10th Nov 2015 14:41
LONDON (Alliance News) - Rare Earth Minerals PLC Tuesday said its joint venture partner at the Yangibana North project in Western Australia has published an updated scoping study for the project.
Rare Earth has a 30% free carried interest to the bankable feasibility study for the Yangibana North rare earth mineral project with its partner, Hastings Rare Earth Metals Ltd, which holds the other 70%.
On Tuesday, Hastings published an updated scoping study for that project, but this also included the Bald Hill South, Fraser's and Yangibana West deposits in which Rare Earth holds no interest.
The updated scoping study released by Hastings, which groups together all of those deposits under the Yangibana project, shows it has a net present value of AUD650.0 to AUD750.0 million based on Hastings extracting the current indicated resources at the project over seven years.
Operationally, the scoping study suggests the 8.1 million tonnes of indicated resources at Bald Hill South, Fraser's, Yanginbana West and Yangibana North, could support a 1.0 million tonne per year operation over seven years with an internal rate of return of 52%.
Including the inferred resources at the Yangibana project, the net present value rises to between AUD900.0 million to AUD1.10 billion.
With the inclusion of the 4.2 million tonnes of inferred resources, the operation would still produce 1.0 million tonnes per year but for a 15 year mine life, with a further 4.0 to 7.0 million tonnes to target through exploration work.
As Rare Earth only holds an interest in the Yangibana North area, it will benefit from only part of the entire Yangibana project that Hastings is developing.
The Yangibana North area holds an individual indicated resource of 2.7 million tonnes of ore at 1.46% TREO and an inferred resource of 471,000 tonnes at 1.55% TREO. TREO is the sum of oxides of the heavy rare earth elements and the light rare earth elements.
The scoping study does not break down the net present value or other financial information for each individual deposit.
The entire Yangibana project is expected to need AUD411.0 million in capital expenditure to develop, yielding an operating cost of around AUD205 per tonne of ore mined.
Hastings said the pre-feasibility study for the entire Yangibana project is on schedule and is set to be completed before the end of the first quarter of 2016.
Rare Earth shares were down 0.6% to 0.869 pence per share on Tuesday afternoon.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Rare Earth Metals