I've been spending a bit of time studying some of the biggest undeveloped copper resources in the world and some of the biggest low grade mines. Of course to put them into perspective, it would be nice to know approx how big all our resource is. We know Nebo-Babel is 442mt of low grade, but Succoth?
So I'm asking some of the resident experts for a bit of a guess, given what we do know, about how big Succoth is.
We have 3km of strike length and in the part with the cross section nearly 600m wide (with some waste there), plus it looks fairly wide even at 400-500m deep. Making the big assumption that it is just as wide elsewhere along strike, how does a resource of 400mt of .7% Cu, .07% Ni and .15g/t Pt+Pd sound. Anywhere in the ball park?
Looking at something like 3000m long by 475m wide (top wider bottom narrower, average) 450m deep X 2.5t/m3 gives
1.6bt of which waste to ore ratio 3:1 so 400mt ore, the .7% Cu just below most of the hits, but above some of the longer ones by a frag. Total 2.8mt Cu + 280kt Ni plus 1.92m oz Pt+Pd.
OK tear it to shreds.
It's about a wild idea I have had. What if BHP were thinking too small. If total resource of 400mt for Succoth plus 442mt for N-B, could give over 800mt resource, What about a 30mt/a plant mostly copper mine with Ni credits, ie 4.2mtCu 1.75mt Ni, mined over 25-30 years, with the other areas adding to resources Yappsu,esaglia etc.
The Boliden mine in Northern Sweden (Aitik) just put through 34mt ore in 2013 for 70,000t Cu 54t Ag and 2t Au, but admit it low grade that will improve next year. Our products would be 3-4 times that value for that throughput. They only had 63,000 t Cu the year before from 18mt/a plant, that's low grade!
OK now really tear the idea to shreds.
CZI Price at posting:
23.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
