Preliminary Economic Assessment on Moonlight
In March 2018, the Company announced the results of the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) completed by Tetra Tech, on the Moonlight Copper Project. The study only focused on the Moonlight deposit and does not factor in the other two deposits (Superior and Engels) or the several untested exploration targets on the Company’s property. The PEA also treated the oxide copper at Moonlight as “waste rock” and Placer-Amex estimated 12 million tons at 0.54% copper (non-compliant, historic estimate1). Gold revenue was also excluded from the economic analysis since assay data density was insufficient. Gold credits could potentially improve project economics.
Moonlight Deposit PEA Summary2 (Dollars in USD):
| Est. Average Mill Feed Grade (LOM) | 0.25% Cu |
| LOM | 17 years |
| Production Rate | 60,000 st/d |
| Metallurgical Copper Recovery | 86% |
| Metallurgical Silver Recovery | 70% |
| Initial Capital Costs | $513 M |
| Operating Cost | $7.77 /st |
| Copper Price | $3.15 /lb |
| Silver Price | $18.00 /oz |
| Pre-Tax IRR | 16.4% |
| Pre-tax NPV (8%) | $237 M |
| Post-tax IRR | 14.6% |
| Post-tax NPV (8%) | $179 M |
- 1. Estimate predates NI-43-101 and sufficient work has not been done to classify the estimates as current mineral resources and so they are considered historical estimates. The Company is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources.
- 2. “Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Moonlight Deposit, California, USA” by Tetra Tech dated March 2, 2018 available on SEDAR. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized.
