rmi - past, present and future, page-12

to upmarket.

on nickel past and present
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-14/nickel-supply-deficit-seen-greater-than-expected-this-year-sumitomo-says.html

on feasibility studies.
http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/publications/papers/2001/pdf/Johnson(T-17).pdf

RMI's just completed its preliminary feasibility study last year and the above paper will tell u more regarding FS. (page 3-5)

The first and least technically reliable study is the simple ?economic evaluation?. The scoping study is a preliminary evaluation of a mining
project based on a reasonable level of drilling and limited testwork and engineering design. Because the estimates do not have a high degree of reliability, their use is mainly in defining the additional study parameters and assisting in the decision to continue with more detailed studies.
The economic study?s reliability does not typically exceed +/- 30 to 50%, therefore it is unlikely that a company would use it as the basis for the economic decision to build a mine.

The next, more reliable, study is commonly referred to as the ?pre-feasibility study?. This study increases the degree of reliability of the estimates and conclusions in the study, typically to +/- 20 to 30%. This level of study differs from the feasibility study only in a few significant areas, such as the reliability of the capital and operating costs estimates, the degree of engineering that has been applied to the various parameters and the extent of the testing.


next will be the BFS which is requires application of Society of Mining Engineers (?SME?) standards, actual vendor quotations for the
capital and operating cost parameters, and detailed analysis of the testing and engineering. Such a study will often provide a reliability of +/- 10 to 20%.