The Liontown widths are narrow but very high grade. The...

The Liontown widths are narrow but very high grade. The advantage of several parallel lodes is significant because several stopes can worked at once from one decline or shafts. All of these lodes are very high grade although the relative proportion of copper, gold, lead, zinc and silver changes with depth and between lodes. Grade is king because it enables you to keep mining during commodity price downturns.

The old reports (1905-1915) tell the tale of very continuous lodes over considerable strike and depth to the worked limit of 200m to 240m. The grades and metal mix changed which impacted early miners. The gold grades in the surface 200 to 300ft were ounces per tonne and a lot of money was made and dividends paid using simple stamper battery equipment. The New Queens lode discovered in the 1950s had incredibly high lead grades with major silver and significant gold from surface.

When the gold reduced to secondary levels to the copper at depth the mines had to install equipment to collect sulphide concentrate which was then shipped to Germany or Port Kembla (Mt Isa mines did not exist at that time). Smelters and furnaces were installed to treat the concentrate but these seemed to be capital intensive but of poor efficiency.
One report mentioned a new high grade gold find at shallow levels but the company could not treat it with their processing plant which was designed for the sulphide ore from below 300ft depth.
The real death knell was low copper prices which were cut more than half. This combined with labour shortages and investors being less willing to put up more capital.
Small high grade base and precious metal deposits can make good profit. Sunshine want to increase the resource base before assessing development options.
DYOR Not investment advice