December 5, 2017 (Source) — Prophecy Development Corp. (“Prophecy” or the “Company”) (TSX:PCY, OTCPK:PRPCF, Frankfurt:1P2N) is pleased to announce that it has significantly expanded the land position at its Gibellini project, located in Nevada’s Battle Mountain region, about 25 miles south of the town of Eureka.

Staking

A total of 198 new claims have been staked immediately adjacent to the Gibellini project covering 4091 acres that are sufficient to enable future vanadium mining, processing and extraction.

The staking comes after the Company’s review of the baseline studies and Plan of Operations prepared and submitted by the project’s previous operator and deemed complete by the Bureau of Land Management.  Prophecy is assessing whether any baseline and plan adjustments need to be made in order to start the National Environmental Policy Act process scheduled for 2018.

Background and Next Step

Gibellini’s prior operator invested approximately US$20 million in permitting, engineering, and feasibility studies since 2009, only to relinquish the project in 2016 due to low vanadium prices.  The vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅) price has since increased by about 400% from its 2016 low, to trade at between $9 – $10/lb. today.

*(1) The Qualified Person for the estimate is Mr. E.J.C. Orbock III, RM SME, an Amec Foster Wheeler employee. The Mineral Resource estimate has an effective date of 10 November, 2017.

(2) Mineral Resources are reported at various cut-off grades for oxide, transition, and reduced material.

(3) Mineral Resources are reported within a conceptual pit shell that uses the following assumptions: mineral resource V₂O₅ price: $10.81/lb; mining cost: $2.21/ton mined; process cost: $13.14/ton processed; general and administrative (G&A) cost: $0.99/ton processed; metallurgical recovery assumptions of 60% for oxide material, 70% for transition material and 52% for reduced material; tonnage factors of 16.86 ft³/ton for oxide material, 16.35 ft³/ton for transition material and 14.18 ft³/ton for reduced material; royalty: 2.5% net smelter return (NSR); shipping and conversion costs: $0.37/lb. An overall 40º pit slope angle assumption was used.

(4) Rounding as required by reporting guidelines may result in apparent summation differences between tons, grade and contained metal content. Tonnage and grade measurements are in US units. Grades are reported in percentages.

At this time, Prophecy is examining in detail a project feasibility study prepared by AMEC for the project’s previous operator, with the intention to publish an updated study in 2018.

If, and when, the feasibility study is published and all mine operating permits are received, a mine construction decision will be considered by the Company’s board of directors, and, if positive, be accompanied by an actionable project financing plan.

Business Strategy

Prophecy has a focused business strategy – to make Gibellini the first operating primary vanadium mine in North America, offering the best quality vanadium pentoxide product that exceeds customer requirements in a variety of high-tech applications such as batteries and aerospace.

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