just panic or somebody knows something?, page-20

barnsty,

Cheers - I wasn't sure of the exact cost but I knew it was around $1B. That's why I said that as long as Teresa is finalised quickly, Linc will be OK. Even if they have to drop the price of Teresa to get the sale through! If they have to sell it for $1B, go for it. Just sell it!

Kieranmcs,

I'd heard $25-30 a barrel, which is US 20-25c a litre. Have they dropped the estimate to 10c? That's a cut of more than half. I also read (from Linc) that the break-even point was an oil price of around $40-50/bbl which of course is what we are at now. I can see diesel holding at perhaps $60/bbl unless OPEC can raise the oil price. Remember that the pump price of diesel is not what Linc will be selling it for! The market price of oil will be closer to the mark, plus say 20%.

schalke04,

I think you're talking about the dollar value per ton? That was about 3, it's since been dropped to 2.

I am having trouble determining the exact strip ratio of Teresa but it's definitely much higher than 3. The reason I'm having trouble is because Linc don't seem to release their individual drill hole results like most companies do (such as COK and CXY). If anybody has that information, please post it.

But look at it this way. 11 holes drilled for 2300m, means average Total Depth of a little over 200m. You always drill a little past the last coal to make sure you haven't missed something, so let's say the last coal was at 150m on average (probably a generous estimate). Linc says there are 6 seams, from less than 1m to "more than 4m." From what I know of the German Creek formation I'd say the average total thickness of those seams might be 10m at most. We we're talking, on the generous side, of 10m of cumulative coal in 150m of rock, for an average strip ratio of about 15:1. This is obviously a very rough estimate but without Linc releasing their individual hole results I can't do any better.

15:1 strip ratio is starting to push the economic limit for open-cut coking coal mining on the long-term coal price average. I'm almost certain this is why that of the 500Mt resource, only 200Mt has been identified for a box cut - the rest is not economic.

COK's strip ratio at Wonbindi for a similar (but much smaller) deposit is between 7:1 and 15:1.