Rockcliff Metals PEA foresees underground mines at its Tower and Rail projects in Manitoba

Rockcliff Metals (CSE: RCLF; US-OTC: RKCLF) has released a preliminary economic assessment for its 100% owned Tower and Rail projects located in central Manitoba’s Flin Flon-Snow Lake Greenstone belt.  

The PEA envisioned building two underground mines at Tower and Rail, with dual concentrates of copper and zinc produced on both sites using a modular mill. The plan is to construct the Tower mine first, over 16 months, and utilize its cash flow to fund a second mine at the Rail deposit. The two deposits are situated 175 km apart. 

The modular mill will be transferred to the Rail property once the Tower deposit has been fully mined out, which is envisioned to occur in the fifth year of the plan, the company said.   

The early-stage study forecast annual production of 119,000 copper-equivalent tonnes a year at an all-in sustaining cost of US$2.46 per pound. The combined life of mine of the Tower and Rail deposits is 9.5 years. 

At an 8% discount rate, the project would generate a post-tax net present value of $128.6 million and a post-tax internal rate of return of 67% using metal prices of US$3.76 per lb. copper, US$1.25 per lb. zinc, US$1,828 per oz. gold and US$24.64 per oz. silver.  

The preliminary economic assessment foresees an initial capital investment of $81 million with a construction period of 16 months.  

“The Tower and Rail deposits are near surface, associated with great infrastructure and are extremely high grade,” Ken Lapierre, the company’s CEO, told the Northern Miner. “The possibility to increase the resources with more drilling and extend the potential LOM [life of mine] is high.”  

The next steps include completing the environmental studies at both properties, increasing the resources and upgrading “the confidence level with some of the existing resources to the measured category,” said Lapierre.  

The Tower project has indicated resources of 1.71 million tonnes grading 3.28% copper, 1.04% zinc, 0.7 gram gold per tonne and 16.5 grams silver per tonne. Inferred resources add 499,000 tonnes, grading 1.74% copper, 1.16% zinc, 0.2 gram gold per tonne and 8.4 grams silver per tonne. Tower consists of 43 mineral claims covering a total area of 9,530 hectares. 

The Rail project contains indicated resources of 2.05 million tonnes grading 1.87% copper, 0.59% zinc, 0.6 gram gold per tonne and 6.1 grams silver per tonne. Inferred resources stand at 2.14% copper, 0.83% zinc, 0.9 gram gold per tonne and 7.6 grams silver per tonne. Rail p consists of 16 mining claims totalling 3,187.8 hectares.  

The company is confident of obtaining all the “required permits” to allow mining, processing and dry stack tailings deposition on site, within two years.   

Rockcliff Metals acquired the Tower and Rail properties in 2019 and 2012 respectively.  

At presstime, Rockcliff Metals was trading at 6.5¢ per share, within a 52-week trading range of 4.5¢ and 9.5¢.  The company has 307.9 million common shares outstanding for a market cap of $21.5 million.