TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX- and NYSE MKT- listed Vista Gold on Tuesday announced that it had submitted the initial environmental impact statement (EIS) to the Northern Territory Environmental Protection Authority (NT EPA), starting the concurrent agency review and public consultation periods.

Following the public consultations, which was set to finish on August 12, and the agency review period, the NT EPA would provide a consolidated set of comments to Vista, following which, the company would submit a final EIS in response.

Vista said it was hopeful to complete the EIS process by year-end.

The company had also completed and filed the National Instrument 43-101 technical report for the Mt Todd preliminary feasibility study (PFS) that was completed May 29.

The PFS for the Mt Todd gold project, located in Australia’s Northern Territory, evaluated two base-case development scenarios for a 50 000 t/d and a 33 000 t/d operation.

The 50 000 t/d base case estimated the proven and probable reserves at 5.9-million ounces of gold, held within 223-million tonnes grading 0.82 g/t gold, at a cut-off grade of 0.4 g/t. This represented a 44% increase from the company's January 2011 PFS.

The $1.05-billion mine would produce about 369 850 oz/y of gold over the 13-year mine life, including the average production of 481 316 oz/y of gold during the first five years of operations. The life of mine (LOM) average cash costs were expected to be $773/oz, including the average cash costs of $662/oz during the first five years of operations.

The after-tax net present value (NPV), using a 5% discount, was $591.3-million and the internal rate of return (IRR) would be 15.9% at $1 450/oz prices. At a price of $1 600/oz the NPV would increase to $876.6-million and the IRR to 21.1%.

The 33 000 t/d option estimated proven and probable reserves of 3.56-million ounces of gold, held within 124-million tonnes grading 0.9 g/t, at a cut-off grade of 0.45 g/t.

Under this scenario, the operation would produce about 262 826 oz/y over the 11-year mine life, including average yearly production of 294 502 oz/y during the first five years of operations. The average LOM cash costs were expected to be $684/oz, including average cash costs of $676/oz during the first five years of operations.

The after-tax NPV was estimated to be $440.2-million and the IRR would be 16.9% at $1 450/oz prices, which would increase to a NPV of $615.6-million and an IRR of 21.4% if the gold price topped $1 600/oz again.

This option would cost $761-million to construct.