The "old timers" mined very narrow veins it was all air leg mining and before the 1930s with pick and hand drill. Its only recently in the last 30 years jumbos have been used where massive dilution occurred with having to run wide untracked machinery , happy to be proven wrong. Also the reefs at morningstar are difficult to mine it alluded to that in the last announcemnt on their web site, as the reefs dont run vertically where one can cut and fill, instead they down dip at sharp angles, making mucking out and drilling difficult and potentially dangerous as they are finding out.
As for the mine grades getting lower that is true in general terms however at Morningstar they are targeting the gap area that has not been mined and the large number of reefs they keep discovering for low exploration cost, will allow them to pick out the eyes of them to keep grade up plus they are air legg mining which reduced the amount of gangue. THere is a halo effect with the ore however so mining at a reduced grade may not be such a bad deal. The bigger cost in the short term will be putting in development drives to access the reefs at the likes of kenneys.
MCO Price at posting:
13.4¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held