Hi MP2 & Everybody,
I caught up with the MD Patrick Muntz. With lots of good news, much metallurgicalso bear with me:
1) He confirmed my suspicion that a lot of the reason for the good recovery and out performance of the plant and ore body, was due to the sizing of the zircon and quartz.
2) Most of the ore body around that strand line is the same. Which means the rest of the Bonnanaring, Atlas and Bidamina (dredgable) has similar sizing. It has had the fines washed out during deposition and subsequent wave action. A form of natural pre-concentration. Hence too the higher zircon content.
3) The size of the zircon 50P180um make a lot of it premium zircon (also due to its low radioactivity (thorium inclusions)).
4) The sizing of the zircon (and other minerals) also makes it really easy to separate in the magnetic and electrostatic dry separation steps in china. So it’s in high demand
5) They should be debt free by next year.
Even allowing for a bit of MD bias it sound like all systems go. The talk tomorrow but he will focus on how they intend to handle the high grade pod. We also spoke of the DSO material which a lot of the points above cover.
Cheers.
