Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – An enhanced definitive feasibility study (DFS) into the Achmmach tin mine, in Morocco, has delivered a 35% increase to the project’s net present value (NPV), while reducing expected preproduction capital costs by 18%.
The 2014 DFS had estimated that a capital investment of $181-million would be required to build the world’s eighth-largest tin mine and Africa’s biggest. At the time, the project was estimated to have a NPV of some $126-million and an internal rate of return of 23.3%.
However, an enhanced DFS had now delivered a 9% increase in the ore reserve estimates for the project and delivered a revised mine design and schedule that brought tonnage and grade forward in the early years of production.
Mill throughput under the new plan had increased by 5%, to 1.05-million tonnes a year, while underground connection to the high-grade Western zone extended the total project life from nine to ten years.
The Achmmach mine was expected to deliver about one-million tonnes a year of ore, to produce about 5 300 t/y of tin concentrate.
The enhanced DFS has estimated that the project would now require a capital investment of $148-million, and would deliver a NPV of $171-million.
“The enhanced DFS has seen our base case NPV rise and C3 costs of tin-in-concentrate production fall to around $13 296/t, confirming Achmmach as a low cost producer,” said Kasbah MD Wayne Bramwell.
Bramwell said that the updated project financial model would now be sent to financiers in order to obtain revised debt terms for the tin project.