American West gearing up for transformational year at the Storm Copper Project

3 March 2025

Major drilling and exploration campaign planned for 2025 as Positive PEA lays foundation for mine development

 

Positive Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA) defines Pathway to Production:

  • Initial production target. Study on a starter operation at Storm based on mining inventory of 10.3Mt @ 1.3% Cu, 3.7g/t Ag delivers 487,000t of copper concentrate at 17.1% Cu, 49g/t Ag
  • 10-year production plan. Initial mine plan covers 10 years of production with scope to increase both the scale of the mining operation and the mine life with potential increases in the Storm Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE)
  • Attractive financials. Robust economics (estimated based on the assumptions in the base case and assuming no leverage):
  • Total revenue – Approx. US$839m
  • Post-tax NPV8 – Approx. US$149m
  • Post-tax IRR – Approx. 46%
  • Payback of Approx. 3 years
  • Low-cost operation. Very low capex and operating costs of approximately:
  • Initial CAPEX - US$47.4m
  • Life of mine CAPEX - US$80.3m
  • C1 Cost - US$2.63/lb
  • Enhanced shareholder returns with leverage. Pre-tax IRR of approximately 135% with project development using 100% debt finance. American West is indiscussions with a number of parties that are considering proposals to provide off-take finance or other debt solutions for development of Storm
  • Innovative processing with high ESG credentials. Simple ore-sorting and beneficiation produces a high-quality copper-silver product with zero deleterious elements, chemicals, and tailings
  • Mine permitting to commence. Mine permitting will now be initiated based on the PEA with potential for a further US$3.5 million to be advanced in the nearterm under the Storm royalty arrangement with Taurus Mining Royalty Fund

2025 drilling to accelerate growth of copper resources:

  • Existing resource is just the beginning. Major drill program planned for 2025 to accelerate the definition of copper resources along the 110km Storm Copper belt
  • 2024 discoveries ready for resource definition drilling. Potential to rapidly increase the MRE through resource definition drilling of new discoveries, including:
  • The Gap – a strong EM anomaly confirmed with drilling that returned 20m @ 2.3% Cu from 28m
  • Cyclone Deeps – potential continuation of the large Cyclone Deposit at depth with drill intercepts such as 10m @ 1.2% Cu from 311m
  • Squall – EM anomaly with drilling confirming high-grade copper of 1.5m @ 2.36 Cu from 181.4m at end of hole
  • Hailstorm – chalcocite boulders at surface that returned assays of >50% Cu within a geochemical soil anomaly over 3km2
  • Regional targets highlight large endowment potential. Pipeline of large-scale exploration targets along the 110km copper belt including:
  • Tornado/Blizzard – located 5km east of the Storm copper deposits the area hosts a 3.2km x 1.5km geochemical copper anomaly and two large electromagnetic (EM) plates yet to be drilled
  • Tempest – 4km long zone of gossans located 40km south of the Storm MRE with assays from surface samples returning base metal grades up to 38.2% Cu and 30.8% Zn
  • Geophysics to generate new targets. Large airborne Mobile Magneto-Telluric (MT) survey planned for the Storm MRE area and other areas of interest along the 110km prospective copper horizon
  • Forward planning for 2025 field season. The sealift operation completed in Q4 2024 delivered bulk supplies to Storm in preparation for the 2025 field season, significantly streamlining logistics to enable a short lead time for start of drilling in 2025 and reducing 2025 costs by circa. $4m

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