Northisle Copper and Gold Inc. continues to move forward with its North Island Project.
Northisle has submitted the results from their Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), an economic feasibility study, to SEDAR – a system used for electronically filing information to Canadian regulatory authorities that enhances investor awareness.
The North Island Project is a 33,149-hectare block of mineral titles 100 per cent owned by NorthIsle that stretches 50 kilometres northwest from the now-closed Island Copper Mine and located 10 kilometres south of Port Hardy.
The North Island Project contains the Hushamu and Red Dog Deposits and five other partially explored copper-gold porphyry occurrences.
In early September, Northisle announced the positive results of it’s PEA.
“We are very pleased with the results of our maiden PEA,” said Jack McClintock, President of NorthIsle in a Sept.13 press release. “This PEA shows the project can be built and operated with excellent returns based on conservative metal prices.”
The company reported that the PEA demonstrates the potential technical and economic viability of the project, which would be constructed as an open-pit mine “processing nominally 75,000 tonnes per day”.
The PEA was prepared by M3 Engineering and Technology Corp and highlights five key points:
1. After-tax NPV 8 per cent of CAD $550.4 million, 14.3 per cent IRR, 22-year mine life;
2. Life of Mine (LOM) metal production of 1.8 billion pounds of copper, 1.7 million ounces of gold, and 55 million pounds of molybdenum;
3. Annual production of 82 million pounds of copper, 79 thousand ounces of gold, and three million pounds of molybdenum;
4. Initial capital costs of CAD $1.34 billion, plus sustaining capital of $139 million; and
5. Direct cash cost of production per pound of copper net of gold, molybdenum and pyrite concentrate is CAD $1.17.
The company also reports that preliminary mine designs have been developed for the Red Dog and Hushamu deposits based upon the indicated and inferred resources.
The plan was developed to mine Red Dog concurrently with Hushamu in the early years of the mine life until Red Dog Resources were depleted.
“There are a number of areas of potential improvements that could improve the project further, including advanced metallurgical studies to improve metal recoveries, evaluating higher production rates, evaluating the use of the Island Copper pit for tailings disposal, and evaluating the potential for rhenium credits in the molybdenum concentrate,” said McClintock, adding “there remains excellent potential to add tonnes to our resource base”.
He noted that “drilling this summer demonstrated that our Hushamu deposit remains open for a significant expansion of its resource. In addition, there are several partially explored copper – gold exploration targets, any one of which could contribute significantly to the resource base of the Project.”
