The company recently completed a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) which outlined a high margin, opencast mine plan that generates a pre-tax internal rate of return of 34.1% and net present value at an 8% discount rate of US$230 million. The current drill programme is a clear opportunity to significantly enhance the project’s economics with additional exploration that extends the mine life and/or allows for higher grade material to be scheduled earlier in the mine plan.
There are six main target areas that surround the Nash Creek Deposit and include: Hayes South, Hayes North, Hickey East, NW Soil Anomaly, Hickey North and the Central Zone. Drilling has commenced in the NW Soil Anomaly area and will generally proceed in a southern direction.
A 60 line km ground induced polarisation (IP) survey will be completed at the Central Zone shortly to further delineate zinc-lead-silver mineralisation and potential to discover new deposits. The IP programme may be expanded up to 160 line km to cover high priority target areas along a 20 km trend of mineral occurrences grading up to 19% Pb+Zn.
