Economic Model Results
Economic Model Results
Based on the results of the economic evaluation, three categories with business potential were established. The categories are the following:
• Prospects of interest: Their economic evaluation determined that these projects have a potential to be exploited, i.e. the NPV is positive and in most cases the IVAN is higher than 0.5. Also, they were visited during field trips.
• Potential prospects: Their economic evaluation determined that these prospects have a potential to be exploited, i.e. the NPV is positive and in most cases the IVAN is higher than 0.5. However, they were not visited during field trips due to problems with communities, inability to find the place, problems with access or active mining property.
• Prospects of little interest: Projects are considered that despite of having an economic evaluation made their value is insignificant compared to the investment. Also, there are considered all projects that were not evaluated for having less than 7,000 oz. troy of gold.
The following graphs show the total of projects based on their business potential and type of mining, considering 67 prospects evaluated. The project chart by mining type excludes non-interesting sites that were not evaluated economically.
Economic Model Results - Costs
The main costs for this type of operation are cost:
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• Mine cost
• Plant Cost
• Cost G & A
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Regarding to the mine cost, this is directly related to REM because the higher the REM the lower the total cost. This is because the cycle time to the dump is lower than to the production plant. Graphically the cost mine versus the stripping ratio can be seen in the following graph.
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On the other hand, the plant cost is progressing over time due to the increase in maintenance costs and the availability and use of equipment over the years. Every five years’ plant equipment is replaced, which resets the availability, utilization and maintenance values.
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Finally, G & A costs remain constant over the time once the production plateau has been reached.
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The total cost per m3 was calculated by adding the cost of the plant, mine and G & A costs. To calculate the average total cost was obtained by the arithmetic average beginning in the first period after the ramp up until the penultimate period of production.
As can be seen in the graphs, MML and SML mining types did not achieve optimum evaluation with any prospect. On the other hand, the 36 evaluated projects were categorized as MBMH, MMH or SMH. The following graphs show how many prospects were considered as potential, interesting and not interesting for MBMH and MMH and SM size of operation.
Economic Model Result by Prospect
Below a summary of the economic evaluation of all evaluated projects is shown. Detailing their volumes, Grades, and estimated resources, VAN, IVAN and TIR. It is important to point out that the geological values were estimated from the previous bibliographic review, by field campaigns and based on the expert criteria from the project team. Therefore, should be considered as preliminary estimates, requiring further studies to make the information collected precisely. It should also be borne in mind that this first economic evaluation is subject to the variability of the data collected in the previous stages. The following tables show the geological, technical and economic variables of each prospect evaluated with CAPM.
Variables geológicas y económicas por proyecto
Variables técnicas por proyecto
