Bezant Resources PLC (LON:BZT)

The 2019 Mining Plus study identified and assessed a number of high-level alternative mining options for the Mankayan project as well as substantially improving the underlying economics of the proposed operations. The options considered were designed with the objective of improving production processes, determining pathways with reduced total start-up cost, identifying further potential value from the project and correctly including off-site costs for the first time. The options were based on the work undertaken by GHD Group Pty. Limited ("GHD") and Mining Plus in their 2014 Scoping Study Update and were evaluated using the parameters developed in that historic study.

This latest study has identified a broad range of mining options that can be used to mine the deposit. Relative to the historic study, these options included:

• A focus on higher grade.
• A focus on mining higher grade earlier.
• Reduced start-up costs.
• Accounting for the effect of off-site costs on revenue streams.
• Better or equivalent returns on investment than previous studies.
• Collective demonstration of the flexibility of the deposit to be mined by a wider range of strategies.

In total, eleven options were investigated with four representative options analysed in more detail in the study. Two main options were chosen as preferential block cave development routes at different scales and an SLC intermediary route towards block caving was also determined. The key metrics for each of these four options are set out in Table 1 below and include Option 3, a high rate, major block cave comparator of 24Mtpa.

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Argentina is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous City, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest amongst Spanish-speaking nations, although Mexico, Colombia and Spain are more populous. Argentina is one of South America’s largest economies, with a similar high quality of life and GDP per Capita. The country has a firm foundation for future growth for its market size, the levels of foreign direct investment and percentage of high-tech exports, as a share of total manufactured goods. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur and the Union of South American Nations, along with being one of the G20's major economies. Argentina's booming mining sector attracted in the order of $2.3 billion investment during 2008, up more than 1,000 percent from 2003, according to official data available (reuters.com). Argentine mining exports totaled about $3.9 billion in 2008 and the mineral exports of the country primarily relate to precious and base metals such as copper, gold, silver and molybdenum. Some of the larger mines in the country include Barrick Gold Corporation’s Veladero gold-silver mine, AngloGold Ashanti's Cerro Vanguardia and the country's largest mine - the Bajo de la Alumbrera copper-gold operation, controlled by Xstrata Copper. Some of the major ongoing projects include Barrick's giant Pascua Lama mine and the Cerro Negro gold project in southern Argentina (the main asset of Andean Resources), which has recently been valued by Goldcorp in the order of a $3.43 billion.

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