TriMetals Mining Updates PEA for Gold Springs Project

TriMetals Mining Inc. (TSX:TMI,OTCQX:TMIAF,OTCQX:TMIBF) released an updated preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for its Gold Springs gold-silver project. According to the company, the project, which is located in Nevada and Utah, “shows a strong, low strip, technically simple and scalable heap-leachable open-pit project using a Merrill-Crowe gold-silver recovery process.”
Key highlights include:

• 15,000 TPD mine plan of 9 year with a 2:1 strip ratio.
• NPV₅% of $137.4 million (after tax $92.1 million), IRR of 49.9% (after tax 35.8%); Payback of 3.1 years.
• LOM payable production of 428 thousand ounces of gold and 4.9 million ounces of silver.
• Cash operating cost of $669 oz Au and fully-loaded cost of $863 oz Au*.
• $133 million of cumulative after-tax free cash flow.
• Pre-production capital cost of $55 million (including a $6.4 million contingency) and on-going capital cost of $24.8 million (including a $3.7 million contingency).

* Cash Operating cost per gold ounce is net of silver credit and includes mining, processing, general and administrative and operating cost contingency; Fully-loaded cost per gold ounce includes Cash Operating cost per gold ounce plus sustaining capital, federal, state and local taxes and does not include initial capital.. The portion of the project subject to the updated PEA does not have overriding royalties.

Ralph Fitch, president and CEO of TriMetals, commented:

Completing the Updated PEA is an important milestone. With last year’s exploration program we continue to gain valuable technical knowledge about the project’s metallurgy, geology and engineering. The result is an updated PEA that is more robust than its predecessor. Discovering and growing a mineral resource with positive economics takes time. The mineral resource at Gold Springs has consistently grown since we started exploring Gold Springs in 2010 by approximately 5,000 AuEq** ounces per drill hole. Management firmly believes there continues to be substantial upside for the discovery of additional gold and silver mineralization since both the Jumbo and Grey Eagle resource blocks remain open to expansion. These two resource areas represent just two of 26 outcropping gold targets identified on the property to date. There are also numerous buried geophysical targets which have yet to be explored. Importantly the project is scalable allowing it to be re-designed to the optimal open-pit for the deposit in the context of an expanded resource which we believe is very likely, or in response to higher or lower precious metal prices.
** Gold equivalent (AuEq) calculations reflect gross metal content using the gold/silver ratio of 57.14 used in the most recent resource estimate (2015 Resource) and in the previously reported resource estimate (2014 Resource), and have not been adjusted for metallurgical recoveries.

Click here to read the full TriMetals Mining Inc. (TSX:TMI,OTCQX:TMIAF,OTCQX:TMIBF) press release.