Bringing Historic Gold Mines Back Into Production

Bluebird Merchant Ventures Ltd is a London listed South Korea-focused resource company lead by a team with global experience of creating value through mine rehabilitation.  The model focusses on identifying opportunities, where high grade mines with low capital requirement can be put into production quickly and the existing resources can be expanded to facilitate increasing long term high value returns.

A proven business model to generate value

Bluebird focuses on development and execution, not green field exploration.  The Company has a team with proven experiences of re-opening mines and creating huge value uplift by applying a business model that significantly reduces development risk.

‘Geological, technological and regulatory constraints are critical factors in determining whether an identified gold resource is able to justify the investment required … to advance to the development and production stages. The number of opportunities that progress decreases at each stage and the total process may take between 10 and 20 years.’  Many of these factors are nullified when opening an historic mine as you have an understanding of the project already.

A project developer, bringing historic mines with high return potential back into production

Bluebird primarily targets mining projects in South Korea – low CAPEX, high grade mines where production can be recommenced quickly and existing resources can be expanded to facilitate long term, high value returns.

The Company currently has two historically producing high grade mines in South Korea, the Kochang Gold & Silver Mine and the Gubong Gold Mine, where it believes it has in excess of 1.5million oz of resource.  Results of a Scoping Study showed excellent initial validation of the Projects’ economic potential. At US$1,750 gold price, for production from two operations with a cumulative c.400Ktpa VAT leach processing delivers an 111% Post Tax Internal Rate of Return (‘IRR’), a US$181m net present value (‘NPV’) at 10% discount rate, US$50m per annum average free cash flow generation and a US$630 per oz All in Sustaining Cost (‘AISC’). Payback period is less than 2.5 years. For full results see https://bluebirdmv.com/initial-scoping-study-at-south-korean-gold-projects

 

The team’s strategy provides significant advantages over exploration projects in that they are developing and not searching for ounces. Advantages include:

Dramatic reduction in exploration costs

Economics in terms of gold price at closure are known

Historic production rates and grade are known

Refurbishment involves significantly less CAPEX than new development

New mining techniques and equipment impact costs significantly

The Closure of a Mine

Primarily 3 reasons why underground mines close

Accidents that impact mine health and safety

Social events including strike action as well as government interference or war

Long term depressed gold prices impacting production economics

Rarely, if ever, Due To Exhausted Resource

The advantage of re-opening a mine

Reopening historic high grade gold mines provides significant advantages over exploration projects including:

Defined/existing geological data dramatically reduces exploration costs & increases understanding of geology, grade trend and ore body geometry

Refurbishment involves far less capital outlay than a new development (up to US$20,000 per metre for sinking a shaft) and reduces timeline to production

Existing infrastructure all already in place

Mining economics are more easily quantifiable

New mining techniques and equipment utilises old high-grade ore as well as new ounces

Ability to define new ounces as mines generally close due to gold price/economics and not lack of minable oz grade

The team has decades of experience creating value through identifying and reopening high grade historically producing mines

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