nme is not good only cause of management!, page-8

Hi plough.

1) even if you blast on smaller centres use different chatges you still need to be able to mine to a reasonable clean contact/break. It this case there is no clean break = schist on contact.

2)actually the ore can be visually spotted because it is a quartz vein in dolerite. Whoever predicting grade will be difficult and i reckong they will have to "mine the lot" and then sample post mining.

3)Pre-splits are blast holes charge and fired before the main blast. Generally used to maintain good wall angles. The heave is a term used for how high the rock moves from the RL being dug. Generally you try to blast into a open face or a previous blasted area. In smaller pits this is difficult to do given the pit floow area to work with. The main problem with heave and the associated power/back troughs is how far the ore body has moved from its original position and being able to acurately monitor it. They may try to "stand the ore up" in an attempt to reduce the dilution.


6) No this is good old very hard fresh rock. You can still heap leach you just need to crush to an optimal size. Obviously the harder the rock the more expensive to crush.Generally the cost of crushing hard rock is to high to justify given the reduced recoveries cf milling.

7)Gear standing idle still costs you money (unless you own outright).

8) The butterfly pit is small and I wouldn`t want a 777 down there.I know they own two and that is what they will use but after 2 lifts the wait time for the digger will blow out just waiting for the trucks to position = cost burning diesel.

9) main concern is how they will detemine what to haul and the grade. I personally reckon the may end up hauling dirt that is uneconomic to mill. A rough guess of all up haul/mill/sample costs = $25/t mill + 13c/t/km to haul ie $32 + $3/t admin + $5/t to sample = $65/t. At $1650 that means they need around 1.35 - 1.45g/t (at 95% recovery) just to pay for that. Mining will be around $7-8/BCM or $2-3/t. Add on GC, D&B, day works and you are looking at $5.5 to $6/t to mine with all up costs around $70/t. Meaning 1.5 would be your cut-off grade. Problem being is how you distinguish between that and lower grade? Still if the ore is 3g/t then you ate making $800/oz before capex.