I have done a little research into the history of the Pueblo...

I have done a little research into the history of the Pueblo Viejo gold mine and its tailings.

The first thing i found is that there is another tailings deposit next to Las Lagunas called Mejita which is much larger (49Mt) but of much lower grade and of oxide ore tailings.

The second thing i found is that the Las lagunas tailings could be larger than the current project estimates.

If you read from page 24 onwards

http://globaldocuments.morningstar.com/documentlibrary/document/e1d8ccbf7c85c1ac.msdoc/original

you will see that instead of the 5.137Mt of ore as is the official estimate, there is likely more like 6.23Mt and possibly even a little more. This would extend the project life from 6.5 yrs to 7.8 years. A significant increase!

So i think that although it's stating the bleeding obvious, there is indeed plenty of time to extend the useful life of the LL plant.