Surge Battery Metals estimates US$9.81B after‑tax net present value for Nevada North

Surge Battery Metals Inc. CVENILI OTCMKTSNILIF said Friday its Nevada North pre-feasibility study estimated an after-tax net present value of US$9.81 billion at an eight per cent discount rate and a 23.6 per cent internal rate of return. The Nevada project would require US$2.77 billion in first-phase capital, while Surge owns 67.5 per cent of the venture and the study values the whole project.

Shares closed unchanged at C$0.73 on the TSX Venture Exchange CVENILI at 4 p.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 2. The Oct. 2 release followed the close at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

The study models an open-pit mine and a two-phase processing plant in Elko County, Nevada. Phase 1 has a design capacity of about 55,900 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year. The US$2.35 billion second phase would double processing capacity, with average annual output of roughly 92,250 tonnes over the mine life.

Surge based the financial model on a long-term lithium carbonate price of US$24,000 a tonne, unchanged from its 2025 preliminary economic assessment. At US$16,800 a tonne, its after-tax NPV estimate falls to about US$4.6 billion.

The Phase 1 capital estimate includes US$442 million of contingency and carries a Class 4 accuracy range of plus or minus 25 per cent. The study estimates an after-tax payback of 4.2 years from the start of production, with the first year reaching about 29 per cent of design capacity.

Proven and probable reserves total 218.3 million tonnes grading 3,928 parts per million lithium, containing 4.56 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. The mine plan excludes inferred resources and supports a modeled 42-year operating life.

Surge estimates average cash operating costs of US$4,719 per tonne of lithium carbonate, down from US$5,243 in the 2025 assessment. Its after-tax NPV estimate rose from US$9.17 billion, while the first-phase capital estimate fell from US$2.97 billion in that earlier study.

The modeled lithium recovery improved to 84.9 per cent from 82.8 per cent in the earlier assessment, according to the company. Test work on project claystone produced lithium carbonate that was further refined to 99.95 per cent purity, a laboratory result before any commercial output.

"Together, we have taken Nevada North from a promising claystone deposit to a project supported by a Mineral Reserve, Class 4 engineering and battery-grade lithium carbonate made from our own ore," Surge chief executive Greg Reimer said in the Oct. 2 release.

The study presents its figures in constant second-quarter 2026 US dollars and assumes 100 per cent equity financing. It discounts the project cash flows to Jan. 1, 2028, the first year of construction spending in the model.

The first Toronto trading session after the Oct. 2 release is Monday, Oct. 5.