Ann: Results of Annual General Meeting-AVB.AX, page-121

PB:
The "trial mine" is the license they are using to allow construction to commence. The environmental license has been applied for and will hopefully be approved in the next few months. They will hit the first ore to be shipped to AN production facilities in May 2017 and by June 2017 they will have continuous ore shipping to AN. By the end of 2018 they will be down at the bottom of the mine development and this would be the ideal time to commence building PB plant given current projections on copper price etc. The price changes, the plan may well change as well.

What this really means is that the development time will be the same as previous plans but the process to get there is described differently because of the plan to ship ore to AN and get cash immediately for the ore so that the build process at PB can be self funding. They are still looking at a 1.4 million tonne facility for the PB plant, this equates to 39,000 tonnes given the PB grades but take off something for recoveries etc. Given the ore is identical to the ore at AN the recoveries will be identical and we should know those numbers precisely by the June quarterly. It also means the concentrate will be just as keenly sought after.

The concentrate that AVB sells to the smelters is mixed with concentrate from sources such as the Chilean mines were they have to sell the contaminated concentrate at a discount because of the arsenic levels. The zero deleterious elements classification of AVB concentrate allows strong leverage to the smelters in making a profit. They can mix our tonnage with a far greater tonnage of Chilean ore and end up with an acceptable blended product that they make good profits on.

I also asked a number of questions around the theme of expanding the plant at AN. TP and others explained the following scenarios they have considered, they are possible options but not "plans" at this stage. Firstly, they have already purchased an additional secondary crusher and added it to the circuit.
Secondly, to take the AN plant up to 1.4 million tonnes they would need to add additional cells to the flotation circuit (very cheap) and a sag mill would be added the rest of the equipment can already handle the theoretical increase. The filter press for example works less than 8 hours per day, it could work 24 hours per day. TP said that this equipment was readily available and not terribly expensive. I asked if near AN exploration success in increasing reserves  would result in growing the plant and annual production at AN and they said it would definitely be a consideration.

TP was also at pains though to state that AN production growth beyond 12,000 tonnes would not ramp up at a crazy pace. His stated considerations were to ensure the plant was steadily improved rather than rushing and breaking it. I also believe there is no point in rushing it prior to confirming greater reserves and a better copper price. AVB know they have the copper and they know they the plant functioning to extract it. An intelligent plan to maximise dollars makes sense.