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FPX Nickel Files Positive Preliminary Economic Assessment for Baptiste Nickel Project
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FPX Nickel Corp. (FPX-TSX.V) (“FPX Nickel” or the “Company”) announces that further to its news
About this update from Fpx Nickel Corp
[{"type":"text","content":" VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FPX Nickel Corp. (FPX-TSX.V) (“FPX Nickel” or the “Company”) announces that further to its news release dated September 9, 2020, it has filed the associated National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (“NI 43-101”) technical report (the “Report”) for the Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) for the Baptiste Project (“Baptiste” or the “Project”) at its wholly-owned Decar Nickel District in central British Columbia. The Report is dated September 29, 2020 and can be found under the Company’s profile at www.sedar.com. The PEA was prepared by BBA Inc. of Montreal, Canada with work on mine planning and tailings by Stantec Inc. of Vancouver, Canada. The Baptiste PEA demonstrates the potential for establishing a greenfield open-pit mine and an on-site magnetic separation and flotation processing plant, using conventional technology and equipment. At a throughput rate of 120,000 tonnes per day (or 43.8 million tonnes per year), annual production is projected to average 99 million pounds nickel contained in ferronickel briquettes at C1 operating costs of US$2.74 per pound of nickel. A summary of the PEA highlights is provided in Table 1. Table 1 – Baptiste Project PEA Results and Assumptions (all in US$) Results Pre-tax NPV (8% discount rate) $2.93 billion Pre-tax IRR 22.5% Payback period (pre-tax) 3.5 years After-tax NPV (8% discount rate) $1.72 billion After-tax IRR 18.3% Payback period (after-tax) 4.0 years Net cash flows (after-tax, undiscounted) $8.73 billion C1 operating costs 1 $2.74/lb nickel AISC costs 2 $3.12/lb nickel Assumptions Processing throughput 120,000 tonnes per day Mine life 35 years Life-of-mine stripping ratio (tonnes:tonnes) 0.40:1 Life-of-mine average annual nickel production 99 million lbs. Nickel price 3 $7.75/lb Baptiste product payability (% of nickel price) 98% Pre-production capital expenditures $1.67 billion Sustaining capital expenditures $1.11 billion Exchange rate 0.76 US$/C$ C1 operating costs are the costs of mining, milling and concentrating, on-site administration and general expenses, metal product treatment charges, and freight and marketing costs less the net value of by-product credits, if any. These are expressed on the basis of per unit nickel content of the sold product. AISC of al...