Eshmun,
CMC is the only mining partner at Portia. If there was any serious issues with Portia, CMC would have walked long ago. The fact CMC has not, tells you all you need to know.
Far from being exasperated, the principal of CMC (Steve Radford) was actually the one that suggested mining North Portia as a follow on from Portia.
The North Portia mine plan is well advanced and HAV shareholders are just waiting on them to make a decision whether to go ahead.
If feasible, it is planned that mining of the North Portia deposit continue on from the Portia open pit while all of the infrastructure (eg camp, water dams) and equipment is still on location and prior to rehabilitation of the site. There could be considerable cost savings in using the Portia open pit void as a repository for overburden from mining North Portia using CMC's idea of a 'trans-pit conveyor system', quite apart from re-mobilisation cost savings.
FYI: the North Portia copper-gold deposit is located less than 500 metres north of Portia.
HAV management has found quite a lot of gold sitting on top of the oxidised copper-gold resource, that should be recoverable in the existing Portia plant, which is great news for HAV and CMC.
IMLTHO, both HAV and CMC will enter a similar deal to that at Portia with respect to stripping the overburden and providing the staff for the processing plant. So, from HAV's viewpoint development costs will be lower than you think.
There are also a lot of surplus copper mineral flotation plants surplus in Broken Hill, that CMC may be able to get its hands on for a good price.
Portia JORC Gold Resource
In my last post, I did mention that less than 50% of the gross Portia JORC gold resource has been produced by the end of July 2017 (Au 2017: 19,626 ounces; Au 2016: 4,962 ounces).
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/an...get_post=true&direction=previous#.WaNg-K17FZo
Dependent on the realised gold price over the next 6 months, HAV's share of gross gold sales proceeds will be worth around $20 million from the remainder of the JORC gold resource at Portia.
Cheers
These are only my random thoughts and it does not constitute investment advice. Before acting on any information you read and before making any financial or investment decisions, you should always consult your advisor(s) or other relevant professional expert
(20min delay)