I wouldn't at all be surprised if we did a bit of mining from Pit 5 before N’Tiola. They’ve said before Barrick only mined the top Oxides from the satellites, so we’ll need the full crushing circuit to mine the satellites. They said in the webinar Pit 5 is shallow, close to the mine and is Oxide.
In the resource upgrade they said:
“In addition, drilling and resource estimates are in progress at the Koting discovery and the Pit 5 area, adjacent to the Morila pit.”
From the initial acquisition announcement they said this about the plant:
“Oxidised ore which does not require secondary and tertiary crushing, is crushed with a 250kW toothed MMD rolls breaker fed from a 130-tonne bin and apron feeder”
The crushers only “need a minor refurb” (Qtly), processing the Pit 5 oxide would require a lot less power than processing the satellite ore and they are currently doing drilling & resource estimates on Pit 5 (as well as Koting).
To me this all says we might mine Pit 5 earlier to get those higher grades sooner. Will be interesting to see the resource estimate for Pit 5, Koting will be a while off being mined while they do the haul road etc.
