pgm potential is very massive

Back in 2002 between bouts of force majeur AGY did a pre feasibility study that said that at US$3.00 pound nickel Mousangati was uneconomic (due to cost of infrastructure) so they turned to examine the PGM potential of Buhinda, Rubara and Geyuka which form the three deposits known as Mousangati.

AGY reexamined the drill cores from prior drilling campaigns and they looked closely at six holes drilled into the very shallow nickel laterites (about 27 meters deep on average). At Buhinda these 6 holes came up 36.0 meters @ 3.73 g/t, 3.0 meters @ 11.28 g/t, 10.75 meters @ 4.2 g/t, 2.2 meters @ 3.54 g/t, 2.0 meters @ 3.45 g/t, 4.0 meters @ 4.9 g/t. A seventh and deeper hole was drilled 303 meters into the sulfides and it recorded 5.0 meters @ 3.8 g/t & 5.0 meters @ 3.1 g/t.
Assuming that the seven holes are fairly representative of the average thickness of the PGM layer in the laterites we can assume that 47% of the laterites carry average values at an average grade of 4.75 g/t. We get a very speculative extremely rough guesstimate of 13,300,000 inferred ounces of PGM's at Mousangati. I am NOT saying that Mousangati has this number of ounces but am trying to illustrate that the potential here is massive (in the laterites at very shallow depth of less than 50 meters) AND AGY says it can be extracted by simple gravity circuits after grinding. This is extremely low cost mining.

The potential in the underlying sulfides may be greater but more about that later.