The current mining schedule employs a mining rate 1.5 times that required, (ie. 4.5m tonnes of ore per annum is mined instead of 3mt), which facilitates high-grading the front end of the mill feed process. Extensive economic studies show this approach results in a net increase in revenues even after the higher costs of mining, but in doing so also results in the added bonus of leaving “free ore” at surface on the stockpiles for later processing, resulting in significantly reduced mining costs in later years. In essence, mining is being timed to provide high-grade ore for when the plant becomes fully operational. Some of the highest grade ores at Las Minerale occur between 50-100 depth, and these are the depths planned to be sitting on the top of the stockpiles by the time they are required. Accelerated aging studies show negligible loss in recoveries of stockpiled ore for the anticipated timeframes with a simple adjustment of the flotation regime for sulphide ore types, and native copper and oxide ore is not affected by aging for the planned mining periods. Page
CDU Price at posting:
$1.62 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
