Debt facility to accelerate development of Empire

RNS Number : 8030P

Phoenix Copper Limited

22 February 2021

 

Phoenix Copper Limited / Ticker: PXC / Sector: Mining

22 February 2021

Phoenix Copper Limited

("Phoenix" or the "Company")

£2 million debt facility to accelerate development of Empire Mine open pit copper project

Phoenix Copper Ltd (AIM: PXC, OTCQX: PXCLF), the AIM quoted North American focused base and precious metals emerging producer and exploration company, announces that it has drawn down on a £2 million debt facility (the "Facility") to accelerate development of the Empire Mine open pit copper project in Idaho, USA. The Facility has a nine month term, is unsecured and pays interest at an annualised rate of 8%.

Richard Wilkins, Chief Financial Officer, commented: "On 16 February we announced the results of our updated Economic Model ("EM") on the Empire Mine open pit copper project. The open pit contains Measured & Indicated resources of some $1.4 billion, and the base case EM generates net revenue of almost $800 million and an EBITDA of over $300 million over an initial 10 year project life, at a copper price of $3.60 /lb. The pre-production capital expenditure is expected to be paid off in under two years, with over $40 million of free cash generated in the first year of operations.

"The Facility will allow the Company to accelerate project development whilst we work on the final project financing package, which will be primarily debt related, and will be used to repay the Facility. Our next objective is to submit the project Plan of Operations to the relevant authorities as soon as possible, so that we can commence the final stages of construction permitting. We consider that the terms of the Facility demonstrate a strong vote of confidence in our operations, and we look forward to becoming a copper-led US mining operation, delivering copper into the US electrification programme on a timely basis."

Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance

Phoenix is committed to meeting and exceeding the environmental standards required by law as a core value of the Company.  The baseline environmental data collected to date will be used for furthering the permitting process, but as importantly, will be used as the building blocks for the Company's future Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance ("ESG") platform.

 Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

Contacts

For further information please visit www.phoenixcopperlimited.com or contact:

Phoenix Copper Limited	Ryan McDermott Dennis Thomas Richard Wilkins	Tel: [phone]  Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone]
SP Angel (Nominated Adviser)	David Hignell / Caroline Rowe	Tel: [phone]
Brandon Hill Capital (Joint Broker)	Jonathan Evans / Oliver Stansfield	Tel: [phone]
WH Ireland (Joint Broker)	Harry Ansell / Adam Pollock / Katy Mitchell	Tel: [phone]
EAS Advisors (US Corporate Adviser)	Matt Bonner / Rogier de la Rambelje	Tel: [phone]
Blytheweigh (Financial PR)	Tim Blythe / Megan Ray	Tel: [phone]

Notes

Phoenix Copper Limited is a North American focused, base and precious metal emerging producer and exploration company, which has carried out a drilling programme and generated a copper, gold, silver and zinc resource on which it is carrying out a feasibility study to bring the historically producing Empire Mine in Idaho, USA, back into production. It is also evaluating the silver and gold resources around three other past producing mines within the 23 km ²  Empire claims block as well as cobalt in two claims blocks north of Empire in Idaho.

Phoenix's primary operations are focused near Mackay, Idaho in the Alder Creek mining district. This district includes the historical Empire, Horseshoe, White Knob and Blue Bird Mines, past producers of copper, gold, silver, zinc, lead and tungsten from underground mines in the first half of the twentieth century. Additionally, the district includes Navarre Creek a Carlin-trend gold discovery which hosts a 6.1 km gold strike length within a 9.8 km² area.

Phoenix acquired an 80% interest in the historical Empire Mine property in 2017 and, based on a total of 320 drill holes, an oxide resource was completed in late 2017. A NI 43-101 compliant PEA (preliminary economic assessment) for an open pit heap leach solvent extraction and electrowinning ("SX-EW") mine was completed in April 2018. In 2018 a further 8,600 metres in 93 holes was completed to upgrade the oxide resources, provide samples for ongoing metallurgical test work, geotechnical and hydrological studies and condemnation drilling for the heap leach pad site, waste dump and plant site. An updated NI 43-101 compliant resource was completed in early May 2020 and October 2020 for all metals. Present contained metal in all NI 43-101 compliant categories of resources, measured, indicated and inferred, stand at 355,523 ounces of gold, 129,641 tonnes of copper, 10,133,772 ounces of silver and 58,440 tonnes of zinc. Following the latest NI 43-101 compliant resource, Phoenix updated its economic model in February 2021 to include the processing of all contained metals through a two phased approach.

Since acquiring the Empire project, Phoenix has increased the claim area from 818 acres to 5,717 acres, mainly to the northwest and west, and in so doing has increased the potential for additional oxide and sulphide copper resources, as well as the potential for stand-alone gold and silver resources, along a strike length of approximately 5.4 km towards the other brownfield mines of the Horseshoe, White Knob and Blue Bird Mines now within the property boundary. In particular, a new discovery at Red Star, 330 metres north west of the Empire Mine proposed open pit, has revealed sulphide ore and from three shallow exploration drill holes a NI 43-101 compliant maiden resource of 1.6 million silver equivalent ounces was reported.

At Empire, it is estimated that less than 1% of the potential ore system has been explored to date and, accordingly, there is significant opportunity to increase the resource through phased exploration.

More details on the Company, its assets and its objectives can be found on PXC's website at  phoenixcopperlimited.com .

 

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