I doubt the takeover paradigm. Goldcorp will not do it, or if they would they would have already.
It may be that they may mine like the Hollinger, 20 million ounces, of good grade. The trick is to mine it safely, quickly and with low dilution. I know how this could be done, but there is no money in it for me to show them how. At least not know. A few people I know could do it as well, with methods similar but slightly different. It takes some technology and a few years. The Hollinger and the Kerr Addison went thru many years of technological development and training as well. I am aware of that, as I worked there, and heard the history first hand. There were solutions to the manpower problems of their day, that the governments allowed them to solve. Today these solutions paths are not as clear. Today to say these problems are insoluble or difficult, as Golden Shield did not solve them, is naive. But they take another scarce resource and that is engineering decision making. And innovative flexibility. The military saw revolutions of this kind since the Vietnam ware and will forge ahead again themselves, and mining will vault ahead again too. We don't have to mine as we did in 1945 when the Alimak was new and distrusted, and the jackleg was a newfangled instrument of torture. The problems are different and I see them as eminently soluble.
Mining and milling are not always off the shelf. It is about solving problems in a real way. In the 1930's sulphide mining leaped ahead. Why - because they discovered how to float minerals. About that time, large mining equipment made open pits and large scale methods underground more feasible, so 1 per cent and 1/2 percent copper became ore. Thinking and doing. The tech is there. It is not that hard. It is hardly rocket science, but some of that could be used as well.
Can these structures be mined at a profit? I can guarantee you they can. Can they be mined safely? I think far more safely than in the past. No guesswork about the rock but far more determination. Prayers alone are not enough, but some may be needed, at least that people will still want to do these things. There are a 100 things that can be tried. And all of them may work.
Mines are made not found.
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