The following is my interpretation from a few sources, by and for the layman: - the costs run at $5000/metre or $5 mil per km. - the length would continually increase as they mined out areas until they got right down to the deepest levels. - I think declines go down about 1m for every 7m of decline so 1km gets you down around 150m. - I don't think it would interfere with current operations too much except when blasting I would assume people wouldn't be underground. - Don't know about permitting but shouldn't imagine it to be a problem. - I regard the decline as critical to MCO reaching its target tonnages as just using the shaft would give you very limited production. eg now approx 30t/day up the shaft. Upgrade the winder to use 2 ore buckets and increase the winder speed may get you up to 100t/day, 500t/week, around 25000t/annum. - How much a decline increases this figure depends on how much payable ore they can access using it. Reefs that could be targeted include Stackpooles, Dickensens, Shamrock, Burns etc. I expect a lot of planning and some exploratory drilling will be done before deciding the exact path of a decline. - Mott Ryan used to hold world records for speed of decline headings. - as for the cost benefit tradeoff, I don't think they would build one if the benefit wasn't there. Otherwise they masy as well plod away up the shaft and concentrate on getting Waverly or Reliance into production.
I hope this helps and stand to be corrected on any inaccuracies.
Cheers Mal
MCO Price at posting:
35.5¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held