P2 Gold 2025 PEA Update Delivers Strong Economics and Increased Metal Production
2025 PEA Highlights
- After-tax net present value (5% discount rate) of
US$2.253 billion and internal rate of return of 77.5% atUS$3,885 /oz gold,US$47.92 /oz silver andUS$4.81 /lb copper ("Spot Case Metal Prices") (See spot case to base case comparison in Table 1) - After-tax net present value (15% discount rate) of
US$946.0 million and internal rate of return of 77.5% at Spot Case Metal Prices (See spot case to base case comparison in Table 1) - Total projected life-of-mine ("LOM") after-tax cash flow of
US$3.737 billion at Spot Case Metal Prices over 14.2-year mine life - Total projected LOM revenue of
US$8.152 billion at Spot Case Metal Prices over 14.2-year mine life - LOM production of 1.547 million ounces of gold, 2.481 million ounces of silver and 213,000 tonnes (469.7 million pounds) of copper
- Estimated pre-production capital cost, including contingencies, of
US$382.7 million with payback of less than one year at Spot Case Metal Prices - For expediency and comparative purposes, the 2025 PEA uses the same mine plan as the
May 2024 Preliminary Economic Assessment (the "2024 PEA") based on metal prices ofUS$1,950 /oz gold,US$25 /oz silver andUS$4.50 /lb copper
2025 PEA Costs Update
Operating and capital costs were updated to
- Mining operating costs increased by approximately 1%
- Mining capital costs, initial and sustaining, increased by approximately 7.25%
- Processing operating costs increased by approximately 14%
- Processing capital costs, initial and sustaining, increased by approximately 2%
A comparison of the 2025 PEA to the 2024 PEA is set out after the 2025 PEA description. The only updates for the 2025 PEA are the updated operating and capital costs and metal process recoveries from the Phase Three Metallurgical Program. A NI 43-101 Technical Report will be prepared and posted on www.p2gold.com and the Company's profile on www.sedarplus.com within 45 days of the date of this news release.
"Life-of-Mine production at Gabbs is now expected to be approximately 1.55 million ounces of gold and almost 470 million pounds of copper, a direct result of the improvement in metal process recoveries we've been able to achieve since the last PEA," commented
The 2025 PEA is preliminary in nature, includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves, and there is no certainty that the 2025 PEA will be realized. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The Company has not defined any Mineral Reserves on the
Economic Sensitivities
Table 1:
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Gold Price (US$/oz) |
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|
|
|
|
Copper Price (US$/lb) |
|
|
Net Revenue (US$) |
|
|
After tax NCF(2) (US$) |
|
|
After tax NPV(2) 5% (US$) |
|
|
After tax NPV(2) 10% (US$) |
|
|
After tax NPV(2) 15% (US$) |
|
|
After tax IRR(2) (%) |
33.8 % |
77.5 % |
Payback(3)/ |
2.4 / 14.2 |
<1 / 14.2 |
(1) As of
(2) NCF means net cash flow; NPV means net present value; IRR means internal rate of return.
