Future Drliing !!, page-29

"I did preface my post with "getting a long way ahead....""

Yes hard to decide what comes first like the chicken or the egg do you prioritize putting in roads or flying in and at what point to you go from flying in to putting in a road ?
But you have to look at scenarios as you are doing

If they can get mining machinery (ADTs and 90 tonne digger and D8 ) to the site for say trial mining then the waste stripped could be used for say the first 12 kms of road going back towards Kugluktuk before they need to find another quarry for roading. Guessing cost to load waste around C$5.00 a tonne (inc dozer ripping permafrost ) and 50 cents a a km per tonne trucking cost that works out at a lot less than $2m a km .

Looks like topography has some valleys for TSFs , the permafrost would be a friend

Would be nice to get some met tests done on the rock both for flotation recoveries and acid levels

"Neither diamonds nor gold production require heavy duty transport to market - except for the security aspect.
For a base metal mine this is probably not the case. IZOK, High Lake, Hackett River and Ferguson Lake (Ni, eastern Nunavut, another 1950s Inco discovery) are some examples. Conveyor or slurry pipe lines may be options but suspect winter conditions are too severe for such lengths"

If you look at Meadowbank an Agnico gold mine on the Western side of the Hudson Bay and around 100kms inland to boot , they are bringing in 6,000 tonnes of diesel for Winter for guessing a 3 Mtpa plant as they only have guessing 3 months window when they can get fuel through the ice pack . So even though gold is valuable they still need heavy sea lift transport and bulk storage on site
And those fuel barges and vessels bringing diesel in are going out empty , as gold is flown out , with Rae the copper could be back hauled out to a laydown storage area at the coast before transhipment by barges to a vessel between June and September Also say a 50% Cu con has a value of around US $4000.00 that is alot more value than the Mary river iron ore mine further NE that would be lucky to get $120 a tonne for its ore so Cu is relatively valuable . .