Saguenay, Quebec – Newsfile Corp. – March 6, 2023 – First Phosphate Corp. (CSE: PHOS) (“First Phosphate” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has commenced a Preliminary Economic Assessment (the “PEA”) on the Lac à l’Orignal Phosphate Project located in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec. The Company has engaged P&E Mining Consultants Inc. (“P&E”) to lead the PEA which will utilize the latest Mineral Resource Estimate completed by P&E in November 2022.
- The Lac à l’Orignal phosphate project contains a high-quality phosphate resource potentially suitable for LFP batteries necessary for the energy transition. Management has board approval to advance the project towards its first economic study, a PEA.
- The PEA will include details on project economics encompassing the separation of three marketable concentrates – a phosphate (apatite) concentrate, a titanium oxide (ilmenite) concentrate and an iron oxide (magnetite) concentrate.
- The objective of the PEA is to create a mine plan, mine production schedule, capital cost estimate and an operating cost estimate incorporated into a financial model to provide total cash flow, after-tax net present value (NPV), and after-tax internal rate of return (IRR).
- The project concept is to outline a development opportunity around a stand-alone open pit mine and concentrator facility for all three concentrates located in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec. The region already hosts significant existing and ongoing industrial activity including 4 aluminum smelters, an alumina refinery, forest products operations and hydroelectric power generating stations.
- The project design will tie into existing infrastructure including the low-to-no-carbon-emissions Quebec Hydro grid, and to existing municipal and heavy-haul road networks which provide access from the Lac à l’Orignal Project directly to the deep sea port of Saguenay. The Company has in place a memorandum of understanding with Port Saguenay to ship its phosphate concentrate internationally as well as access to greenfield land on which to build eventual advanced processing facilities.
- The completion of the PEA is scheduled for the third quarter of 2023.
The Lac à l’Orignal Mineral Resource Estimate is based on 63 drill holes and 17 surface channel samples totalling 7,984 m and 149.5 m respectively. A total of 49 drill holes (6,393 m) and 5 channel samples (27 m) intersected the mineralized wireframes used for the Mineral Resource Estimate. The database for the study contained 2,880 assays with varying percentages of P2O5. The Mineral Resource Estimate is presented below in Table 1.
