Mashwa Minerals Ltd.'s Bear Mountain Project Mine Continues to Increase Its Profitability

Mashwa Minerals Ltd.'s decision in June 2016 to open their Bear Mountain Project was started when gold had been hovering around the $1,300 U.S. Dollars an ounce.

In just over 10 years Mashwa Minerals Ltd. has increased capacity by over 400%, and recently announced additional deposits which could yield a further 450,000 ounces of gold at a time when gold hits levels of nearly $5,000 an ounce.

"When we first took over the site, we knew of its potential but also understood that it was going to take an enormous effort for us to achieve what we knew it had to offer us as a company," said Mr. Philip Waterman, Founder & Director of Projects of Mashwa Minerals Ltd.

"In honesty, the prospect of making it profitable over the long-term didn't look very promising, but we entered into the purchase agreement on the assumptions that our production methods are extremely cost effective, the site had enormous potential outside of its existing footprint and that the gold price would undoubtedly rise over time, which it has. Within 12 months our production was at over 70% more than we forecast and gold had increase by nearly 30%. Today, our production is at over 100% of that which we first forecast, we have identified further deposits of potentially nearly half a million ounces on the site and the gold price has now increased by nearly double," Waterman added.

The company have reported that the site ‘has turned out to be full of surprises'. Their initial feasibility study predicted a ten to fifteen to ten-year mine life that would have taken the project to 2030, the site now has deposits that Mashwa Minerals Ltd. anticipate will add another 6 to 10 years production. The company will also soon start to pre-strip yet another satellite pit on the site which could add an additional five years to the mine's life, taking it to 2040 and beyond.

"We always knew the site had great potential and all the geologists were saying so, but it has turned out to be far more profitable than we could ever have imagined. There are enough stories out there about deposits yielding far fewer ounces than people expected, and this is one of the cases where that whole complex keeps yielding more and more ounces than anyone expected," Waterman concluded.

An internal economic study of the pre-strip site released in late October estimates average annual production of 183,000 ounces gold over the next five years.