I think its because ASX don't like the use of purified metal values for low-concentration in-ground instances. I presume they view it as misleading because it fails to represent the cost of mining the ore, the cost of processing the ore and the time value of money. In this instance it was also modestly misleading to quote pricing references above the highest reported ore grades.
The intercepts longer than 1m were 0.10% to 0.12% BeO. With only 36% of the weight of BeO being Be and the other 64% being Oxygen, these grades were ~0.036% Be to ~0.043% Be. With the highest grade full intercepts found only just breaking 400 ppm before refining losses, it is at least modestly misleading to quote the in-situ metal value of a 500ppm as a price reference.
That noted, if the material were 0.1% BeO and the refining process (where-ever its undertaken) were able to recover 80% of the Beryllium then you would need approximately 3,500t of material to get one ton of Beryllium metal which would mean the break-even combination of mining, transportation and refining costs would need to be under US$280/t. This price point may allow DSO to an Asian based refiner to work which would massively reduce the scale of at which any beryllium asset could become commercial.
- 3500t with an 80% recovery rate is 2800t
- The BeO grade is (by assumption) 0.1% making this 2.8t
- With the Oxide weights removed the weight drops by 2.78 (1/.36) to give 1t.
Relevant stuff:
