I was going to leave it there, but I shot you message off and got a response from the brother that you, and probably everyone else would want to see. Really good insight need to ask him more. Give management another tick, Morila is in good hands:
1. The plant refurb was completed in March
”1. Mechanical refurb is the simple part of a real refurb. Recommissioning a refurbished plant takes months. Especially as part of the refurb involved plant improvements. Speaking from experience this is again where you want a more consistent, homogeneous feed. Most plants are wet commissioned with dry post process agg or, ironically if available, tailings. Simply because the output material should perfectly mimic the processing cuts of the plant and therefore won't overload any individual circuit of the plant. Tbh id consider what they did one of the most clever and cost effective ways of working through the wet commissioning phase of a plant that you don't fully understand (being new owners and having not actually processed raw feed in 10 odd years) because you're still making profit in the process. “
2. No one said stripping wasn't required, but it's also not a 9 month long exercise especially in a previously mined area. Plus it can be staged
2. “Could definitely be done in stages however it would involve 1. At least a month to mobilise a fleet, strip and open enough resource to make cost effective cuts. But then it would require duplicating the load and haul fleet to cover both ROM supply and stripping. Thats doubled up costs on mobilisation, fuel, maintenance not to mention twice the skilled operators. Yes you might make more $/t processed however your costs are significantly higher. Using one fleet for stripping and a small cartage crew from the tailings dump would be significantly cheaper meaning less cash available up front. Impossible to suggest you'd end up in a better net position as your cumulative costs per month would be higher even if your profit was. Not to mention - again - if during your post refurbishment commissioning the plant had an unforeseen issue you'd be incurring the costs of two load and haul fleets, one on stand down, while you wait for a potentially time consuming (due to lead times causes by the sites location) and costly fix. This appears to be a well considered, risk managed approach. “
3. Anyone with an IQ above 12 knows that overburden doesn't go into the plant and at no point did I suggest that's what you would do unless of course you can prove to me that gold grows on trees or in bushes.
3. “Correct, hence why starting on the satellite's would have cause a minimum of a months delay on processing and profit. Another reason to start on the readily available material. Cant mine it until you can get to it. “
4. Costs are relatively the same as the crusher wasn't idle, it had been running at a rate of 3Mtpa. Your argument would make sense if it wasn't being used, however it was as posted earlier.
4. “Missed the point here. Running at idle load, not actually idling or off. The plant was processing tailings. Tailings have already had primary and typically secondary scalp removed. That means all material should be at or below the output curve of at least the first crusher. (Havent seen the PFD for this plant so not sure the exact process) This means the loading curve on the crusher will be very low. Hence, low power consumption and low wear. Even choke fed material will flow through very quickly and won't experience anywhere near the peak loading it would normally experience when carrying out its usual duty cycle. ”
5. obviously it's going to wear, it's part of the process. there are also screens early in the process so you don't send boulders through your circuit. that's a pretty quick way to ruin everything.
5. “Yes. Correct. The point was tailings have the oversize or scalps portions removed already (your "boulders"), giving it a far more consistent PRF curve and making it notably more compatible with the plant (hence less uneven loading or surge loading which are a key factor in premature failure in a fixed plant components). For a third time - making it a significantly safer and more clever choice when considering a risk management strategy for reviving and ramping up the plant.”
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