big c, page-22

Hi PH,
Thanks for the comments. They are much appreciated. Some of the questions you raise certainly drop into the "Don't know basket"

+ nothing has been said about penalty elements eg U and F etc, how do these change at depth in the current pit? in the underground satellites

Dont know.

+ the layout of the waste dumps, wall instability will cause problems going deeper in the pit, unless it is an underground extension

Agree - I am assuming that as they go deeper in the open cut pit, they have a plan to manage that risk. They are certainly talking about overburden and waste removal as they go deeper in the presentation this week. The MMS is an underground study.

+ mined grade vs milled grade a gap is opening up here, grade may be a problem?

OZL acknowledges this and Ankata will be providing much higher grade to supplement the lower mined grade from the open pit. When they announced Ankata they said it was to maintain copper output at the current 100 to 110kt per annum

+ safety performance looks to be drifting up (only an indicator)

Yep

C
+ depth may add up to $1 to C1 cost

I assumed that the Gold and U credits would keep the C1 where it was.

+ existence of U in an underground environment will mean that the mine will need to be treated as a U mine ie ventilation and other health and hygiene controls

Agree

+ is U extractable or just a nuisance as at PH? testing is no doubt underway

I am assuming that the U is extractable. Currently OZL sells some concentrate to OD. Potentially that relationship could be expanded so that all the C concentrate is sold to OD to process and extract the U or OZL could sell the concentrate to the same processor that BHP plans to use if and when they decide not to process all the OD product at OD.

I am of two minds around another mature development. What comes to mind is SFR, but the other great unknown is that if they find another P Hill close by, SFR may be redundant.

HT1