14:50:31 EDT Fri 19 Apr 2024
Enter Symbol
or Name
USA
CA



FPX Nickel Corp
Symbol FPX
Shares Issued 164,262,004
Close 2020-09-30 C$ 0.67
Market Cap C$ 110,055,543
Recent Sedar Documents

FPX Nickel files Baptiste PEA on SEDAR

2020-09-30 08:38 ET - News Release

Mr. Martin Turenne reports

FPX NICKEL FILES POSITIVE PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT FOR BAPTISTE NICKEL PROJECT

Further to its news release dated Sept. 9, 2020, FPX Nickel Corp. has filed the associated National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects technical report for the preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the Baptiste project at its wholly owned Decar nickel district in central British Columbia. The report is dated Sept. 29, 2020, and can be found under the company's profile on SEDAR. 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 $2.74 (U.S.) per pound of nickel. A summary of the PEA highlights is provided in the attached table.

               BAPTISTE PROJECT PEA RESULTS AND ASSUMPTIONS
                              (all in U.S.$)
 
Results
Pretax NPV (8% discount rate)                                 $2.93-billion
Pretax IRR                                                            22.5%
Payback period (pretax)                                           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 lb
Nickel price (3)                                                   $7.75/lb
Baptiste product payability (% of nickel price)                         98%
Preproduction capital expenditures                            $1.67-billion
Sustaining capital expenditures                               $1.11-billion
Exchange rate                                                 0.76 U.S.$/C$

(1) 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 byproduct 
    credits, if any. These are expressed on the basis of per unit nickel 
    content of the sold product.
  
(2) AISC of all-in sustaining costs comprise the sum of C1 costs, sustaining 
    capital, royalties and closure expenses. These are expressed on the 
    basis of per unit nickel content of the sold product.

(3) Nickel price is based on the average of six long-term analyst forecast 
    prices.

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that the conclusions or results as reported in the PEA will be realized.

The PEA was produced by a team of independent consultants who possess extensive expertise in their respective fields. Further details on the contributors can be found in the qualified persons section of the company's news release dated Sept. 9, 2020.

About the Decar nickel district

The company's Decar nickel district claims cover 245 square kilometres of the Mount Sidney Williams ultramafic/ophiolite complex, 90 kilometres northwest of Fort St. James in central British Columbia. The district is a two-hour drive from Fort St. James on a high-speed logging road.

Decar hosts a greenfield discovery of nickel mineralization in the form of a naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy called awaruite, which is amenable to bulk-tonnage, open-pit mining. Awaruite mineralization has been identified in four target areas within this ophiolite complex, being the Baptiste deposit, the B target, the Sid target and Van target, as confirmed by drilling in the first three plus petrographic examination, electron probe analyses and outcrop sampling on all four. Since 2010, approximately $25-million has been spent on the exploration and development of Decar.

Of the four targets in the Decar nickel district, the Baptiste deposit has been the main focus of diamond drilling since 2010, with a total of 82 holes and over 31,000 metres of drilling completed. The Sid target was tested with two holes in 2010 and the B target had a single hole drilled into it in 2011; all three holes intersected nickel-iron alloy mineralization over wide intervals with DTR nickel grades comparable with the Baptiste deposit. The Van target was not drill tested at that time as rock exposure was very poor prior to logging activity by forestry companies.

As reported in the current NI 43-101 resource estimate, having an effective date of Sept. 9, 2020, the Baptiste deposit contains 1,996,000 tonnes of indicated resources at an average grade of 0.122 per cent DTR nickel, thus equating to 2.4 million tonnes of nickel, and 593 million tonnes of inferred resources with an average grade of 0.114 per cent DTR nickel, containing 700,000 tonnes of nickel, reported at a cut-off grade of 0.06 per cent DTR nickel. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

About FPX Nickel Corp.

FPX Nickel is focused on the exploration and development of the Decar nickel district, located in central British Columbia, and other occurrences of the same unique style of naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy mineralization known as awaruite.

We seek Safe Harbor.

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