The following is my interpretation from a few sources, by and...

The following is my interpretation from a few sources, by and for the layman:
- the costs run at $5000/metre or $5 mil per km.
- the length would continually increase as they mined out areas until they got right down to the deepest levels.
- I think declines go down about 1m for every 7m of decline so 1km gets you down around 150m.
- I don't think it would interfere with current operations too much except when blasting I would assume people wouldn't be underground.
- Don't know about permitting but shouldn't imagine it to be a problem.
- I regard the decline as critical to MCO reaching its target tonnages as just using the shaft would give you very limited production. eg now approx 30t/day up the shaft. Upgrade the winder to use 2 ore buckets and increase the winder speed may get you up to 100t/day, 500t/week, around 25000t/annum.
- How much a decline increases this figure depends on how much payable ore they can access using it. Reefs that could be targeted include Stackpooles, Dickensens, Shamrock, Burns etc. I expect a lot of planning and some exploratory drilling will be done before deciding the exact path of a decline.
- Mott Ryan used to hold world records for speed of decline headings.
- as for the cost benefit tradeoff, I don't think they would build one if the benefit wasn't there. Otherwise they masy as well plod away up the shaft and concentrate on getting Waverly or Reliance into production.

I hope this helps and stand to be corrected on any inaccuracies.

Cheers Mal