To: LoneClone who wrote (111359 ) 3/18/2015 7:26:33 PM From: LoneClone Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 194042 Kasbah improves Achmmach economics 18th March 2015 By: Esmarie Swanepoel miningweekly.com PERTH (miningweekly.com) – An enhanced definitive feasibility study (DFS) into the Achmmach tin mine, in Morocco , has delivered a 35% increase to the project ’s net present value (NPV), while reducing expected preproduction capital costs by 18%. The 2014 DFS had estimated that a capital investment of $181-million would be required to build the world’s eighth-largest tin mine and Africa ’s biggest. At the time, the project was estimated to have a NPV of some $126-million and an internal rate of return of 23.3%. However, an enhanced DFS had now delivered a 9% increase in the ore reserve estimates for the project and delivered a revised mine design and schedule that brought tonnage and grade forward in the early years of production. Mill throughput under the new plan had increased by 5%, to 1.05-million tonnes a year, while underground connection to the high-grade Western zone extended the total project life from nine to ten years. The Achmmach mine was expected to deliver about one-million tonnes a year of ore, to produce about 5 300 t/y of tin concentrate. The enhanced DFS has estimated that the project would now require a capital investment of $148-million, and would deliver a NPV of $171-million. “The enhanced DFS has seen our base case NPV rise and C3 costs of tin-in-concentrate production fall to around $13 296/t, confirming Achmmach as a low cost producer,” said Kasbah MD Wayne Bramwell . Bramwell said that the updated project financial model would now be sent to financiers in order to obtain revised debt terms for the tin project