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We talked about ramp and production, and as per Split's recollection, they were of course aiming for nameplate, which was on track, but looking to be within reach sometime in the 4th quarter this year.
I was later to find out he is probably the most sought-after operator in Quebec.
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They grade/groom the area to a nice flat base, then they drill blast holes into this base, add the explosive, blast a face off which turns into rubble, then the trained operator pushes the waste ore to the sides and only collects the white pegmatite ore in the middle.
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As I said, it was a process to train the operators, but the Fournier boys have it down pat now.
These are the challenges of a mid-tier resource, the challenges that under Sylvain's leadership, are being overcome.
It then gets loaded on the dump trucks and taken to the rom pad where they now have 5 graded stockpiles, totalling around 130kt.
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These efficiencies that they are picking up, rom pad grading, and the Vallee resource to the east has nullified the requirement for Authier ore.
So, it now makes sense why there is no urgency for Authier, and it is on the proverbial back burner...
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It then gets crushed in the primary, secondary and tertiary rock crushers, and heads off to the optical ore sorter.
These are all outside, dust creators....and they are building additional storage and coverage for the crushed, sorted rock. So if there is a problem upstream, there is material to continue to be fed to the concentration plant.
They are in the middle of building this massive enclosure for it and photos have been posted on Sayona announcements. I originally thought it was the megadome for the dry tailings, but it's for the crushed, sorted ore.
EG. The bottlenecks are the mills.
That is where the process slows down. (they are even thinking of duplicating the ball and rod mills in the plant)
They can produce way more crushed and sorted ore to feed them.
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From announcement 6th September-
While we were there, there was a problem with the optical ore sorters. If they have crushed sorted ore in the future, they can take it from the stockpile and keep the mills and the process going, ensuring recoveries remain 70%+.
They can then repair the problem, while downstream ops continue on their merry way.
These are the ideas that Sylvain and his team are putting in place to keep the process humming along...
Does anyone else have a Sylvain??...
(20min delay)