Ann: Suspension of Operations at Nifty Copper Mine, page-121

As a non miner, my views must be amateurish from that point of view. But as a business economist, not so much.

Much of the mining has been in the legacy lower grade "checkerboard" area, which has involved paste filling mined areas and taking out pillars? This paste I seem to recall is mined waste mixed with cement to take the roof pressure when dry? This is a very expensive business. The business of mining in most circumstances should be to produce maximum profit, not maximum metal from the pit. It would be far cheaper to leave the cavities and the pillars and move on. It is much better to extract 75% of the ore at a good profit than 100% at a loss.

That is what Aditya Berla was doing, and someone just said they could milk a bull. Well, maybe, but maybe they just worked out the economics better? I would not go the maximum recovery route in 1.5% ore. Maybe in the 2.5% areas, but that would be questionable too. It may well be that the ore in the checkerboard was mined because not enough time or cash was available to delineate newer areas but look how that worked out. No matter its water under the bridge now. Thing is, where now?

My view is that they should push drive or drives into the newly delineated higher grade areas and aim that on recommencement of mining a substantial proportion, at least half, should come from these areas. In top of that I would only backfill with paste where better for safety and not bother with mining pillars at all. Grade is a powerful profit lever, especially underground. Australia is a high wage country and the way to keep it that way is to maximise productivity. The mining equivalent of picking up cigarette butts isn't going to do that.