In reply to: Black cap on Sunday 06/02/05 04:09pm =================== Hi Black cap et alii,
Here is some information from the company that should help with the issues raised by Michael West's article in the "Weekend Australian" and your comments. I would say if you still have questions that you ring Richard Seville at the company. I have had no problem with communications with the company.
Cheers, Brantley =========================== * The gold is not "locked up in the sulphides". Only some of the gold content is refractory with the majority not refractory. Most of the gold is fine grained but occurs as gold particles in association with sulphides i.e on the outside of the sulphide grains. Some is tied up with the sulphides and recovery of gold from this material is increased by grinding finer. RSN has stated recoveries of 84% by CIL with fine grinding of the sulphide concentrate. ______________________________________ * The ground is not "highly faulted". MIM had issues driving through the Crabb Fault. RSN is not developing through the Crabb Fault but developing the mine from the other side. The geotechnical work on this was part of the feasibility study. ______________________________________ * The reef not just "1m wide". The reef has a true thickness of 1-4m (last presentation) and averages 2m, it is around 300m wide and over 1000m from the bottom of the old open cut to the southern extent of the known lode. ______________________________________ * The "flat" dip is not a disadvantage as it allows flexible jumbo style mining and development of the access decline in the reef rather than in non-mineralised waste - less capital and shorter lead times. It means that the entire resource is within about 250m of surface and anymore we find isn't much deeper with the flat dip. ______________________________________ * The Feasibility study has taken longer than planned. The 2004 drilling programme commenced in March and finished in July. The resource estimate came out in September. The process since then has been more time consuming than originally envisaged but even so the feasibility study was completed at the end of January. Behind timing expectation - yes - but only six months since completing the drilling and with government permits in place. ______________________________________
