Magna's Crean Hill restart gets its first hard numbers

Magna Mining has put real numbers on its second Sudbury restart. On October 21 the company released a pre-feasibility study — a mid-stage economic blueprint, one notch more rigorous than the early-stage sketch that came before it — for Crean Hill, a past-producing nickel-copper-PGM mine in the South Range of the Sudbury Basin. The board approved construction, which begins in 2027. When we last covered Magna, the company had just green-lit its Levack restart and pointed readers to this exact study. It arrived on schedule, in the first half of October as promised. The sister catalyst from last time — the early-Q4 decision on extending underground development 300 metres to the R2 Footwall Zone — is not addressed in this release and remains open.

Here is why the deck holds together. The study pencils an 11.4 million ton probable reserve grading 2.99% copper-equivalent — a blended number that rolls nickel, copper and platinum-group metals into one copper-measured figure — over a 12-year mine life. Base-case after-tax net present value at a 7% discount rate is C$251 million, with a 43.4% internal rate of return, the annual percentage return the project throws off. Initial capital is a modest C$127 million, held down because Crean Hill already has brownfield infrastructure and an existing third-party Sudbury mill to feed. Precious metals supply about 39% of revenue, so the economics don’t live or die on any single metal. The study was prepared by independent consultants SGS Geological Services with help from Magna’s own projects team. Jason Jessup, Magna’s CEO, is a Sudbury career operator from FNX, the group that revived five written-off Inco mines starting in 2002. Yet the market has leaned the other way: the stock shed 5.3% over three months while copper held essentially flat and the copper-miner peer index slipped only 0.6% — company-specific weakness, not sector drag, after a mid-period peak near C$2.91 faded to C$2.16.

Now the fine print, and much of it is in Magna’s own text. The reserves are classified probable only — no proven category is disclosed. The headline NPV and IRR include an estimated C$40 million Clean Technology Manufacturing tax credit the company says is still subject to eligibility and filing. The separate PMD tax uplift and spot-price figures rely on legislation not yet enacted and September 2026 spot prices, and neither is the base case. Mining rights stop at 4,500 feet depth, where Vale holds what lies below. And the whole thing carries pre-feasibility-level accuracy, not feasibility. A C$72.4 million net funding requirement remains to be raised, with no project financing facility disclosed. Watch for first ore sales, targeted late 2027, and commercial production around 2,400 tons per day, targeted early 2030.

Public sources: source 1source 2source 3