Euro Sun Announces Robust Definitive Feasibility Study for the Rovina Valley Gold-Copper Project in

March 1, 2021 (Source) —

• Average annual gold equivalent production of 146,000 ounces over first 10 years at an average AISC of $790/gold equivalent ounce
• Total initial capex of $399 million
• Pre-tax Net Present Value of $447 million; IRR of 21.3% at $1,550/oz gold and $3.30/lb copper

Euro Sun Mining Inc. (TSX: ESM) (“Euro Sun” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the positive results of the Definitive Feasibility Study (“DFS”) on the Colnic and Rovina open pits – the initial phase of development of its Rovina Valley Gold and Copper Project (the “Rovina Valley Project”) in Romania. Along with the DFS, the Company is also providing an updated mineral resource estimate for the Rovina Valley Project incorporating current metal prices and operating parameters. All amounts are in US dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Euro Sun is utilizing a phased development approach for the Rovina Valley Project. The Rovina Valley Project consists of two open pit gold-copper deposits, Colnic and Rovina, and the underground Ciresata gold-copper deposit. The DFS is focused on the exploitation of the two open pit operations. The Ciresata underground deposit is expected to be phased in following the completion of the Colnic and Rovina pits.
HIGHLIGHTS

• Average annual gold equivalent production of 146,000 ounces in year 1-10, consisting of 106,000 ounces of gold and 19 million pounds of copper per annum
• Average AISC of $790/gold equivalent ounces in years 1-10
• Initial capex is expected to be $399 million (including $12.7 million in pre-strip)
• Pre-Tax NPV5% of $447 million with an IRR of 21.3% and Post-Tax NPV5% of $359 million with an IRR of 19.2% at $1,550/oz gold and $3.30/lb copper
• Processing 21,000 tonnes per day incorporating simple flotation and dry stack tailings
• Phase 1 production of over 1.3 million ounces of gold and 400 million lbs of copper (185k tonnes) over 16.8 years

Scott Moore, Euro Sun’s CEO states, “The 2021 Definitive Feasibility Study highlights a positive economic project for our initial phase of development at the Rovina Valley Project. An expanded life of mine to almost 17 years coupled with a conservative metal price model has delivered an NPV almost 100% higher than the PEA of 2019. The DFS delivers a much higher degree of confidence in both the capital required to build the project and the operating costs, even when utilizing higher cost dry stacking. At spot copper and gold prices, the NPV almost doubles again highlighting the enormous leverage of the Rovina Valley Project.”
Table 1: Definitive Feasibility Highlights

The technical report related to the DFS results will be filed on SEDAR within 45 days, in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 (“NI 43-101”) The study has been prepared with input from the following independent consultants:

Rovina Valley Gold-Copper Project Overview

The Rovina Valley Project is situated in the Hunedoara county of Transylvania in western – central Romania. The Rovina Valley Project consists of three deposits, Rovina to the North, Colnic Central and the Ciresata deposit to the south. The DFS only incorporates with the Rovina and the Colnic deposits while the Ciresata deposit can be brought into the project for development later. The Rovina exploration licence is held by Samax Romania S.R.L a Romanian registered company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of ESM. Since November 2018, ESM has possessed an exploitation permit and mining licence with a renewable 20-year validity.

The Colnic and Ciresata deposits are described as gold-copper porphyries while the Rovina deposit is termed a copper-gold porphyry. All three of these deposits are located such that they can access a central processing plant. The Rovina Valley Project processing facility is being designed to produce a gold and copper concentrate from the Colnic and Rovina deposits.

The Rovina Valley Project is within the Golden Quadrilateral Mining District of the South Apuseni Mountains, an area with a history of mining dating back to Roman times. This has supported the development of excellent infrastructure including rail, power and paved access roads. In addition, there are two international airports less than 180km from the project location. These being in the cities of Timisoara and Sibiu. The town of Brad is within 5km of the project site from where there will be a good source of local skilled labour. Sourcing the right skills and resources locally supports ESM community upliftment opportunities.

The Rovina Valley Project is planned to be mined with a standard open-pit mining method using articulated trucks and a hydraulic loader. The open pit mining operation is anticipated to last approximately sixteen and a half years, during which the lower-grade material will be stockpiled on a pad close to the primary crusher location for treatment over another eighteen months.

Over the life of the project, it is expected that 133.4 Mt of ore will be mined. Of this ore, 119.4 Mt will be delivered to the processing facility and 14 Mt low grade ore stockpiled for future processing. A total of 246.7 Mt of material will be mined and placed on the waste facility, representing a life of mine stripping ratio of 1.85:1.

Tailings Management

KCB have designed a waste management facility within the project area for the co-deposition of waste rock and filtered rougher tailings. Process plant rougher tailings will be filtered in the plant where the resultant filter cake will be transported by conveyors and will be co-mingled with waste rock prior to deposition. The cleaner tails will be filtered separately from the rougher tailings and the resultant filter cake will be transported by conveyors and deposited separately within a lined zone contained within the boundary of the co-mingled facility and will be stored separately in a lined zone of the waste management facility. This design has been engineered to reduce the risk of development of impacted seepage from potentially acid generating waste rock and capture the impacted seepage from the cleaner tailings. After completion of mining the Colnic pit, the waste rock and rougher tailings will be preferentially backfilled into the Colnic pit, while the cleaner tails will continue to report to the lined zone of the waste management facility.
Capital Costs

The estimated capital costs for the Rovina Valley Project were in almost all cases built up from quotations and proposals from equipment and service providers. The DFS costs currently utilize an owner purchased and operated mining fleet. All financial analysis for the Life of Mine includes the total design, construction and commissioning, production, and closure.
Project Opportunities

The DFS has been completed based upon the development of the Colnic and Rovina pits only. Further developing and treating the resource at Ciresata could further extend the life of the operation while utilising the same infrastructure and processing capabilities already in operation.
Rovina Valley Project 2021 Resource Update

Three porphyry deposits, Rovina (Cu-Au), Colnic (Au-Cu), and Ciresata (Au-Cu), from north to south, comprise the Rovina Valley Project and lie within Euro Sun’s 100% owned Rovina Mining License in west-central Romania. All three deposits are in close proximity and, given similar metallurgy, can be treated at a central processing facility. Colnic and Rovina are amenable to open-pit mining and are included in the current 2021 DFS, and Ciresata is envisioned as a bulk underground mining operation and will be evaluated for its economic potential in a later study.

Euro Sun is releasing an updated National Instrument (NI) 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate (“2021 Resource Estimate”) as provided by independent consultants CCIC (Geology) and DRA (Engineering) for the Colnic and Rovina deposits and included a detailed technical review of the resource models. The 2021 Resource Estimate updates the NI 43-101 compliant 2019 Resource Estimate on the Rovina and Colnic deposits completed by AGP Mining Consultants Inc. (Technical Report filed on SEDAR: Rovina Valley Project, Preliminary Economic Assessment, NI 43-101, Feb. 20, 2019) primarily to reflect the updated operating parameters used in the DFS and higher metal prices on resource constraining Lerchs-Grossman algorithm pit optimizer using appropriate cut-off grades. The geologic model and interpolated block models for Colnic and Rovina are not changed in this current estimate.

Mineral resources were estimated in conformance with the CIM Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve definitions referred to in NI 43-101 and are considered to have reasonable prospects for economic extraction. The technical report related to the mineral resource estimate shown below will be filed on SEDAR at www.SEDAR.com…