ACDC Metals (ASX:ADC) unveils the strong economics at the Goschen Central heavy mineral sand and rare earths project in Victoria, after completing a Scoping Study.
Based on a 14-year mine life, the Goschen Central processing plant is designed with a 6 million tonnes per year nameplate capacity using a low-risk conventional flowsheet.
The study reveals the project is expected to be a pre-tax net present value of $384 million with an internal rate of return of 24%. The estimated capital cost for the first phase of heavy mineral sand operation totals $310 million, inclusive of 10% contingency.
Meanwhile, the estimated capital cost for phase two rare earth processing, which will be funded from phase one cashflows, is expected to total $103.5 million, inclusive of 10% contingency, plus an additional $15.5 million of modifications to the phase one plant.
CEO Tom Davidson says the study is a milestone that reflects a focused delivery since listing.
“Goschen Central is a generational-scale deposit that can deliver strong cashflows and still has plenty of upside remaining from further technical and exploration work,” Davidson says.
“The vertical integration with the caustic crack process to value-add the contained rare earths is a first step in the downstream processing that delivers both attractive returns and a strategically important domestic source of critical metals.”
ACDC says further upside potential remains in the resource to improve the initial study results.
The Goschen Central Project, located in the Murray Basin of northwestern Victoria, has an indicated and inferred resource of 620 million tonnes @ 2.2% heavy minerals.
ACDC Metals is a critical minerals explorer and developer focused on building a mine-to-market company with heavy mineral sands assets and proprietary rare earths processing technology.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: ACDC Metals
