JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The recent increase in the prices of the metals that the Parys Mountain mine will produce has spurred on Anglesey Mining to move into action to bring the project into production “as soon as practicable”.

Anglesey on Friday announced four immediate steps to progress the north Wales project, including starting an environmental impact assessment, converting the scoping study to a definitive feasibility study (DFS), recruiting key corporate staff and initiating project financing discussions.

The company is planning to have a completed DFS ready in the first half of 2018, which will pave the way for meaningful project financing discussions. Should financing be secured, construction of the Parys Mountain zinc/lead/copper project will start before the end of 2018 and initial production should start in the first half of 2020.

Anglesey explained that the prices of all the metals that Parys Mountain would produce had significantly increased since the July scoping study, which Micon International and Fairport Engineering completed. The price of copper increased from $2.50/lb in the scoping study to $3.10/lb, zinc increased from $1.25/lb to $1.40/lb and lead has moved from $1/lb to $1.09/lb.

The company noted that the overall impact of these changes would be “very” positive on the pre-tax net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR).

The scoping study base case yielded a pretax NPV of $33.2-million, or £26.6 million, at a 10% discount rate. With an estimated pre-production capital cost of $53-million, or £42-million, resulting in an indicated IRR of 28.3%.

The study base case envisages a mining rate of 1 000 t/d, to produce an average yearly output of 12 500 t of zinc concentrate at 57% zinc, 6 400 t of lead concentrate at 52% lead, and 3 500 t of copper concentrate at 25% copper, over an initial mine life of eight years.

The overall net smelter return for the three concentrates, including the silver and gold precious metals contributions, is expected to total more than $270-million at the forecast metal prices used for the base case.

The scoping study also used longer term metal price projections of $1.35/lb for zinc and $3.00/b for copper, which improved the NPV, at a 10% discount, to $43.2-million, or £34.6-million.