.

Inferred resources add 15.42 million tonnes grading 0.17% niobium oxide and 252 ppm tantalum oxide.

The cut-off grade used was 0.1% niobium.

The resource estimate was calculated after 6,480 metres of drilling in the second half of 2009 and is the

basis of a feasibility study that is expected out by June 2011.

A scoping study in 2009 estimated an 18-year mine life at 4,000 tonnes per day with annual production

of 1.7 million kilograms of niobium oxide and 178,000 kilograms of tantalum oxide at a cash cost of $47

per tonne ore.

At US$51 per kg of niobium oxide and US$150 kg of tantalum oxide, average annual cash flow would be

about $57.5 million with a net present value at a 5% discount of $272 million pre-tax and a pre-tax

internal rate of return of 13.9%.

In a corporate presentation in November, MDN said it expects the project to be in production by the

second half of 2013. About 75% of the metallurgical test work has been completed and the company is

about 70% through an environmental baseline study.

As of Sept. 30, MDN held $12.9 million in working capital and no debt.

Niobium is most often used as an alloying element in steels and in superalloys for things like jet engine

components, rocket sub-assemblies, and heat-resisting and combustion equipment. Tantalum -- highly

resistant to corrosion by acids and a good conductor of heat and electricity with a high melting point - is

used in electronic components including cell phones, pagers, flat-screen TVs, personal computers, and

automotive electronics. Alloyed with other metals, tantalum is also used in making carbide tools for

metalworking equipment and in the production of superalloys for jet engine components.

Crevier Minerals' property covers 83 contiguous concessions over a total of 4,645 hectares and was

discovered in 1975 by Soquem, which conducted several exploratory phases. Soquen transferred the

property to Cambior in 1986 when its assets were privatized.

Iamgold acquired the property in 2006 and Crevier Minerals became sole owner in April 2008.

MDN has an option to boost its equity participation in the company to a maximum of 87.5%.

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