Merger Dacian & NMT - Discuss: Good idea or not?, page-8

I was on the RMS gravy train before! It was a very good one.

As I mentioned in my other post, if exploration uncovered more gold to the tune of 2Moz in total, then the cost efficient way of extracting gold changes. For example, it 1Moz of ores (50% of 2Moz resources) is to be trucked to DCN plant, the operation cost of trucking will be $250mil ($250/oz cost for trucking: based on 2g/t ore grade) versus perhaps $200mil for a new plant i.e. more expensive using trucking. Obviously above is a simplistic comparison and any valid comparison will need to take into account of many many variables i.e. a proper feasibility study will need to be conducted.

RMS trucking scenarios are based on much lower resources of the satellite mines. If there has been bigger resources then a standalone will become viable. From memory, Penny West reserve is 600Koz and also the fact it is of higher grade making the cost/oz a lot less and therefore cheaper using trucking. Likewise Vivien U/G gold mine grade is high i.e. ~6g/t (from memory) which makes it a lot cheaper to truck versus a standalone plant.