Nickel Creek Platinum shares drop as prefeasibility puts Shaw project capex at $1.7B

Nickel Creek Platinum (TSX: NCP; US-OTC: NCPCF) shares fell by 16.7% to 2.5¢ each on Friday after the company released a prefeasibility study giving its Nickel Shaw project in southwest Yukon pre-production capital costs of about $1.7 billion. The junior’s market cap stands at $11.6 million.  

The report for the nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM project puts Nickel Shaw’s total capital costs at $2.3 billion, its after-tax net present value (NPV), at a 5% discount rate at $143 million, and after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) at 5.8%.

The open-pit project could produce 614.3 million lb. nickel and 281.5 million lb. copper over a 19.1-year life, according to the report released on Thursday.

Those numbers assume commodity prices of US$11.00 lb. of nickel, US$4.00 per lb. copper, US$2,100 per oz. palladium, US$1,000 per oz. platinum, US$23 per lb. cobalt, and US$1,800 per oz. gold.

Nickel Creek CEO Stuart Harshaw said the study marks a milestone in showcasing the opportunity of Nickel Shaw in the electric vehicle battery market.