Hi V,
You are correct. I just transposed the 32.1mt grade across. I have updated my spreadsheet breaking up the entire Maronan project. The copper/gold resource including the gold only resource as seperate projects are uneconomical at todays price imo. Hence the reason why MMA are concentrating on the lead/silver resource and will look at the copper/gold at a later date.
The lead/silver resource appears to be highly profitable running close to 25% above G1A's lead equivalent grades. The assumption here if comparing to G1A, that would be all profit before tax. The upside with MMA is that we have a large resource of silver whereas G1A does not. Lead is very disappointing and has been for at least the last 8yrs if you go back and note that RDM's 2015 scoping study used a $2200 price and the lead price has failed to trade at or above this price for any reasonable length of time. At the same time, the scoping study used $16 silver. I believe that once we get the breakout in silver, firstly above $26 and then $30 that we will not see sub $30 silver for a very long time.
I was doing some initial calculations on MMA using the G1A Abra Project as a template.
1. Plant size 1.2m/t at a cost of AUD$160M (today plus 30%?? AUD$210M)
2. G1A distance for decline to first ore was 200mtr. MMA's will be 100mtr. (a plus for MMA)
3. Recoveries the same.
4. MMA should be drive in/out and not fifo (plus for MMA)
5. I assume that MMA are only going to do a feasibility on the starter zone minus copper/gold resource. Regardless, this is a minimum 6yr project and highly profitable, especially if you use a $30 silver price. My estimates would be over $100M more cash flow than G1A and producing around 3.6M oz silver per year. The downside is that the Maronan project would have a lower NPV but would have a higher IRR. I estimate project payback in under 3yrs at todays commodity prices (take that with a grain of salt).
Now something to note with my spreadsheet. The lead/silver (Outside Starter Zone) is showing the highest metal value per MRE ton. The lead grade is currently 6.1%. The entire project lead grade was 6.5% before the latest resource upgrade. We now have the starter zone lead grade reduced to 5.3% but only 20% of the stater zone was upgraded to indicated. I'm not sure why this occurred. Is it because the lead grades are lower near surface and thankfully silver grades higher or can we expect similar grade reductions in the future for the outside the stater zone? The whole Eastern/Western Horizon lead/silver lead grade has dropped from 6.5% down to 6.1% because of the changes in grade in the starter zone on 2 mt of indicated resource. Regardless, I think that using the starter zone MRE value per ton ($305/t) would be the most prudent thing to do.
I think that changing Maronans valuation to only reflect the green column would be the most prudent thing to do. This would result in SVL's in ground resouce valuation being 30% greater than Maronans whereas when including the copper/gold, the opposite is true. If copper doubles to $8/lb, then the copper/gold resource could be reincluded. Maronan could be another Golden Grove and change from lead/silver to copper/gold campaigns as variations in commodity prices and mining operations dictate. This project after all will be a 20 plus year operation. Maronan is just missing the zinc, which may lurk below with the as yet undiscovered vent cores (Cannington grades).
