BacTech Environmental Executes Final Contract With the Manitoba Department of Innovation Energy and Mines
TORONTO, CANADA -- (Marketwire) -- 12/13/11 -- BacTech Environmental Corporation ('BacTech' or the 'Company') (CNSX: BAC)(WKN: A1H4TY) is pleased to announce that it has executed the final contract with the Manitoba Department of Innovation Energy and Mines for the remediation of the arsenopyrite stockpile in Snow Lake, Manitoba.
The contract details, among other things, time horizons with respect to BacTech's goal of building and operating a bioleach plant in Snow Lake. The bioleach plant is to be built to reprocess the arsenopyrite stockpile that has been sitting onsite at the Snow Lake Mine (formerly known as the Nor-Acme Mine) since the mid-1950s. BacTech has proposed a 'no cost to the taxpayer' approach meaning the Company will build and operate the plant, at its sole expense, in exchange for the gold and silver recovered from the stockpile. The Province will receive a 2% net smelter royalty on production once the capital costs for the plant have been recovered. BacTech has the right to purchase one half of the 2% royalty for $500,000 at any time.
A recent NI 43-101 report completed by Ralph Newson QP estimates that there are 82,000 ounces of gold in the measured category with an additional 10,000 ounces of gold in the Indicated category. Included in the NI 43-101 is a small amount of silver (approx. 18,000 oz) which can also be recovered as a by-product.
BacTech will now engage the services of an independent engineering company to complete a preliminary economic assessment in the first quarter of 2012. The study will determine the capital and operating expenses with a +/- 30 % variability. A positive study will call for the completion of a feasibility study that will tighten the variability to +/- 10%.
BacTech hopes to be able to begin construction of the plant by late summer of 2012 with production beginning before the end of 2012.
'We have just returned from the annual Manitoba Mining Convention where we met with representatives of both the provincial government and members of the town council for Snow Lake. We are pleased by the support we have had from both groups as we move the project closer to reality. Signing the definitive contract is a big step forward' said Ross Orr, President and CEO of BacTech.
BacTech profile
BacTech Environmental holds the exclusive, royalty-free rights to use the patented BACOX bioleaching technology for the reclamation of tailings and mining waste materials. On April 25, BacTech was awarded a contract by the Mines Branch of the Manitoba Department of Innovation, Energy and Mines, to remediate an arsenopyrite gold stockpile situated at the Snow Lake Mine in Snow Lake, Manitoba. This is the Company's first project since the Plan of Arrangement was completed on December 2, 2010.
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Contacts:
BacTech Environmental Corporation
Ross Orr
President & CEO
416-813-0303 ext 222
info@bactechgreen.com