(3) Calculated with preproduction capital, excluding mill and heap leach sustaining capital
Capital and Operating Costs
Table 2:
Capital Costs |
(US$ in millions) |
Mining (including contingency of 10%) |
|
Process, Heap Leach |
|
Other (including contingencies) |
|
|
|
Working capital and initial fills (heap leach) |
|
Sustaining Capital (heap leach & mill capital and contingencies) |
|
Sustaining Capital (mining and contingencies) |
|
Reclamation and Closure |
|
(1) Sum differs due to rounding
Table 3:
Operating Costs |
(US$) |
Mining ($/tonne mined) |
|
Heap Leach Processing ($/tonne) |
|
Mill Processing ($/tonne) |
|
G&A ($/tonne) |
|
AISC (by-product)(2), LOM @ Base Case Metal Prices ($/ounce of gold) |
|
AISC (by-product)(2), LOM @ Spot Case Metal Prices ($/ounce of gold) |
|
(1) Including rehandle material
(2) Net of silver and copper credits
Projected Mining and Production
Table 4:
|
Tonnes |
Gold |
Silver |
Copper |
|
|
|
1 |
9,000/ |
0.78/ |
1.68/ |
0.23/ |
163.2 |
248.2 |
11,743 |
2 |
9,000/ |
0.54/ |
1.28/ |
0.26/ |
141.2 |
232.5 |
15,179 |
3 |
9,000/ |
0.35/ |
0.96/ |
0.24/ |
93.1 |
174.9 |
14,713 |
4 |
9,000/ |
0.26/ |
1.17/ |
0.22/ |
68.1 |
197.2 |
13,683 |
5 |
9,000/ |
0.31/ |
1.16/ |
0.21/ |
74.4 |
201.6 |
12,844 |
6 |
4,000/ |
0.52/ |
1.40/ |
0.22/ |
137.8 |
224.6 |
18,550 |
7 |
4,000/ |
0.35/ |
0.72/ |
0.19/ |
102.8 |
151.1 |
15,443 |
8 |
4,000/ |
0.43/ |
0.89/ |
0.23/ |
110.6 |
162.7 |
16,464 |
9 |
4,000/ |
0.47/ |
0.72/ |
0.26/ |
122.3 |
154.1 |
17,391 |
10 |
4,000/ |
0.36/ |
0.60/ |
0.25/ |
96.6 |
120.7 |
17,149 |
11 |
4,000/ |
0.25/ |
0.55/ |
0.23/ |
84.8 |
129.4 |
19,270 |
12 |
4,000/ |
0.51/ |
1.21/ |
0.16/ |
105.8 |
174.9 |
14,922 |
13 |
4,000/ |
0.67/ |
1.39/ |
0.21/ |
144.7 |
181.6 |
12,735 |
14 |
2,317/ |
0.20/ |
0.64/ |
0.14/ |
85.3 |
108.7 |
10,968 |
15 |
-/ |
-/ |
-/ |
-/ |
16.0 |
18.8 |
1,981 |
Total |
|
|
|
|
1.547 (3) |
2.480 (3) |
213,035 (3) |
(1) Ox/S means oxide mineralization/sulphide mineralization
(2) Nominal tonnes
(3) Sums may differ due to rounding
Table 5:
Mining |
(M t) |
Total waste tonnes mined |
399.4 |
Total processed tonnes mined |
125.3 |
Total processed tonnes mined Oxide/Sulphide |
79.3 / 46.0 |
Total tonnes mined |
534.0 |
Process Recoveries |
|
Heap - Gold Recovery, Oxide |
85.0 % |
Heap - Silver Recovery, Oxide |
60.0 % |
Heap - Copper Recovery, Oxide |
67.0 % |
Mill - Gold Recovery, Sulphide |
94.5 % |
Mill - Silver Recovery, Sulphide |
50.0 % |
Mill - Copper Recovery, Sulphide |
79.9 % |
Mining and Processing
Mining
The open pit waste and mineralized material will be mined by standard open-pit mining methods using a combination leased and owned mining fleet of 136-tonne haul trucks and 15.3 m3 hydraulic shovels, fine crushed using a system incorporating a gyratory crusher, cone crushers and high-pressure grinding rolls (HPGR).
Processing
Heap Leach
The Gabbs mineralized material is estimated to contain an average of 0.24% copper based on the mine plan used for the 2025 PEA. A portion of this copper is cyanide soluble and is expected to be extracted in the heap leach circuit. The cyanide soluble copper has an effect on the cyanide consumption. A SART (sulphidization, acidification, recycling and thickening) plant that releases cyanide associated with the copper cyanide complex, allowing it to be recycled back to the leach process as free cyanide is included. The resulting copper precipitate will be sold, bringing additional revenue to the project.
After the crushing circuit, the mineralized material will be agglomerated with cement and conveyor stacked on the heap leach pad in 8-meter lifts then single-stage leached with a dilute cyanide solution. The gold and copper bearing solution will be collected in the pregnant solution pond and pumped to the SART plant. Pregnant solution will be acidified with sulphuric acid, then copper will be precipitated as sulphides by the addition of sodium hydrosulphide. The precipitate will be thickened and filtered to produce a copper filter cake for shipment to a smelter. The barren solution from the SART plant will be processed in a carbon adsorption-desorption-recovery (ADR) plant to recover gold. The gold will be periodically stripped from the carbon using a desorption process. The gold will be plated on stainless steel cathodes, removed by washing, filtered, dried and then smelted to produce a doré bar. For the first five years, the heap leach circuit will operate at a rate of nine million tonnes per annum, in years six through 14 the heap leach circuit will operate at a rate of four million tonnes per annum.
