Ann: Retraction - Slide 19 Announcement 30 June 2025, page-75

A lot has been made about processing of stockpiles and the issues involved here.
Here is my tuppence worth from a mineral handling and also a plastic manufacturing background.

So what have they established by running their stockpile thru the plant,to date.

1/The worst case scenario for plant feed rate and the acceptable rate of stockpiled material.
2/ Real world Recovery rate from existing stockpiled material I.e the economics of processing it on it's own.
3//They have also tuned their plant for maximum gold recovery IN A LOW GRADE ENVIRONMENT maximising recovery, without wasting good mineral HIGH GRADE feed to do so.
4/ They have established which parts of the plant are under-utilised and what are stressed when operating at differing feed rates.

From a processing point of view,at little cost,they now know the maximum feed of stockpiled material they can also feed while running the main planned easy to manage lower waste contaminated ore.

1/ So if a maximum feed rate of good ore might end up being say 10t/r because of the plant configuration i.e the course recovery circuit maxing out,but the rest of the plant itself such as the fine recovery circuit ,can physically handle a feed rate of say 12t/hr without mechanical/other issues.
2/ That opens the option of adding say 1-2 tons of soft low grade stockpile that has a lower grade BUT of fine gold present at little cost,without interfering with the main ore sources recovery,or e.g. bogging the recycled water system with clay.
The extra marginal cost being down to any feeding,extra power and wear and tear on the plant-hence different economics as all other costs are already paid by the main feed.

5-10% are often figures of detrious ore or feed materials (I,e, recycled waste) added to good feed to get a blend that both maximise production and gets rid of either a lower value by-product or troublesome to handle material.

Regards.
Fitnfam.