Cheers Kippy, without a doubt, Paul is now speaking a very different tune (well... it's good hes speaking at all, as really, he had kept out of the conference since the ramp up struggled).
* He mentions the plant should be able to have it's throughput push up to between 1.4-1.5mtpa without major costs. That is possibly a 25% increase over 1.2mtpa. Even if they can only fill the plant with 3g/t ore (should be higher than that over the longer term, that is above 130k p.a. 3.5g/t, closer to 155k p.a etc). With the open pits grading 2g/t+, and Scoita looking at 4-5g/t, well, the average grade is going get quite exciting.
(( Paul mentions a little later that their current goal is to average 3g/t, with... a clear focus to slowly increase that... to 5-6g/t, hence the 200k+ p.a goal )).
* Paul wanted to highlight the U/G MRE at Norseman... not sure why, but I guess the market does not believe... that PNR arguably have a better MRE than BGL.....
* Paul was bloody bold in regards to Scotia U/G..... currently Scotia South and North are about 1000 OPVM, so... if you mine 60-70m a year, you get their 60-70k p.a ounce target, he then simply stated, if the drilling stacks up, they would aim to double the output. 120-140k p.a from a single U/G mine is no small feat (I hope as hell it happens), though for now, I would just be happy with 65k p.a steady and profitable.
* Paul was super keen on Butterfly, sounds like rigs will be hitting it this month, and... again confident it will enable an MRE and be brought into the mine plan, though... hard to believe it could be better than the Crown Reef! I think they should double the drill program to 160,000m!!
* It was interesting to hear about the northern tenements, names 'Polar Bear', which Western mining had exploration targets of millions of ounces, but never drilled. PNR recently bought up some tenure that Western Mining could not acquire right along strike of the main targets (hard to find the exact details of it). That program alone could be a company maker...
Finally, good to hear Paul was confident that production would continue to grow, though I note he mentioned stopes for Scotia would not be feeding the plant until late this quarter, so perhaps we will only see another small rise in the overall ounces (which is fine, as they have the cash to drill like there is no tomorrow).
