What is involved in turning the 'A' Pitt into a Super Pitt?
Exploration and Feasibility Studies and Design: Before any digging begins, extensive geological surveys and feasibility studies are conducted to determine the potential value of the mine. To determine how to move around large concentrations of gold ore.
Permitting and Approvals: Obtaining the necessary environmental and regulatory approvals can be a lengthy and expensive process and, in our case, dealing with the Thais this can be long and drawn out.
Initial Development: This includes clearing the land, constructing access roads, and setting up infrastructure such as power and water supplies along the road wall for safety. The (wide) roads alone moving down the pit will have to be no more than 8% to 15% slope that level out to 0% periodically to avoid skidding, remember a fully loaded Caterpillar 777 weighs 133 tons moving up hill and 56 tons downhill. This kind of weight requires a gradual slope to reduce unsafe skidding due to tropical weather. Thailand monsoonal rain-soaked roads must be wide enough for two 777 to pass one another with a least 4 to 5 meters away from a concrete built edge. Making the road 12 to 15 meters wide, I have seen smaller roads with pull-off sides (where trucks park and wait for passing trucks. (Trucks moving up hill always get right of way and these truck stops are controlled by a warden for each pit stop).
Dewatering Systems: Controlling groundwater levels through dewatering systems is critical to maintaining slope stability. High groundwater pressure can reduce the strength of the rock and soil increasing slope failure. What is done in this case by channel drains that are constructed with pump systems to carry water into silt trap reservoir. There are a lot of them and by that, I mean there is a pump station that solely deals with water removal ASAP. I have seen this set up while I was shown around by O'Donnel Griffen some years back, and let me say everything I saw looked extremely sophisticated and expensive
Drilling and blasting: The Super Pitt is no doubt going to undergo some serious blasting. If that is the case it will require many years for the Super Pitt to take shape. For example, we can only progress as fast as our crushers can manage in our case two facilities is the fastest they can go and then there is the waste and where to store and what to do with it? Well, I have an idea for that.
Waste Material Disposal: I have been toying with the idea of selling our rock waste to local councils for the purpose of building new roads with our road base material. As such, Kingsgate can make money by creating and shipping road bases all over the country with a new and small operation sole dealing with supplying this material to construction companies involved in road works. Brick manufacturing companies can also benefit from a steady supply of clean quality grade aggregate soil for firing bricks. To maximise our profits, we must find ways of turning our problems into viable business that removes a burden from one side of the ledger into another side for profits. Overall, these two ideas would cost very little to get started other than targeting prospective clients with the offer at affordable prices for our material.
To sum up I rang and spoke to an old friend I have his permission to quote Mr David Harding who talking me through the process and cost of a Super Pitt. It is going to cost tens of millions over a period of 5 to 10 years of continuous excavation, onsite supervision by a third party Pitt Designer and a lot of Government red tape. Not to mention the onsite plumbing and electrical planning that must be carried out for such a large project.
I hope this helps putting a Super Pitt into a viable and sustainable perspective.
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