Seems PanAust is now seriously considering an alternative to river transport for the concentrate. It's 660 kilometres down the Sepic to the final port whereas it is only half that if they had a road, which they haven't. PNG has droughts from time to time, ask the Ok Tedi people who have had stop production from time to time when the seasonal rains do not come and they cannt get their product down the Fly. Im sure there are plenty of problems constructing a road, but truck transport has its advantages over the current proposal ,of truck,pipeline, river transport, then sea transport to Wewak or offshore loading, and not too affected by drought.
If there is a company who knows a bit about transporting concentrate itsPanAust, I had some shares in it when they were starting up in Laos.They had to truck the product 600klms thru Loas and Thailand to some port on the Gulf of Thailand, then ship it some Chinese port, then by train to Kunming for refining, which was only a few hundred kilometres north of the mine in Laos. These days I imagine they take it thru Vietnam.
Also in serious discussion with the electricity authority in Png for them to construct an run the hydro project, also with others to do other things and pay for their services.
Anyway all good stuff to bring the construction costs down even if we have to pay a bit more operating costs.
Seems we may have been right in assessing that the feasibility study was no good if they are going back now to relook at there things.
The road transport thing doesn't look like decision until the first half of next year.
Cobalt now, $US70,000.11 ( love that 11c)
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