pierpont's article from yesterdays afr, page-54

re: thoughts mtn, era has less % u, location great i do not hold mtn, but hopefuly, they do have the uranium, and that it is also economic to mine. if this is the case, then that is good for ausrtralia, and the flow on effects are positive for everybody. having said that, it does seem that the grades are a bit low. mmmm - now if exoil, had the ground donkey years ago, then there is a chance that it was held in conjucntion with transoil, and petromin - and i had shares in petromin at some point in time. for tose comparing the grades to olympic dam, then the following is relevant

9 million tons of ore a year, produces 200,000 tons of refined copper, 4,300 tons of uranium, 80,000 ounces of gold and 850,000 ounces of silver.

- ok - let me work it out - that is about 2.2% copper, 1/2 kilo per ton of uraniaum (or a bit closer to 1 lb per ton), .25 grams per ton of gold and 1oz of silver for every 10 ton of ore

clearly, the uranium, gold and silver, are by products to the main activity - which is the mining of copper. the present price of copper is about us $1.70 per lb - so roughly, the ore from olympic dam, is worth about US$80 per ton. mmmm - the uranium, at present prices is worth a tidy amount, but still less than half the copper content

my 20 c worth