Olza covers +100-sq km in Poland's Upper Silesian Mining District, a region of world-class Mississippi Valley-Type zinc-lead deposits, which has a supportive and vast mining history. Olza is located north of the nearby Pomerzany Mine that has produced +90 Mt over the past 40 years. The district is home to a local skilled workforce and well-established infrastructure that would support mine development. Power and housing are locally available. A railway line runs through the Olza project-area, linking it to the ZGHB smelter (about 25 km from the site) and to ports on the Baltic Sea, providing access to smelters in the rest of Europe.
Extensive prior drilling and historical estimates by the Polish State Geological Institute ("PSGI") indicated substantial zinc-lead deposits with the potential for significant resources in the Olza area. Rathdowney drilling in a small portion of this area (~30% of historical resource) produced an inferred resource of 24.4 Mt of 7.02% Zn+Pb (5.53% Zn and 1.49% Pb) , which formed the basis for a 2015 Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA").
The PEA forecasts strong potential financial returns for a 6,000 tonnes per day underground, room and pillar, mine with on-site processing facility at Project Olza, including an after-tax Internal Rate of Return of 30%; a US$170 million Net Present Value and a 2.4-year payback. Moreover, the PEA forecasts US$125 million of free cash flow annually which is an exceptionally high number for a single mine company. This type of initial cash flow will allow for a variable set of project development financing initiatives.
And with the excellent potential for resource expansion, Project Olza represents a great opportunity to develop a long life mine.
The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves. There is no certainty that the PEA will be realized; however, it does highlight the economic potential of the inferred resources if developed in line with the development plan outlined in the PEA.
