The 50-50 joint venture partners said their 2019 workplan would continue the process of developing and de-risking the project, with C$54 million planned to be spent on advancing construction and other permitting, and detailed engineering.

Centerra and Premier also plan to complete 18,000m of drilling, targeting areas to be mined in the first five years of the proposed Hardrock project, and to update reserves and resources. The partners plan to build on earlier optimisation work to revise project economics.

Hardrock is expected to cost $1.25 billion to build. An openpit mine and  27,000t/d plant could produce an average 300,000oz/y over a 14.5-year mine life.

Earlier project post-tax NPV was put at $818 million, and IRR at 17.5%, with capex payback put at 4.5 years.

The project has probable reserves of 141.7Mt grading 1.02g/t gold for 4.6Moz of contained gold.