May 23rd, 2018 / TheNewswire / Rockport, Canada - New Age Metals Inc. (TSX.V: NAM; OTCQB: NMTLF; FSE: P7J.F) is pleased to announce that the directors of the company have approved the request, from management, that NAM would like to complete a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), on the 100% owned River Valley Platinum Group Metals (PGM) Project. Located approximately 100 km from the world famous Sudbury Metallurgical Complex, the River Valley Project is the largest undeveloped primary PGM resource in Canada. View our Corporate Video here.
The PEA will evaluate the Project at a high-level engineering and financial study. The mineralization will be interrogated with pit shell designs and mining schedule. The study would incorporate the latest information provided by the exploration programs as well as the metallurgical, geotechnical studies, and the new geophysics. The objective of the PEA would be a mine plan, mine schedule, a capital cost estimate, operating cost estimate incorporated into a financial model to provide total cash flow, net present value (NPV), and internal rate of return (IRR). NAM is currently conducting negotiations with several 3rd party engineering companies and will finalize its selection by the end of June 2018. NAM's phase 1 program outlined in the NI-43-101: Diamond Drilling, Geological and Engineering Consulting, Metallurgical Studies, Geotechnical Studies, and a LiDAR survey. The approximate cost of the phase 1 program, including the PEA, will be $980,000, according to WSP Canada, the company who completed the May 2018 NI-43-101.
WSP, who completed the May 2018 NI-43-101, recommends that additional exploration expenditures are warranted to improve the viability of the Project and advance the Project towards a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA). It is recommended that NAM undertake a two-stage exploration program focused on delineation and expansion drill programs that will concentrate on the open pit potential along strike and down-dip of the known resources. Each program can be carried out concurrently and independently of each other; neither is contingent on the results of the other.
River Valley 2018 Exploration & Development Objectives
- Ground IP geophysics from T3 south to T9 completed and Alan King, NAM's Sudbury based Senior Geophysical Consultant, will have his final recommendations (for Q2 2018)
- Utilize the new resource estimation, geophysical studies and reports to establish further drill targets (Q1-Q3 2018)
- Continue with drilling in the northern portion of the project (Q3-Q4 2018 & Q1 2019)
- Explore more target areas based on recommendations of the updated 43-101 and the 2018 geophysics (Q3-Q4 2018 & Q1-Q2 2019)
- Complete further baseline studies, geotechnical studies, a Lidar survey, and mineralogical and metallurgical studies (Q4 2018)
- Continue to advance the River Valley PGM Project towards a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the River Valley PGM Deposit (slated for end of Q1 2019)
- The PEA will evaluate the Project at a high-level engineering and financial study. The mineralization will be interrogated with pit shell designs and mining schedule. The study would incorporate the latest information provided by the exploration programs as well as the metallurgical and geotechnical studies. The output of the PEA would be a mine plan, mine schedule, a capital cost estimate, operating cost estimate incorporated into a financial model to provide total cash flow, net present value (NPV), and internal rate of return (IRR).
- Our Corporate Mandate is to build a series of open pits (bulk mining) over the 16 kilometers of mineralization. We will mine, crush, and concentrate on site, then ship the concentrates to Sudbury. The objective of NAM before the March 2018 NI-43-101 was to increase the resource in the northern portion (Pine Zone/Dana North/Dana South/Lismer North) to over 1Moz of PGMs. The new NI-43-101 accomplished this.
QUALIFIED PERSON
The contents contained herein that relate to Exploration Results or Mineral Resources is based on information compiled, reviewed or prepared by Carey Galeschuk, a consulting geoscientist for New Age Metals. Mr. Galeschuk is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release.
