Redirecting the road would add about 500m-2km (30s to 2 minutes) to the villagers' journeys, and would require building a 3-5km road. Also running through a whole mix of rice farms / landowners. Not a small project. Lots of bureaucracy.
I remember something like a small road diversion previously (C North). We thought we had permission to do it, government claimed we didn't, then made lots of trouble. That was a very small diversion - changing 400m to 600m. The road appears to have been put back in its original place.
How long to redirect the road for Super Pit: 10 years with unending delays like Quartz. Unless a TAFTA item, then 1 year after we decided it's worth the cost.
How long until A pit gets maxed out: 5+ years by my rough estimate. A pit is deep, quarts is actually above ground level right now. Quartz can go much deeper to match A, then the whole large pit can be expanded to include lower grade ore. It'll be considered maxed out when the grade is simply too low, or it's too deep (because we'd already dug up all the worthwhile bits, and there was no cheaper method to process it like heap leach).
Prepare for Super Pit now? Unlikely, because it depends on so much bureaucracy. They'll expand to A-full, then take whatever path is easiest depending on where the bureaucracy leads us: re-opening/expanding old pits, developing new pits from exploration, super pit, plant expansion/modification to keep the low grade (remaining) A-full ore profitable.
"You do not really know what lies under the ground explored until you start mining it. I am purely guessing that the advantage of the super-pit is that you would have a much better idea of the structure of the unmined deposits as the pit is re-designed. There could also be major cost/savings benefits from expanding the existing pit, using existing infrastructure as well as from ramping up the quantity of ore mined, and, perhaps, wining improved grades."
When they give an updated JORC statement, the Proved/Probable reserves are the bits that we are quite confident exist. That is the areas that have a high level of drilling, so we're not taking a stab in the dark when mining. Though we've been kept a bit in the dark about Quartz - I think they have kept the numbers for internal use, but just giving overall Chatree number to us. But even the company feels that we need more drilling at Quartz, before blasting makes a big mess of the waste/ore separation. Some pits may have less waste, but I think Quartz has a lot of waste that needs to be removed - having to be careful not to mix it into the stockpiles to feed the plant, or we'll be wasting money on processing waste and getting less gold for the effort.
There could be gold under the road, considering there's pits on both sides of the road. Super pit would get at it, and I imagine there would be some efficiency from having 1 big pit - allowing for bigger equipment/blasting/dewatering etc. I don't think Super Pit would have better grades, but would have more ore volume, and if it was developed 5 years down the track, maybe it would be like Quartz now - being withheld for so long that it becomes above average (because grades were falling everywhere else, as the pits get expanded).
So we do have a few options, depending on which is easiest to progress successfully:
Explore and develop (outside the fence).
Re-open and expand (pits inside the fence).
Super pit (depending on bureaucracy).
A-pit full (most likely / already in progress).
Underground (unlikely any time soon - does underground even exist in tropical countries with high rainfall, and does it yet exist in Thailand in particular? Not to mention costs / grade&ounces needed to justify the cost.).
Other projects like NE (potentially global silver grades have been falling while NE has been on ice, making NE above average, though that doesn't mean it has been worth the ongoing holding costs).
(20min delay)