I have had a look at the Company’s Yarrabubba opportunity and given they are promoting this as being “Low Entry Project” I thought I would spend the time to run the numbers below.
Items to Consider:
If they have to grind to 32um - the cost for capex and opex of milling will go way up - typically an exponential energy curve. My estimate is for a 75um grind.
Very difficult to ship a material at 32 micron material realistically.
In addition to high mining costs in a very tight pit, the long haul adds significantly mining costs - 21KM by the look of things.
First few years would be expected to have much lower mass recovery - oxidised ore in LIMS, not considered in model.
Would have to transport waste across Gazetted road as they have no place to put it on the site – not in model. This means huge costs transporting material from haul truck to quads and back to haul trucks – just not even practical.
Model is most sensitive to Strip Ratio and mass recovery.
Operating cost around $175/t – this is probably very conservative considering I didn’t add many of the other costs identified here because I don’t even have a comparison to try to estimate it.
Concentrate is not likely to fetch more than $130.
We need some luck with this as it seems a long shot.
All IMO
DYOR