I noticed BDG is now planning hand held mining techniques on what it calls narrower reefs ( I thought they are all narrow!). With SLR now successfully airleg mining Daisy Milano it begs the question of whether mechanised mining techniques should be used in narrow vein mines. CTO is looking like a dud ( well it is the "white shoe Brigade" of gold stocks), the jury is still out on HEG.
Mechanised mining requires a lot of capital and therein is the problem. Can you actually get a decent return on that capital, or are you better being less ambitious and stick to a low tonnage air leg mined model with vastly less capital and risk. This model only works in very high grade narrow vein mines. You couldnt get a better example of such a mine than Morning Star
For MCO the low tonnage hand held method makes sense beacuse of the grade. Throw in the latest innovations from Gekko and MCO could be producing , like SLR ,40,000 ounces pa and making $30million pa profit at todays AUS gold price. After all it was producing over 20,000 plus ounces pa( cj knows the actual figutre)hauling up a shaft. Using a decline with multiple faces and undergound plant will boost that historic output considerably.
MCO Price at posting:
11.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
