Gold systems can be profitable at very low grades @EugieeeThe...

Gold systems can be profitable at very low grades @Eugieee

The cut-off grade defines the quantity of ore and waste for all available material within the boundaries of a planned mine.

Most deposits exhibit a high degree of grade variation across the deposit, with much higher grade zones concentrated in certain physical locations.

In the case of Plum Pudding, we know there are very high grade zones including 7m @ 24.1g/t, 7m @ 19.0g/t, 12m @ 7.22g/t and 3m @24.7g/t (to note just a few drill results.

The key point is that these veins are located in ‘broad, consistent, shallow (less than 40m down- hole depth)’ zones ‘over a 300m strike length and up to 90m width’.

The cut-off grade might actually be adapted as the economic environment changes with regard to metal prices and mining costs. At the moment we have a high gold price, and moderate cost of mining, and with these variables, MDI are indicating that 0.5g/t is viable for Plum Pudding and Old Town Well, given the geology of those deposits.

Even lower cut off grades can be profitable if the gold price is high and the extraction costs low. For example, during the last gold bull-run, Kinross Gold in Brazil treated around 58 million tonnes of ore at a grade of around 0.4g/t to produce 466,709 ounces of gold.

We can expect to see full resource estimates and the associated cost assumptions in the Feasibility Study, which is due for release this quarter.

In the meantime, DYOR and GLTAH