Liberty Gold to focus on PFS

Wheaton Precious Metals will provide $5 million of the financing, with management and directors the rest, as the culmination of a series of transactions that saw the company repurchase a 0.5% net smelter returns royalty (NSR) and resell it to Wheaton. Liberty can repurchase 50% of the NSR for $3.6 million.

"We can now get past our prefeasibility study late next year, which is a huge de-risking step," said Attew.

Despite the positive news, Liberty's share price has fallen to a new 52-week low, which Attew said is not a reaction to the company's recent news releases but to the fact that the company is being dropped from the GDXJ exchange-traded fund.

"The GDXJ held 11.9 million shares of Liberty, and we are on the deletion list. The rebalance date is Friday, 15 September, so 11.9 million shares are coming out of the index, which is the equivalent of 23 days of trading for us. There are several GDXJ mirror funds, so the selling pressure has to do with these outflows," said Attew.

Pre-plan

Liberty submitted a pre-plan of operation to the US Forest Service, the lead agency for permitting Black Pine, under a relatively new approach that enables project proponents to engage with permitting agencies to identify sensitivities before submitting a mine plan of operation. "This allows us to talk through potential impacts and issues, and so when we submit the mine plan of operations, we think it should shorten the review time," said Attew.

Another boost for the project came with the recent US debt ceiling legislation, which included a clause stating that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process cannot take more than 24 months, and that environmental impact statement documents can be no longer than 120 pages plus appendices. "This boosts our confidence as the process is no longer open-ended," said Attew.

Liberty retained M3 as the lead engineering firm for the PFS, which Attew worked with on the Camino Rojo deposit in Mexico and Railroad in Nevada. They know heap leaching and the cost of that very well," said Attew.

The PFS is due to be completed in mid-2024, and the formal submission of the mine plan of operations is expected to be submitted in the second semester of 2024.

Liberty continues to grow the Rangefront oxide mineralisation area outside the conceptual open pit-constrained resource. This area is now about 200m x 200m and extends from near surface to a depth of about 200m. "Rangefront will reduce the strip ratio and bring up the overall grade of Black Pine," said Attew.

With capital being tough to raise for junior explorers, once the current drilling programme is completed, Liberty will focus on completing the Black Pine PFS and permitting. "If the market is not conducive to raising money, we won't drill anymore at Blck Pine or Gold Strike (in Utah)," said Attew.