Thanks, Aurum. I think it's a fascinating question. I was thinking the other day that a parallel was the US development of the atomic bomb. It seems like it should be really simple right? 2 pieces of uranium, which it total, reach "critical mass" separated by a piece of lead, which is removed by a fuse type mechanism at a preset altitude.
I forget the exact data, but it took something like 10% of US GDP for 4 years to build 3 bombs, right? [there was the test bomb, Hiroshima bomb and Nagasaki bomb, but I don't think they had any back ups].
We keep hearing that laterite chemistry is a slam dunk, but we also hear that Anaconda was bush to billet in 2 years. If most mines are developed in 10 years, what processes, if any were deleted?
To me, it looks like a lot of planning was not done. The mining subcontractor was let go secondary to arguments over the weight of the ore and the cost of lifting. Men who cannot estimate the weight of ore mined at surface can develop a whole new way of mining?
Then the next problem was that the ball mill was improperly designed, followed by the "non-explosion" but "rapid decompression associated with exothermic activity" in the shock tubes, and the problem with underside vs. topside loading of some part of the operation. There were also problems with corrosion of the ceramics. At one point, Ted or Paul from CMR had told me that one of the problems was that they had to run the process hotter than anticipated, but it didn't make much sense to me until your comment. One of the laterites, and I think it was Anaconda, had a problem with corrosion of an arm which I think deposited acid onto a slurry bed. It would seem that one could see that the arm was corroding before it failed.
The other major problem I had was that there seemed to be an inordinate amount of lies coming out of WA. Just as building contracting attracts men who are congenitally incapable of showing up at the time they promised, mining development seems to attract a fair number of people who are liberal with the truth. Having said that Twiggy was saying MM was being commissioned with military precision as the ball mill was failing, Preston was saying 200 mm of rain during a cyclone had no effect on production of an open pit mine in flat country in a desert and Mr. Gutnick sold something like 10% of Centaur/Cawse at the same time saying it did not reflect on his opinion of Cawse's future.
We then come to Anglo. My fear is that Africa continues to deteriorate. As the ANC and the S. African communist party were both outlaw operations during apartheid, many of the ANC leaders are avowed Marxists.
Mandela was an incredible leader, and apparently carried no ill will to those who had wronged him, but he is gone. Major mining houses in SA are faced with AIDS/silicosis/TB, increasing violence and crime across the society, and a political class populated with communists in the setting of an impoverished black population. Thinking long term, they must want to get their capital out of SA (not to mention that most of the deep mines are uneconomic).
So, I don't know enough to guess as to who is right, Anglo or WMC. Also, the really interesting issue is that if you think that you can eventually make the laterites work, but that the debt load is crippling, why not let Anaconda go belly up, screw the bondholders and stockholders, let the Swiss go under, and then offer 10 cents a share and 10 c on the dollar to the bondholders and start all over? Then it wouldn't matter if it took 3 years to go into production.
In regards to your post, is the point that one cannot maintain 250 d Centrigade and 40 Atmospheres while being forced to enter that much material, or is it that equipment breaks down and corrodes under such extreme conditions?
Thanks. |
