Vista Gold Corp. Announces Positive Preliminary Economic Assessment for Guadalupe de los Reyes Project Indicating an After-Tax Net Present Value of $57.3 Million

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[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n\n\n\nDENVER, March 4, 2013 /CNW/ - Vista Gold Corp. (\"Vista\" or the \"Corporation\") (NYSE MKT and TSX: VGZ) today announced the positive results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (\"PEA\") for its Guadalupe de los Reyes gold/silver project in Sinaloa, Mexico. The PEA evaluates the potential viability of a 1,500 tonne per day (540,000 tonne per annum) processing facility. Highlights of the PEA include:\nPayable production of 327,681 ounces of gold and 4.39 million ounces of silver over a 11 year mine life, including average payable production of 35,031 ounces gold and 253,223 ounces silver over the first five years; \nOre processed through a 1,500 tonne per day (\"tpd\") plant; \nGold and silver recoveries of 93% and 83% respectively, through a conventional CIL recovery circuit; \nGold-equivalent cash costs of $631 per ounce over the life of mine, including average gold-equivalent cash costs of $568 per ounce over the first five years; \nInitial capital costs of $88.9 million and life of mine capital costs of $124.3 million, including a 30% contingency; and \nAfter-tax NPV8% of $57.3 million, Internal Rate of Return (\"IRR\") of 21%, and capital payback of 3.6 years using gold and silver prices of $1,480 and $28 per ounce, respectively. \nVista's President and CEO, Fred Earnest, commented, \"This Preliminary Economic Assessment demonstrates the potential for a small but profitable project with low estimated initial capital requirements. This PEA contemplates mining material within the current identified resource estimate, located in the lower-grade, near-surface stockwork zones. Meanwhile, our exploration efforts from last year continued to identify the potential for high gold grades and bonanza silver grades at depth. The completion of the PEA culminates a successful step in the evaluation of Guadalupe de los Reyes which we believe represents an interesting opportunity to potentially initiate operations with a small-scale open pit mining operation that would provide cash flow from operations to continue exploring for high-grade mineralization at depth.\"\nMr. Earnest went on to comment, \"We have completed and published the results of this PEA as we indicated to the market we would do last year; however our focus remains on completing the preliminary feasibility study on the Mt. Todd project. For the remainder of 20...

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