I-Minerals Inc. (the "Company") announces that it has received renewed State of Idaho Mineral Leases (the "Mineral Leases") for all ground comprising the Helmer-Bovill Project. The Company previously held 12 Mineral Leases that were consolidated into 10 leases which cover an identical land package.
In addition, the Company applied for and has been granted an 11th Mineral Lease covering a new area believed to be highly prospective for halloysitic clays.
The Mineral Leases were issued by the Idaho Department of Lands (the "IDL") and entitle I-Minerals to develop the deposits on the Helmer-Bovill property including the Bovill Kaolin deposit and the MC tailings project and, subject to required permitting being in place, produce mineral products. The Mineral Leases are for a period of 10 years and are subject to a 5% Gross Royalty payable to the State of Idaho.
Permitting is in place for the production and sale of quartz -- feldspar sands from the MC Tailings project. With the leases now renewed, the Company is preparing a series of multi-ton test samples for a number of interested parties in the tile and cement industries. Assuming the samples meet the standards of these companies, I-Minerals sees opportunity for several tens of thousands of tons of sales in the current fiscal year.
Additional drilling and associated work is planned for the Bovill Kaolin deposit. As noted in the Company's press release of January 3, 2013 and detailed in a 43-101 report available on SEDAR and the Company's website, the Bovill Kaolin deposit has been the subject of a Prefeasibility Study completed by SRK Consulting (US) Inc, Tetra Tech and HDR Inc. that calculated an after tax NPV6 of $150million with an IRR of 28%. The primary objective of the 2013 work program is to complete sufficient drilling of the Probable Mineral Reserve as defined in the Prefeasibility study so that it can be upgraded to a Proven Reserve. Survey crews are expected on the property shortly to survey in the collar locations for the in-fill drilling program.
"In these very challenging resource markets, the Bovill Kaolin deposit represents an exceptional opportunity given estimated initial Capital Costs of only about $66 million, free cash flow averaging about US$21 million per year and a three year payback," stated Thomas Conway President and CEO of I-Minerals. "While we have identified a number of potential ways to improve upon the prefeasibility results as we move towards feasibility, with the scarcity of capital for resource projects our low Capital Costs together with strong cash flow make this a much easier project to bring to production when compared with most gold or metal mines."
A. Lamar Long, CPG, is a qualified person ("QP") for I-Minerals Inc. and has reviewed and approved the contents of this release.
Source: http://www.imineralsinc.com/