October 2021 Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Gibellini Project (pdf)

Silver Elephant Mining Corp. (“Silver Elephant” or the “Company”) (TSX:ELEF, OTCQX:SILEF, Frankfurt:1P2N) is pleased to announce the results of a preliminary economic assessment (the “2021 PEA”) for its Gibellini vanadium project (“Gibellini project”) that demonstrates an after-tax internal rate of return (“IRR”) of 25.4%, and after-tax cumulative cash flow of $260.8 million, assuming an average vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅) price of $10.00 per pound.

The Gibellini project is designed to be an open pit, heap leach operation in Nevada’s Battle Mountain region (25 km south of Eureka) with initial capital cost of $147 million, average annual production is 10.2 million pounds of V₂O₅ , at an all-in sustaining cost of $6.04 per pound with strip ratio of 0.18 to 1 (waste rock:leach material).

 

As of August 27, 2021, the European price of vanadium pentoxide (98%) was $9.60 per pound according to www.asianmetal.com.

The 2021 PEA was prepared by Wood Group USA, Inc (Wood) and Mine Technical Services Ltd. (MTS). The technical report that summarizes the 2021 PEA will be filed under the Company’s SEDAR profile and available within 45 days.

All dollar values are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

2021 PEA Highlights:

The 2021 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, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Highlights of the 2021 PEA (after tax):

 

Mineral Resources

The PEA Mineral Resource is based on Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource estimates for the Gibellini deposit and Inferred Mineral Resource estimates for the Louie Hill and Bisoni McKay deposits, totaling131.34 million pounds of contained V₂O₅ in the Measured and Indicated categories, and 227.81 million pounds of contained V₂O₅ in the Inferred catetory.

Mineral Resource Statement, Gibellini

 

 

Mining & Processing

A subset of the Gibellini and Louie Hill Mineral Resource estimates were adopted in the 2021 PEA mine plan. Bisoni McKay Mineral Resource estimate was not included in the mine plan in the 2021 PEA to better reflect the Company’s already submitted plan of operation in its permitting efforts.

Capital and operating costs for the 2021 PEA are based on supplying 3 Mt of crushed and agglomerated leach material annually from two open pits at Gibellini and Louie Hill. Initial mine development will be focused on Gibellini, with Louie Hill following nine years later.

Mining at the Gibellini and Louie Hill deposits is planned to be a conventional open pit mine using a truck and loader fleet consisting of 100-ton trucks and front-end loaders. A power line would be constructed from an existing transmission line and water will be leased from a private ranch. Both water and power sources are within five miles of the planned mining operations.

The average annual mine production during the 11.1 year mine life will be 3.56 million tons of leach material (3 Mst) and waste (0.56 Mst) at a strip ratio of 0.18 (w:l).

 

Mining will be completed using contract mining, with Silver Elephant’s mining staff overseeing the contracted mining operation and performing the mine engineering and survey work.

The processing method envisioned will be to feed leach material from the mine via loader to a hopper that will feed a crushing plant. The leach material will be fed to the agglomerator where sulfuric acid, flocculent and water will be added to achieve adequate agglomeration. The agglomerated leach material will be transported to a stacker on the leach pad, which will stack the material to a height of 15 feet. Once the material is stacked, solution will be added to the leach heap at a rate of 0.0025 gallons per minute per square foot. The solution will be collected in a pond and this pregnant leach solution (“PLS”) will be sent to the process building for metal recovery. In the process building, the PLS will go through solvent extraction (“SX”) and stripping processes to produce vanadium pentoxide.

Capital and Operating Costs

During the capital period, an initial leach pad having a capacity of 16.7 Mst will be constructed, and will be followed by one expansion of approximately 16.7 Mst. The total initial capital cost is estimated at approximately $147 million.

Project Capital Cost Estimate

 

Sustaining capital is estimated at $25.2 million.

Sustaining Capital Costs

 

Operating costs are estimated to average $16.12 per ton leached, or $4.7/lb V₂O₅ recovered

Operating Costs

 

The cash operating costs in the first half of the Gibellini project covering years 1–7 is $4.20 per lb of V₂O₅ produced and for years 8–12 is $5.87 per lb of V₂O₅ produced, resulting in a weighted average cash cost of $4.70 per lb of V₂O₅ produced and all-in sustaining cost of $6.04/lb. The cash operating cost is lower in the first half of the Gibellini project due to processing of higher-grade material.

Vanadium Recoveries and Metallurgical Testing

Approximately 114.6 million pounds of V₂O₅ is expected to be produced from the Gibellini and Louie Hill leaching operations at an average recovery of 63.4% (oxide: 60%, transition: 70% and reduced: 52%). The heap leaching will be performed at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure without pre-roasting or other beneficiation process. The PLS will be continuously collected with leach material undergoing, on average, a 150 day heap-leaching cycle.

The direct heap leach vanadium recovery estimates used in the 2021 PEA were based on extensive metallurgical test work performed by SGS Lakefield Research Laboratories, Dawson Minerals Laboratories, and McClelland Laboratories. Samples were selected from a range of depths within the Gibellini deposit, and are considered to be representative of the various types and styles of mineralization within that deposit. Samples were obtained to ensure that tests were performed on sufficient sample mass. The end results demonstrated low acid consumption (less than 100 lb acid consumption per ton leached) and high recovery through direct leaching.

Solvent extraction processing was conducted to recover vanadium from sulfuric acid PLS generated during pilot column testing on bulk leach samples from the Gibellini project. Laboratory-scale testing was conducted on select solutions generated during the pilot SX processing, to optimize the SX processing conditions. Additional laboratory scale testing was successfully conducted on the loaded strip solution to purify, precipitate and extract final marketable vanadium-bearing products.

