VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Exploration partners Centerra Gold and Premier Gold have published the results of a feasibility study completed on their jointly owned Hardrock project, located in the Geraldton-Beardmore greenstone belt, in north-western Ontario.

Prepared by consulting engineering firm G Mining Services, the feasibility study calculated an after-tax net present value (NPV), at a 5% discount rate, of C$709-million, and an after-tax 14.4% project internal rate of return on a pre-finance basis.

According to the study, the C$1.25-billion is expected to process 141.7-million tonnes at an average grade of 1.02 g/t gold, producing 4.2-million ounces of recovered gold at an average all-in sustaining cost of $780/oz sold over a fourteen-and-a-half-year mine life.

The project is expected to produce, on average, 356 000 oz/y of gold for the first four full years of production, entailing 38-million tonnes milled with an average head grade of 1.27 g/t gold.

The feasibility study includes mineral reserves for the openpit Hardrock deposit only, with the potential opportunity to improve the life-of-mine average grade by processing higher-grade material from the other partnership deposits, such as Brookbank, or the Hardrock underground resource, the companies advised in a joint press release.

On March 9, 2015, Centerra and Premier formed a 50/50 partnership for the joint ownership and development of the Trans-Canada Property (now called the Greenstone gold property), which includes the Hardrock project, other deposits, and exploration properties.

The Hardrock project contains openpit constrained probable mineral reserves of 4.7-million ounces of gold, held in 141.7-million tonnes at an average gold grade of 1.02 g/t when using a cutoff grade of 0.33 g/t gold. It also includes 17.3% mining dilution.

The study used a base case price assumption of $1 250/oz gold and a C$:$ exchange rate of $1.30.

Going forward, the partnership expects to evaluate programmes to reduce the project’s risk profile, including the advancing permitting and First Nation discussions, discussions relating to project financing and completing and submitting the environmental assessments based on the feasibility study.