Cabaçal DFS lands: USD 2.09B NPV, 108% IRR, 0.9-year payback

Meridian Mining published the definitive feasibility study — the detailed engineering-and-money blueprint that comes before a company decides to build — for its Cabaçal gold-copper project in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The headline numbers are large: an after-tax net present value (today’s value of all future profit, discounted at 5%) of USD 2.09 billion, an internal rate of return of 108%, and a payback of 0.9 years — under a year to earn back the money spent building it. The reserve stands at 56.04 million tonnes at 0.61 grams of gold per tonne, 0.35% copper, and 1.33 grams of silver per tonne — about 1.106 million ounces of gold, 429.9 million pounds of copper, and 2.388 million ounces of silver in the ground.

The gold grade is modest, but this is a VMS deposit — volcanic-hosted rock that often carries a copper payday alongside the gold — and the copper credit does real work here. Metallurgical recoveries are high (the study cites 89% gold, 93% copper over the mine’s life), and the upfront cost is low for a project this size: USD 322 million of initial capex. That low bill is what drives the eye-watering IRR. Chairman Bruce McLeod sold Sabina Gold to B2Gold for C$1.2 billion in 2023; CEO Gilbert Clark comes from private equity with no verified mine-build in his record, so the construction phase would be a first for him in the lead seat. The stock is up 16.9% over three months — but so is the junior gold index (GDXJ) at 16.5%, so this is the sector tide lifting the boat, not Cabaçal’s own story yet.

Now the caveats, and they matter. This is a study, not drill results, so there are no fresh intercepts to weigh. The economics ride on assumed prices of USD 3,570 per ounce gold and USD 5.03 per pound copper — both well above long-run norms, and the NPV moves hard with those numbers. The permitting gap is the real constraint: the Preliminary Licence covers only the smaller earlier footprint, so the full DFS mine plan cannot be mined until the licence is amended, which stretches the timeline. And two sets of recovery figures appear in the release — 78.5% gold in the pit-optimisation math versus 89.3% over the mine life — worth reconciling. Watch for project financing and a final build decision, the Installation Licence from Mato Grosso’s SEMA (applied for May 19, 2026), and a construction start targeted for the first half of 2027.