Running discussion on SP, page-21033

Now, that must of been one hell of a gas bagging session with your HKTD. Yes light hearted banter.

My general view as to funding was in this post the other day - Post #: 39438560 - the key to funding is the MET tests,which might translate to equity for Offtake Agreements/funding agreements just prior to the DFS stage (or just after the DFS stage). A lot of projects get these type of agreements just before or just after the DFS. My personal view has always been we will get to mining before 2025 (and hopefully closer to 2022), but missed timelines haven't helped.

I agree that given the size of the resource there are differing pit design options, but obviously the cheapest option in my opinion would be using the existing flooded open pit (assuming it can be dewatered and drilling confirms the resource underneath in the measured and indicated category. Time to market though is the key and the mining option needs to accord with timeframe to market is actually my point, so if the pit can't be dewatered in time then other mining pit design options will be done IMO (but will mean a higher capex cost).

The key with VB, unlike that rubbish red wine and other crap people drink, is it gives you a clear head and perspective LOL.

I thought I would post some pictures from the May 2019 Ann for the scoping study.


The above picture shows the inferred resource which is what is under the existing pit (now flooded) that is art of this dewatering strategy. Obviously given the breadth of the resource they can implement other mining configurations here, as the resource extends beyond the existing flooded open pit.



The picture above is also interesting. I think some here are confusing what happens in a mining operation as against to dewatering an unused existing pit (prior to mining). In a mining operation you obviously dewater as you mine, but here what AVZ is doing is simply dewatering the existing pit, been the green inferred area at surface in the proceeding pic and the blue above in this pic above. From my understanding the existing pit is about 20 metres in depth flooded - derived from the Sept 2018 Ann page 15 in my earlier post in italics below:

"The current drilling has been restricted to areas where there has been ready access. The proposed mine underlies a previous open pit mine that has closed and is now flooded to a depth up to about 20m (See Figure 3 and 4 above). To intersect the ore body under the pit has been spatially challenging and hence a substantial portion of the Resource has been classified as Inferred. This can be seen on Figure 4 cross-section through the orebody showing the Measured (red), Indicated (blue) and Inferred (green) blocks on that section."

Looking at the map above the dewatering is in relation to width * length * depths = cubic metres of water, so what I will do is double the depth to 40 metres to cover water that might come into the pit as you are removing water. Looking at the map above width of the existing pit seems to be 400 metres * 300 metres * 40 metres = 4,800,000 cubic metres of water. It could be closer to 4 million cubic metres.

So now it boils down to the diameter of the pipe in that Ann, noting the pump aim is to fill a large part the diameter with water discharge. Looking at the picture the diameter in the last Ann is actually quite large by the looks of it but the water discharge is not filling a large portion of the diameter (meaning either you haven't got enough pumps working or the pipe is currently in test stage and the flow rate will be increased). Without knowing this it will be difficult to estimate the time taken to empty the existing open pit, but my gut feel is it will take at least 6 months.

The diameter of the pipe, plus the size of the water pumping station will determine flow rate here, both unknowns based on the scant information in the last Ann.
https://www.pumpindustry.com.au/sizing-pump-discharge-piping-at-a-mine-site/

All IMO