Vancouver, B.C. April 15, 2020 Ascot Resources Ltd. (TSX: AOT; OTCQX: AOTVF) (Ascot or the Company) is pleased to announce robust results for an independent Feasibility Study (the Study) prepared in accordance with a National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report (NI 43-101) for its 100% owned Premier and Red Mountain gold projects (the "Project") located in the Golden Triangle near Stewart, British Columbia, Canada. The Study outlines a low capital restart plan to feed the Premier mill at 2500 tonnes per day (tpd) to produce approximately 1.1 million ounces (Moz) of gold and 3.0Moz of silver over eight years. The Study is based on a proven and probable reserve (noted below) of 6.2 million tonnes (Mt) from the Project. In addition to the reserves, the Company has inferred resources of 5.1Mt at 7.25 grams per tonne (g/t) gold at Premier, with approximately 2.2Mt of this resource material at similar grade, near the planned development, which may potentially be converted to reserves during operations.
Feasibility Study Highlights:
Base case assumptions are using a US$1400/oz gold price, $17/oz silver price and CAD to US exchange rate of 0.76. All values shown in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Some figures may not add due to rounding
Base case Pre-Tax Net Present Value (NPV) NPV5% of $516M, internal rate of return (IRR) IRR of 62%;
Base case After-tax NPV5% of $341M and IRR 51%, and after-tax payback period of 1.8 years;
Assuming a spot gold price of US$1710 per ounce and spot CAD to US exchange rate of 0.71, the project economics increase to an After-tax NPV5% of $602M and IRR 78%;
The base case utilizes Proven and Probable Reserves of 6.2Mt at 5.9g/t gold and 19.7g/t silver; this includes the impact of the mining dilution and excludes all resources outside of planned stopes
Low initial capital expenditure of $147M, including a 9% contingency, and 22% indirect costs;
Life of Mine (LOM) payable production of 1.1Moz of gold and 3.0Moz of silver with peak production of 180 thousand gold equivalent ounces;
LOM operating costs (C1)* of $145 per tonne processed or US$642 per payable ounce produced and LOM all in sustaining costs (AISC)* of $174 per tonne processed or US$769 per payable ounce produced.
* C1 and AISC are Non-GAAP and IFRS measure see note 1 of Table 1
Ascots President and CEO, Derek White commented, The completion of the Feasibility Study marks an important milestone for Ascot in the progression of restarting the Project. The current strong gold price environment, robust projected economics and quick payback creates an attractive opportunity to build our mine. The Study focused on maximising the project economics, which involved optimising mining methods and development to reduce operating cost per ounce. The result of this optimisation was a conversion of 64% of indicated resources to reserves at Premier. Management believes that future underground drilling will help to improve conversion of some of the remaining inferred resources and improve annual production rates. Managements next steps will be focused on advancing this exceptional gold project with all our stakeholders while continuing to grow our mineral resources and reserves to enhance value through further drilling and delivering a number of identified opportunities.
Potential value enhancement opportunities identified beyond the scope of the study:
Reduced mining dilution and development capital by optimizing shallow angle mining;
Conversion of approximately 2.2Mt of resources in the Inferred Category;
Reduced process capital and operating cost by introducing process enhancements.
Feasibility Overview
The Premier Gold Project (PGP) is located 25 kilometres (km) north of the town of Stewart, British Columbia, adjacent to the border with Alaska in the famous gold mining district known as the Golden Triangle. The PGP can be accessed by road from Stewart and does not require a remote campsite for employees. Three of the deposits are based at PGP and the fourth deposit is located at the Red Mountain Project (RMP), situated approximately 23km to the southeast of the PGP mill. PGP requires amendments to the Mines Act and Environmental Management Act permits and is a brownfield site; it does not require an Environmental Assessment. RMP has federal ministerial approval and provincial environmental assessment certificates, but will require multiple permits and potential amendments, including a Mines Act permit and an Environmental Management Act permit.
The Study is based on four underground mining operations feeding a centralized 2500 tpd processing facility, located at PGP. The four mining operations known as Silver Coin, Big Missouri, Premier and Red Mountain will be sequenced over an 8-year period to initially produce 1.1 Moz. of gold and 3.0 Moz. of silver. PGP benefits from existing road access, historical mining, milling, the nearby Long Lake Hydro power plant, tailings and mine waste stockpile infrastructure resulting in a low initial capital refurbishment cost. Mining will commence from the Silver Coin and Big Missouri deposits, which will be followed by the Red Mountain deposit in year 3 and then the Premier deposit. In the four planned operations, access for production will be through both new and existing adits (side hill portal access) utilizing a combination of new ramp development and refurbishment of existing underground infrastructure. Mining methods will largely consist of low-cost long hole stoping for most of the ore, with limited use of inclined undercut long hole, room & pillar and cut & fill mining methods in specific shallow or flat lying stopes. Ore will be trucked to the processing facility and mining waste will be used underground as a combination of rockfill and cemented rockfill.
The existing processing facility will be refurbished within a construction period of approximately 40 weeks. The process plant will utilize conventional crushing, grinding and gravity circuits followed by a standard carbon-in-leach (CIL) process to produce a gold doré. The plant refurbishment will consist of a combination of existing, new and repaired equipment and supporting plant infrastructure. Prior to ore from RMP being treated, the plant will add an energy efficient fine grinding mill and an additional pre-leach thickener to accommodate processing of the harder ore feed and the finer grind required for recovery purposes.
PGP has an existing tailings storage facility and water treatment plant, and is adjacent to the Long Lake Hydro power plant, which currently supplies Pretiums Brucejack Mine and connects to the BC Hydro grid. Currently, the site receives power via a 25-kiloVolt power line from the town of Stewart. This arrangement would be modified with a new substation to be constructed adjacent to the processing plant that would receive power from the Long Lake power plant approximately 800 metres south of the processing plant. Power would be distributed to the site from this substation. The Study has two key enhancements to the existing infrastructure: the tailings dam would be successively raised using centreline lifts throughout the mine life with approximately 1.2 million cubic metres (m3) of non-acid generating rock excavated from a nearby quarry; and the water treatment plant would be modified to nearly double the existing capacity to accommodate additional water treatment from the Big Missouri and Silver Coin operations, and would also include an ammonia treatment plant, a water clarifier and lime high density sludge system.
In order to complete this study, Ascot engaged a team of highly experienced professional consultants led by Sacre-Davey Engineering Inc. (SDE). SDE was responsible for overall coordination, infrastructure and the economic evaluation; InnovExplo Inc. and Mine Paste Ltd. for mining; Sedgman Canada Limited (a member of CIMIC Group) for metallurgy and processing; Knight Piésold Ltd. for tailings and water management; SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. for the water treatment plant; Paul Hughes Consulting Ltd. for site geotechnical; McElhanney Ltd. for access roads; Prime Engineering for the Electrical substation; Palmer Environmental Consulting Group Inc. for geochemistry, hydrology and water quality modelling; and Falkirk Environmental Consultants and EcoLogic Consultants for environmental studies.
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