Cautionary statement - this is my interpretation only, I am not a mining engineer.
Refer checkerboard picture below - its a mining method where you essentially take pockets of ore out from U/G, say the yellow squares in the diagram. You do it this way to maintain roof support. Once each section is mined out the stope is backfilled with paste fill (waste rock and cement) to provide roof support... then once appropriately backfilled you’ll go through and mine out the black squares for example.
As I understand it - AB took numerous short cuts in their mining to make their results look better and didn’t appropriately backfill the voids which has caused issues with roof support in the checkerboard slowing mining rates. Additionally as they go through and mine these tertiary stopes (black squares) which are surrounded on at least 2 sides by previously mined and backfilled areas - you get a bit of waste contaminating ur mined ore. This impacts the grade you feed through the plant and hence production.
Once they get out of this poorly mined historical checkerboard they should be able to increase mining rates - (as don’t have to go slow to maintain roof support as they are doing now) and they should have less contamination of waste into ore as the stuff they are mining isn’t surrounded by waste...increasing grade fed into the plant.
MLX Price at posting:
55.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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