Lydian outlines new mine plan for Amulsar project

VANCOUVER — Lydian International (TSX: LYD; US-OTC: LYDIF) knows it has to adjust expectations at its wholly owned Amulsar gold project in south-central Armenia if it wants to secure development funding under current market conditions. To that end, the company has spent the past 12 months proactively trying to redefine its mine plan. On Nov. 19 Lydian released what it branded a "value engineering and optimization study" at Amulsar, which was essentially a year-long attempt to lower capital expenditures without sacrificing operating costs or annual gold production. President and CEO Howard Stevenson said during a conference call that he set out a capital savings goal of roughly US$50 million and, based on the new study of the Lydian team, he should be happy with the results. Under Lydian's newly imagined mine plan pre-production capital costs dropped by 13% to US$370 million, while all-in sustaining costs decreased by 17% to US$585/oz of gold. The company hopes that accelerated after tax cash flows of US$567 million over the initial five years of operations will support quick payback of project debt and related financing. The operation is expected to produce an average of 211,000 oz of gold per year. Amulsar is an epithermal type gold deposit situated around 170 km south of the Armenian capital of Yerevan. The project hosts … Read the complete article at NorthernMiner.com/news/lydian