Mill
The ROM feed material to the mill will use the same crushing circuit as the heap leach facilities. The mill feed will be crushed to P80 6.3 mm, (1/4") in a three-stage crushing circuit, with the third-stage an HPGR. The milled sulphide product will be treated in a flotation plant to produce a copper concentrate suitable for sale. The flotation tailings will be thickened, then direct cyanide leached to dissolve gold, silver and copper. The leached solids will be washed in a CCD circuit to remove the dissolved metals and cyanide. The dissolved copper and silver will be recovered from the CCD overflow solution in a SART plant as a copper/silver sulphide precipitate. Regenerated sodium cyanide from the SART plant will be recycled to the leach circuit. Gold in the SART plant barren solution will be recovered in an ADR plant and refined to produce doré bars. The CCD tails are treated in a cyanide destruction circuit, filtered, and conveyed to a "dry stack" storage facility.
Opportunities
- Leach Cycle – complete studies to optimize the leach cycle time as the 2025 PEA contemplates 150-day leach cycle, while leach kinetics improved significantly with 98% of the gold, 90.1% of the silver and 85.1% of the copper recovered in less than 58 days under the Phase Three Metallurgical Program – a reduction in the leach cycle time will reduce the capex by reducing the size of the heap leach facility and amount and size of related equipment
- Metallurgy – complete additional test work to evaluate recoveries for sulphide gold mineralization and evaluate the use of HPGR for potential heap leaching of sulphide mineralization to increase recovery of free gold – if sulphide gold recoveries are sufficiently high, the mill facility may not be required, reducing overall capex
- Mine Plan – optimize mine sequencing to increase return on capital and carryout geotechnical drilling to optimize pit wall slope angles
- Waste Stripping - evaluate extent of alluvium in waste to reduce stripping cost
- Contract Mining - evaluate contract mining versus owner fleet
- Mineral Resource – expand oxide and sulphide gold and copper mineralization (zones remain open)
- Capex – evaluate equipment alternatives to reduce capital costs
Next Steps
Expansion and infill drilling will be undertaken next to expand the existing Mineral Resource and convert Inferred Mineral Resources into Indicated Mineral Resources as well as geotechnical drilling to refine pit wall angles and ground conditions for production facilities. Concurrently, additional metallurgical studies will be undertaken to evaluate the recovery of sulphide gold through heap leaching as well as rock characteristic studies to support the filing of a mining plan of operations. Thereafter, Feasibility-level studies will commence and will include an evaluation of contract mining versus an owner fleet (leased or owned), mine plan optimization and equipment alternatives.
2025 PEA Comparison to the 2024 PEA
The 2025 PEA is based on the same mine plan and process flow sheet as the 2024 PEA. For the 2025 PEA, capital and operating costs were updated to
Economic sensitivities for the 2025 PEA are compared to those for the 2024 PEA at 2024 Base Case metal prices (
Table 6: Gabbs Project Comparison of 2025 PEA to 2024 PEA Economics
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2025 PEA |
2024 PEA |
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Gold Price (US$/oz) |
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Copper Price (US$/lb) |
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Net Revenue (US$) |
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After tax NCF(2) (US$) |
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After tax NPV(2) 5% (US$) |
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After tax NPV(2) 10% (US$) |
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After tax NPV(2) 15% (US$) |
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After tax IRR(2) (%) |
21.0 % |
23.3 % |
72.2 % |
77.5 % |
(1) As of
(2) NCF means net cash flow; NPV means net present value; IRR means internal rate of return.
Qualified Persons
The 2025 PEA was prepared by Carl E. Defilippi, RM SME and Caleb Cook, P.E. of KCA and
About
Neither the
Forward Looking Information
This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws that is intended to be covered by the safe harbours created by those laws. "Forward-looking information" includes statements that use forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "potential" or the negative thereof or other variations thereof or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking information includes, without limitation, information with respect to the Company's expectations, strategies and plans for the
Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made, including without limitation, the estimated internal rate of return and net present value at 5%, 10% and 15% discount rates of the
The Company cautions that there can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.
Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.
SOURCE