Hi Sally:I agree with you in the "current" market RMS is unique,...

Hi Sally:
I agree with you in the "current" market RMS is unique, it is debt free has 6my in the bank as of 31/12/2008, which will cover processing of stockpiled ore with ongoing cash to develope a portal and decline. It is also unique in the deposit type ie hosted totally within Ultramafics. There have been a few others in the past 30 years namely Victory at Broadarrow and Blue Funnel near Ora Banda. Both deposits had similar bonanza grades overcalled in the supergene "oxide" zone but failed as a UG mine. In terms of geology we now understand how weathering produces a supergene zone in the oxide and as a result we can "predict" tons and grade provided we have the necessary data with a moderate risk. Consider that geologists work on the edge of chaos theory in estimating gold deposits where we are estimating parts per million(PPM)where 1g/t = 1ppm. Gold distribution in "ultamafics" is at the very top end of erratic behavior due to all sorts of geological factors which combine to make grade estimation at the top end of chaos theory. In other words we are estimating grade and volume in a chaos environment where we have some idea of the variables but not how they interact to control the distribution. So we fall back on geostatistics to smooth the data for modelling in the process we cut "both" high and low values inherantly biasing the result. The geological model is the main problem and every geo will come up with a differnet interp as it is inherantly biased by each geos experience. There are very feww geos who have experience with this style of ore body.So we end up with a guess estimate based on the above which in the context of deposit types ultramafic hosts are considered high risk, not just in estimating but also due to mining conditions.
Sorry to rant on but according to their figures they have a mine life of 18monthes with a throughput of 200,000t/an at Burbanks assuming ug production of 20,000 ton/month. That figure comes from their indicated 377,[email protected]/t/Au and I have discounted the inferred of 300,[email protected] as it would be below their cut off grade. Within the indicated they have estimated 4 high grade shoots totalling 131,[email protected]/tAu for 79,000 ozes. But/But! here is chaos theory kicking in as they used a top cut of 400g/tAu whereas I have never seen a top cut above 100g/tAu.
One other thing you mention low operating costs, haulage $10/t, processing $40/t, ugmining $150/t+admin, etc which I estimate as $200/t or 5.7g/t/Au based on $35/g gold price. Add in a further 10my capex for decline and developement capatilized over the indicated resource adds another $26/t to overall costs. In my mind this is not a low cost operation, in addition I see this it as a suck and see and would be approaching it by staging it to learn first of all if it is mineable, and how best to optomize extraction. As you say the market knows all and in this market the only game is in gold but what the market doesn't understand is geology.