continued: Work on the feasibility studies of reopening the...

continued:

Work on the feasibility studies of reopening the mines at ***ong and Kochang has already led to the expected capital expenditure for a 100,000 ounce per annum (pa) operation of US$28 million. Gold production in the first year is planned to be 8,000 ounces and rising steadily to 40,000 ounces in year 4 (2023) with a big step change in year 5 (2024) to 100,000 ounces. Initial development has been budgeted at US$10 million, which will be shared 50:50 between the joint venture partners. Bluebird has stated that it does not want to dilute shareholders and once the initial operation is in place, the Board will be seeking to grow gold production organically from positive cash flow supplemented by project finance.
The first year of production at both ***ong and Kochang is expected to be 8,000 ounces of gold. With orogenic gold, the trick is to find the structure because this is spotty gold with individual veins varying in width from 15 centimetres to 1 metre. The team is expecting that the grade early on will be around 4-5g/t gold and moving up to 8g/t. Initial mining costs are estimated to be US$15-20 per tonne taking out existing broken rock, $40 per tonne on remnants (exposure veins) and up to $80/t for primary development which requires drilling and blasting. The overall mining cost at any one time will be dependent of the mix of production sources.