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Abacus Files Preliminary Economic Assessment Report on SEDAR; Discussions with Strategic Partners Begin
Abacus Files Preliminary Economic Assessment Report on SEDAR; Discussions with Strategic Partners...
About this update from Abacus Mining & Exploration Corp.
[{"type":"text","content":"\nAbacus Files Preliminary Economic Assessment Report on SEDAR; Discussions with Strategic Partners Begin\n\n\n Aug. 5, 2009 (Baystreet.ca) -- VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation (the \"Company\") (TSX VENTURE: AME) is pleased to announce that the independent Preliminary Economic Assessment report (\"PEA\") for the Company's copper-gold Ajax property has now been filed on SEDAR. The report is also available on the Company's website at www.amemining.com.\n\nThe National Instrument 43-101 (\"NI 43-101\") compliant study was completed by Wardrop, a Tetra Tech Company as the project QP, and supported by AMEC Americas LTD as the QP for mine planning, GBC Engineering as the QP for geotechnical pit slope stability, Knight Piesold as QP for environmental baseline studies and tailing impoundment design, and G&T Labs who conducted the metallurgical test work. The report contains production parameters, capital costs, operating costs, and other financial projections for an open pit mine processing 60,000 tonnes of mill feed per day. The metal prices used for the base case are US $2.00 per pound copper and US $700 per ounce gold (announced June 22, 2009). \nTom McKeever, Executive Chairman of Abacus, states, \"Over the past two years our team has worked diligently to define a sizeable, high quality resource that will support a large-scale, long-life copper/gold mine at Ajax. This PEA, which in many areas is as advanced as a prefeasibility study, clearly demonstrates the long term viability of this brownfield project. While the base case economics are themselves attractive, the significant economic value of this deposit is clearly demonstrated when using today's commodity market prices (approximately US $2.50 per pound copper; approximately US $940 per ounce gold), which generate a pre-tax NPV at 8% discount of US $944 million, an IRR of 26.7%, and payback of all initial capital in less than 3 years. Furthermore, we are confident that as we move through prefeasibility and full feasibility studies, the economics of the Ajax property will improve due to higher metal grades and engineering improvements currently being evaluated. \nWith this well engineered report, and assisted by our outside advisor, we have begun discussions with potential strategic partners to join with us in bringing the Ajax mine into produ...