Croydon - what they have is an "exploration target". As per the...

Croydon - what they have is an "exploration target". As per the announcement they have approx 1500m strike length of mineralised zones in two main parts. They have intersected these zones between 120m and 300m depth, underneath 120m of barren cover, so it looks like an underground mine. Although potentially an underground operation, its not particularly deep - Jaguar (WA) was all below 300m and they are mining at depths of 1000m plus at plenty of places.

So, with that strike length, and assuming 5m width over a 200m depth range that works out to about 4.5 million tonnes - in the middle of their target.

To go from there to a resource would mean drilling extra holes. Currently their coverage is 200m x 200m. I'd say they would need at least 100m x 100m for Inferred and as many holes again to go to Indicated; say 20 holes at 500m = 10,000m; it looks like they would have to spend about $3 million. That would take about 6 months to complete.

Then it would need further studies to go to mine feasibility; another 12 months. So assuming all these rough calculations are correct earliest ore would be early 2014.

Cost wise I think they would need a concentrator plant - Croydon is reasonably isolated from nearby mines or smelters. Given the projects GOA have at the moment I would see this as maybe the third project to be developed behind Crater and Fergusson, and funded largely out of profits from those. So the timeline needs to be adjusted to be put behind those developments.