SilverCrest has received approval for its Environmental Impact Assessment that it submitted to the Mexican government in late April. This is the principal document in the approval process for the company’s Santa Elena gold project. It gives SilverCrest the right to develop and operate the project, subject to the conditions set forth, for a period of ten years, with a right to renew.
SilverCrest is committing to equipment and plant purchases for items requiring long lead times. This will allow the company to maintain is planned schedule, which would have it in production by mid-2009.
Objective's view:
SilverCrest substantially upgraded its mineral resource estimate for Santa Elena earlier this year, and the approval of the company’s Environmental Impact Assessment provides added, although expected comfort that it will be able to develop a mine on schedule. Although we continue to adopt a more conservative timeline of production commencing at the end of 2009, we believe the early ordering of key components could result in SilverCrest reaching production in Q3 of 2009. We believe these latest developments are supportive of our base-case and optimistic valuation for Santa Elena and SilverCrest.
