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Abstract
The PA recommends open pit mining, milling at a rate of 87,000 tonnes per day, conventional flotation, and Outotec's chloride leach process followed by on-site nickel solvent extraction - electrowinning (SX-EW) metal refining. With a base case long term price of $8.50 per lb nickel and $17.50 per lb cobalt (all financial data are U.S. $), the study shows the project has a pre-tax Net Present Value of $819 million using an 8% discount rate. The mine would recover 1.88 billion pounds of payable nickel at an average "life of mine" strip ratio of 0.74 to 1 with an overall refined nickel recovery of 52.8% over 24.4 years.
[David Dreisinger, P.Eng.] holds B.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Metallurgical Engineering from Queen's University in Kingston. Since 1984 Dr. Dreisinger has been at the University of British Columbia and currently holds the position of Professor and Chairholder, Industrial Research Chair in Hydrometallurgy. He maintains a wide ranging research program in the areas of metal extraction, separation, and recovery. Together with his students and colleagues he has published over 200 papers and patents in the technical literature. Dr. Dreisinger also maintains a consultancy (Dreisinger Consulting Inc.) and provides advice to the industry on process development and process optimization. Dr. Dreisinger has been an advisor to Hard Creek Nickel on Hydrometallurgical Treatment of Turnagain nickel concentrates for the past three years. He is also a co-inventor with Outotec and BHP-Billiton of the Outotec Nickel Chloride Process. Dr. Dreisinger has won numerous awards for his technical and professional work and has been named as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
This press release uses the terms "measured" "indicated" and "inferred" resources. We advise U.S. investors that while those terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories would ever be converted to reserves.