Study gives Creston Moly project NPV of US$502.9 million

A new prefeasibility study for Creston Moly‘s (CMS-V) project of the same name in Sonora, Mexico, says a 40,000-tonne-per-day open pit operation could produce 20 million lbs. of molybdenum and 12 million lbs. of copper per year over 11 years.

The project has a pre-tax net present value of US$465 million with contract mining and a US$502.9 million NPV with owner mining, at an 8% discount rate in both cases.

The pre-tax internal rate of return is 28.2% with contract mining and 27.2% with owner mining.

Cash costs were put at US$6.57 per lb. moly equivalent with contract mining and US$5.74 per lb. with owner mining.

Capital costs using a contract miner were put at US$511.6 million and US$576.2 million with owner mining.

The base case study used a moly price of US$15 per lb. and a copper price of US$1.75 per lb. The company pointed out that as of January 2009, the three-year rolling average metals prices for moly and copper were US$28.67 per lb. and US$3.12 per lb., respectively while current prices are about US$9.10 per lb. and US$1.45 per lb.

The Creston deposit has proven and probable reserves of 146.7 million tonnes grading 0.077% moly totaling about 250 million lbs. moly and 0.049% copper for 158.8 million lbs. copper.

The waste to ore strip ratio for the pit would be 1.23 to 1 over the mine life. Over the 11 years, the mine would produce a total of 219 million lbs. of molybdenum and 129 million lbs. of copper. During the first five years, the molybdenum grade would be higher than average at 0.088%.

Creston Moly says there is potential to add to reserves, increasing the mine life, through exploration of the Main, Red Hill, Alejandra zones.

Creston Moly shares were up a penny today at 12¢ apiece on a trading volume of nearly 59,000 shares. The company has 121 million shares outstanding.

 

Print

Be the first to comment on "Study gives Creston Moly project NPV of US$502.9 million"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. To learn more, click more information

Dear user, please be aware that we use cookies to help users navigate our website content and to help us understand how we can improve the user experience. If you have ideas for how we can improve our services, we’d love to hear from you. Click here to email us. By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. Please see our Privacy & Cookie Usage Policy to learn more.

Close