Sensitivity Analysis

The tables below show the sensitivity analysis to the vanadium pentoxide price, grade, and to the PEA capital cost and operating costs. A sensitivity analysis to vanadium price indicates strong project economics even in very challenging conditions, and that the Gibellini project is well positioned to benefit from the current rising vanadium price environment. A 30% increase in the vanadium price to $13/lb V₂O₅ relative to the base case translates to a 42% IRR and $295.4 million after-tax net present value at a 7% discount rate.

Sensitivity Analysis to Changes Vanadium Price

 

Permitting

A Notice of Intent (“NOI”) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) for the Gibellini project was published on July 14, 2020 in the Federal Register. The NOI commences the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) review by the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”). The Gibellini project conforms to the current U.S. administrations green energy initiatives and the EIS Record Of Decision (“ROD”) is expected in early 2022. Operating permits from the State of Nevada are on track to be received on the same timeline as the ROD. The renewable energy alternative in the EIS includes 6 MW of solar panels and a 10 MW vanadium flow battery to provide 100% of the Gibellini project’s electrical power demand. If selected by the BLM, the Gibellini project would be the first mine in the US completely powered by renewable energy. The Gibellini project would also be the first primary vanadium mine in the U.S.

 

Vanadium as a Critical Metal

Vanadium was designated a critical material by the U.S. government in 2018 due to its importance to the defense and energy storage sectors and there being no domestic production with all supply through imports, mostly from Russia, China, and South Africa.

Vanadium alloy steel is 30% lighter than non-alloyed steel, with double the tensile strength. It is used extensively in the aerospace and defense sectors, as well as in skyscraper construction. A structural vanadium deficit is expected to occur by 2025 with the rising popularity of the vanadium redox flow battery which is a mature technology featuring up to an eight-hour duration discharge and is scalable to hundreds of megawatt hours. Battery life is projected to be a minimum of 20 years with no expected degradation of the vanadium or the charge density.

Expansion Potential

Opportunity exists to upgrade the Gibellini, Louie Hill and Bisoni Mckay Inferred Mineral Resources to higher confidence categories through drilling, and to incorporate Bisoni McKay Mineral Resources in future economic studies.

The acquisition of the Bisoni McKay deposit in September of 2020 significantly expanded the Company’s land position from approximately 7 km of Woodruff Formation strike to 21 km . The Woodruff Formation is the host of the vanadium mineralization in the three deposits. Numerous vanadium-bearing surface rocks were identified by the Company in its 2019 reconnssance program of surface exposures of the Woodruff Formation. These may warrant drill programs upon further investigation (see Company’s press release dated May 26, 2019).

 

About Silver Elephant

Silver Elephant Mining Corp. is a premier mining and exploration company in nickel, silver, and vanadium.

Further information on Silver Elephant can be found at www.silverelef.com.

“JOHN LEE”
CEO and Chairman
jlee@silverelef.com

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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Forward-looking statements in this news release relate to future events or future performance and reflect current estimates, predictions, expectations or beliefs regarding future events and include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) the 2021 PEA representing a viable development option for the Gibellini project; (ii) construction of minprojecting operations and related actions; (iii) estimates of the capital costs of constructing mine facilities and bringing a mine into production, of sustaining capital and the duration of financing payback periods; (iv) the estimated amount of future production, both produced and metal recovered; and (vi) life of mine estimates and estimates of operating costs and total costs, cash flow, net present value and economic returns including internal rate of return estimates from an operating mine constructed at the Gibellini project. All forward-looking statements are based on Silver Elephant’s or its consultants’ current beliefs as well as various assumptions made by them and information currently available to them. The most significant assumptions are set forth above, but generally these assumptions include: (i) the presence of and continuity of vanadium mineralization at the Gibellini project at estimated tonnages and grades; (ii) the geotechnical and metallurgical characteristics of rock conforming to sampled results; (iii) infrastructure construction costs and schedule; (iv) the availability of personnel, machinery and equipment at estimated prices and within the estimated delivery times; (v) currency exchange rates; (vi) vanadium sale prices; (vii) appropriate discount rates applied to the cash flows in the economic analysis; (viii) tax rates applicable to the proposed mining operation; (ix) the availability of acceptable financing on reasonable terms; (x) projected recovery rates and use of a process method, that although well-known and proven on other commodity types such as copper, has not been previously brought into production for a vanadium project; (xi) reasonable contingency requirements; (xii) success in realizing proposed operations; and (xiii) assumptions that project environmental approval and permitting will be forthcoming from county, state and federal authorities. The economic analysis is partly based on 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, and there is no certainty that the2021 PEA based on these Mineral Resources will be realized. Currently there are no Mineral Reserves on the Gibellini property. Although the Company’s management and its consultants consider these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to them, such assumptions may prove to be incorrect. Many forward-looking statements are made assuming the correctness of other forward-looking statements, such as statements of net present value and internal rates of return, which are based on most of the other forward-looking statements and assumptions herein. The cost estimate and economic analysis information was prepared using current values, but the time for incurring the costs will be in the future and it is assumed costs will remain stable over the relevant period.

These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on Silver Elephant’s or its consultants’ forward-looking statements. Silver Elephant and its consultants believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release and the documents incorporated by reference herein are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. In addition, although Silver Elephant and its consultants have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Silver Elephant and its consultants undertake no obligation to release publicly any future revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as expressly required by law.