ph wins best metalliferous mine of the year, page-11

Hi HT,


On another note, do you have any thoughts about the gold resources at PH. It is my understanding that the gold ore is to be processed through the existing plant, which will reduce the Cu head grade, adversely impacting Cu production and costs (maybe). Given that the underground operation will effectively make more Cu ore available do you think there is potential to use this ore to maintain 8Mtpa of Cu ore through the plant and build a separate gold circuit to process the gold ore (which is currently being stockpiled, 2.7 MT at the end of last quarter). There is considerable tonnage of gold only ore, in the greater PH resource, which could be processed at a higher recovery rate through gold only plant. A 2-3 MTpa annum plant would add an extra 100,000 pa. From memory TB did allude to this in the last press conference.