Hillgrove’s tungsten resource currently sits at 4774 tonnes of contained WO3 (tungsten oxide) at 0.05 per cent grade, predominantly within its Freehold and Brackins Spur prospects, which are still wide open for resource growth.
The economic kicker is brutal in the best way with every extra dollar of tungsten revenue dropping almost directly to the bottom line because the metal will be liberated from ore that is already being mined and milled for gold and antimony.
At 90 per cent recovery and at current prices, the existing tungsten inventory alone adds some serious value to a project which already was boasting a spot-price NPV of a whopping $1.27 billion on gold at US$3500 an ounce and antimony at US$60,000 per tonne.
Four rigs continue to churn through the project’s Freehold, Metz and Swamp Creek prospects chasing extensions to gold-antimony lodes that keep throwing up regular tungsten surprises.
The company says construction of its 525,000 tonne per annum plant is roaring ahead, fully funded via the US$105m bond ($160m) and a recent $60m raise, with first gold and antimony pours locked in for the second quarter of next year.
Larvotto expects to pump out 40,500 ounces of gold and 4878t of antimony annually for at least eight years from Hillgrove and now a healthy slug of scheelite concentrate on top.
Hillgrove seems to be the gift that keeps on giving with upside layers continuing to pile on. Its negative all-in-sustaining-cost for gold production, quite incredibly looks like it will fall even further into negative territory thanks to its new tungsten-dimension, with bottom line figures likely to be the envy of the market. Larvotto is now only months away from first pour at what is shaping up to be one of the Western world’s rare multi-commodity critical metals powerhouses.
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