You will not finding a slinging match from me although so many seem to get into them. I was trying to make an analogy in simple terms without directly stating the fact there seems to be a link missing from the chain here.
Ore grade and mineralogy is extremely important in designing/fabricating/building and commissioning a plant. There is nothing more fundamentally important. I was indirectly answering your question, the contractor would have every single right to walk away if they built the plant to process the ore grade and mineralogy they were provided with. The plant was designed upon an assumption of uniform ore (as stated by GBG), what if it wasn't uniform?? To make a more relative analogy you cannot put coal into a magnetite process and expect the process to give you better coal. That is simple right? A slight change in mineralogy can have a significant impact too. For a dry tailings process they would be using chemical additives, these are all very very finely tuned chemicals, changing the ore/grade/mineralogy will all have an impact on the process. These impacts can be severe (stopping the process altogether) or they can be minor things that can be worked through with some trials/during commissioning.
Why did the contractor liquidate, I don't know. Probably to protect the parent entities against spurious legal fights or because they lost a stack load/were going to because they obliged themselves into contractual commitments on the basis of good faith and data which they could no longer honour.
KML never got above 62% ore but for a short spell because the polishing end of the circuit never worked properly. I find it doubtful that they could have f***ed the design that bad that it just plain wouldn't work.
Anyways, these are just my ramblings and speculation. Just trying to make sense of were this all went Pete Tong.
GBG Price at posting:
11.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
