First Mining Gold Corp (FFMGF)

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NEWS - sorry if that was posted before, I was not here

https://www.firstminingfinance.com/news/releases/index.php?&content_id=257

First Mining Finance Announces Positive Preliminary Economic Assessment for its Springpole Gold Project
Estimated after-tax NPV5% of US$792 million and 26.2% IRR for the Springpole Gold Project at base case long-term precious metal prices

September 21, 2017

Vancouver, British Columbia – First Mining Finance Corp. (“First Mining” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the positive results of an independent Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) for its Springpole Gold Project (the “Project”) in northwestern Ontario, Canada. The PEA was prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (“NI 43-101”) by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. of Vancouver, Canada. The PEA describes the potential technical and economic viability of establishing a conventional open-pit gold mine-and-mill complex for the Project. The base case scenario utilizes long-term metal prices of $1,300 per ounce (“oz”) of gold (“Au”) and $20 per oz of silver (“Ag”).

The PEA was prepared on a 100% ownership basis and all amounts in this news release are stated in U.S. dollars (“USD”) unless otherwise noted.

Highlights of the PEA are as follows:

Initial capital expenditure of $586 million and sustaining capital expenditures of $117 million for total estimated capital expenditures of $703 million over the projected 12-year mine life (LOM). In addition, closure and reclamation costs are estimated at $20 million.
Pre-tax Net Present Value (“NPV”) at a 5% discount rate of $1.159 billion calculated at the beginning of the two-year construction period and a pre-tax Internal Rate of Return (“IRR”) of 32.3% for the base case.
After-tax NPV at a 5% discount rate of $792 million and after-tax IRR of 26.2% for the base case.
Estimated payback of initial capital in 3.5 years from the commencement of commercial production.
Estimated 12-year LOM operation supporting a 36,000 tonne-per-day (“tpd”) process plant that includes crushing, grinding, carbon-in-pulp leaching as well as gold recovery via activated carbon to produce doré bullion.
LOM strip ratio of 2.1 to 1.
Average annual payable production projected to be 296,500 oz Au and 1,632,000 oz Ag for LOM with average production for the nine years at full capacity of 357,100 oz Au and 2,038,800 oz Ag per annum.
Estimated cash costs of $619/oz gold equivalent (“AuEq”) (cash costs include on-site mining, processing and G&A costs, treatment and refining charges and royalties).
“All-in” cash costs (in addition to cash costs including initial/sustaining capital and mine closure) estimated at $806/oz of AuEq.
Recommends moving forward with a pre-feasibility study.
The Company is working towards the filling of an Environmental Assessment in Q1 2018.
“This updated PEA study represents a significant improvement in both economics and annual and total ounces of gold and silver produced when compared with the previous PEA completed for Gold Canyon in 2013. The results of this PEA indicates that the Springpole Project may have economic viability. The PEA demonstrates that the Project has excellent margins with low cash costs of US$619 per ounce of gold equivalent and an average annual payable production of 322,000 ounces of gold equivalent, over the life of mine. On that basis, once in production as contemplated by the PEA, Springpole would be one of the largest gold mines in North America,” said Keith Neumeyer, First Mining’s Chairman.

Readers are cautioned that the PEA is preliminary in nature, it 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 PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Preliminary Economic Assessment – Project Economics:

The results of a discounted cash flow analysis for the Project are presented in Tables 1 and 2 below. NPV, IRR and payback values are estimated for both pre-tax and post-tax scenarios. The base case scenario utilizes the long-term metal prices outlined in Table 3 and a discount rate of 5%. IRR and NPV values are calculated at gold and silver prices of $1,300 and $20 per oz, respectively.

Table 1 – Pre-tax discounted cash flow estimates for varying gold prices