if anyone has other opinions as to probable costs please post.
From Junior_Miner
Liberty mine prefeasiblity is out showing good economics at $15/lb moly. There are many similarities between Liberty and Creston. Climate is good,
infrastructure near, both have copper by-products at similar grades. Liberty's adjusted cost structure should make excellent comparison to CMS.
Creston advantages:
- Higher grade
- Lower strip ratio
- Awesome starter pit (0.14% Mo head grade)
- Better Mo recoveries
- Should not suffer part of the mineable moly being oxide
Liberty's advantages:
- 64% larger operation
- Resources roughly double
- Infra couldn't be better
Cost structure:
Mining 1.26/t with Creston's 1:1 strip ration it would make 2.52/t total.
Milling 4.42
Roaster 0.49
Lab/G&A/ship 0.9
Since CMS operation is smaller I give them $0.8/t penalty. (should be realistic)
Liberty's copper credits are 1.01/t (at very low Cu price). For slightly lower grade, CMS should have
credit of 0.7/t
Total operating cost net of Cu: 8.43/t. (I formerly used 10/t to be conservative)
Life of mine total cost/lb = 5.6. This compares nicely to Liberty's cost of 7.26/lb.
I'll set CMS capex to $450m and sustaining capital $160m. This is considerably higher than Liberty's considering the size of operations. However, Liberty has some infra advantages.
After
tax NPV8 542m. About eleven times the current fully diluted mcap. NAV would be about 3.6/sh. Using moly price curve of: 18.5 17 15.5 14 14 ... starting in 2011.
GMO thinks that Liberty is third best
property in development world wide. I guess Mt. Hope and climax are better in their opinion.
