Stormlands says NPV of Mexican project can almost double using dynamic modelling
A clear example of why mining project valuation should be dynamic is the Cerro Caliche project, in Mexico, which can have its net present value (NPV) valuation increase by $253-million using updated commodity prices, says analytics platform Stormlands Mining.
Using its AI-first mining valuation platform to model project economics from publicly available technical information, Stormlands is able to create an illustrative economic model on projects, which takes into account current commodity prices.
Stormlands finds in a new independent case study on Cerro Caliche that the project’s after-tax NPV increases to $475-million using current commodity prices, compared with the project owner Sonoro Gold Corporation’s last technical report (December 2025) determining a $224-million NPV and Stormlands’ own base case modelling NPV of $222-million.
The updated case study uses a gold price of $4 877/oz and a silver price of $74.92/oz.
Estimated revenue generation by the project increases from $1.6-billion in Stormlands’ base case scenario to $2.2-billion under the updated commodity price scenario. Life-of-mine (LoM) earnings also increase from $726-million in the base case scenario to $1.35-billion in the updated scenario, while the modelled payback period improves from one year and seven months to 11 months.
Stormlands demonstrates in its Cerro Caliche case study the project’s sensitivity to key economic drivers – firstly gold prices, followed by operating costs, recovery assumptions and mine scheduling.
For example, a 10% reduction in operating costs increases the modelled NPV to $255-million while a 10% increase in operating costs reduces the NPV to $189-million.
Stormlands finds that, in Cerro Caliche’s case, capital cost sensitivity is more limited, reflecting the relatively modest capital intensity of the proposed heap leach development, compared with the project’s LoM revenue base.
Stormlands CEO Róisín O’Connell says a technical report provides a base case for a gold project but the economics of one can change materially as commodity prices move.
“In this published case study, we have only updated the commodity price assumptions, while keeping the mine plan, costs, recoveries, capital and fiscal assumptions unchanged. Even that single change has a material impact on valuation,” he explains.
The broader point is that Stormlands’ models are built to “go further” than static technical report numbers. Once the model is structured, users can test changes across the full project economics – from grades, recoveries, throughput, operating costs and capital costs, through to royalties, fiscal regimes, financing assumptions, inflation and discount rates.
“By rebuilding the model and making those assumptions dynamic, we can see in real time how the project behaves under current market conditions and where the real value drivers sit,” O’Connell explains.
He motivates that public technical reports contain the data required to build robust economic models, but those models need to be updateable and comparable if they are to support better decision-making.
