St. Augustine and NADECOR Announce Positive Results from King-king Preliminary Feasibility Study

SPOKANE, WASHINGTON--(Marketwired - Sep 18, 2013) - St. Augustine Gold and Copper Limited (SAU.TO) ("St. Augustine" or the "Company") and its joint venture partner Nationwide Development Corp. ("NADECOR") are pleased to announce the results of the Preliminary Feasibility Study ("PFS") on the King-king Copper-Gold Project located in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, Philippines. The results of the PFS show that the planned operation has favorable economic potential, generating an estimated pre-tax net present value ("NPV") of $2.0 billion and an estimated pre-tax internal rate of return ("IRR") of 24.8%.

"The results of this advanced Preliminary Feasibility Study confirm that King-king is an attractive project with robust economics that will bring significant value to our shareholders, our partner and the Philippines," stated Andrew J. Russell, St. Augustine's CEO. "The strong results of the PFS pave the way for St. Augustine and our joint venture partner NADECOR to continue the development of King-king, including the remaining technical work and the advancement of project financing."

"We are pleased that the millions of dollars and years of intensive technical work that St. Augustine has invested in the PFS have paid off and confirmed that this flagship mining project has the potential to generate great value and thousands of jobs for the Philippines," added Conrado T. Calalang, NADECOR's President.

The Declaration of Mine Project Feasibility ("DMPF") was submitted to the Philippine Government in May 2012. The final feasibility study will incorporate any required amendments to the DMPF once comments are received from the Government's final review of the document.

Key Project Indicators

  • Unleveraged pre-tax net present value ("NPV") of $2.0 billion and an estimated pre-tax internal rate of return ("IRR") of 24.8%, using an 8% discount rate, $1,250/oz gold price and $3.00/lb copper price.

  • The ore delivery and processing rate will be a designed throughput of 100,000 tonnes per day ("tpd") split between 40,000 tpd to an on-off heap leach and 60,000 tpd to a flotation mill with agitated tails leach. The mining rate will be approximately 178,000 tonnes per day for the 22 year mine plan. Production from the heap leach process is expected to start one year prior to commencing mill operations.

  • Robust project economics are driven in large part by an initial five year higher grade operation with a low strip ratio and tidewater proximity. Average annual production during the first five years of full production (both heap leach and mill in operation) is 270 million pounds of copper (122,487 mt), 360,143 ounces gold (11,202 kg) and 568,958 ounces silver (17,697 kg) with an average gold equivalent total cost of $454 per ounce.

  • Life of mine production of 3.16 billion pounds of copper (1.43 million tonnes), 5.43 million ounces of gold (168,950 kg) and 11.65 million ounces of silver (362,356 kg).

  • Life of mine average annual production of 138 million pounds of copper (62,374 mt), 236,169 ounces gold (7,346 kg) and 506,504 ounces of silver (15,755 kg) with an average gold equivalent total cost of $621 per ounce.

  • An estimated initial capital cost of $2.04 billion including the mine, the mill, on-off leach pad, power plant, port facility and $240 million in contingency costs.

  • The study assumes large scale contract mining will be used during the course of the 22 year mine plan, which reduced project initial capital and increased mine operating cash cost. After tax economic analysis assumes a six year income tax holiday.