I would suggest you take a look at some of the YouTube videos of Roger Jackson presenting that have been shared on here. There's one from the Sydney Mining Club on Youtube which is very insightful. Those videos will provide more accuracy and detail than almost anyone on here (apart from the most knowledgeable posters).
My synopsis would be:
- The focus from the outset has been to have minimum expenditure to get the mine into an operational state, as a result the focus of the PFS was to prove-out initial capital requirements on minimal drilling (effectively enough to get the mine off the ground based on the PFS)
- They have purchased their own drill rig to now expand out the resource, meaning that gold sales will fund future exploration rather than the company doing years of capital raises to build up a big JORC resource
- Historically this has been an active gold producing area for many many decades, including hundreds of historic workings
The company has signalled plans to increase production to 100,000 oz / year in the medium term, so they obviously have no concerns about extending the mines life. If the gold deposit ends up being in-line with what many far more knowledgeable people than me believe (including obviously the board of directors) then we are talking about how many decades is the mine life not how many years is the mine life.
This is just very much my personal perspective on the mine, again the videos online will give a lot more detail on the history of this gold producing area and why the company has taken the approach of not maximising the resource size prior to the commencement of mining.
You can really never know what happens with mining and how a mineral resource is structured but this does have the potential (I stress potential), to be one of the biggest yet lowest cost gold mines in the country.
(20min delay)