The people in on the bottom of Madelaine Mines et al made money hand over fist. The reason Lac Des Isle lost money in the end was it was started "privately" and could not afford to mine at a necessary scale, when metal prices were not that flush due to Russian dumping. Palladium did not appreciate sufficiently during that time. As far as a mineral resource went, it was fabulous. Nobody had ever seen those kinds of widths and grades in North America, or anywhere else for that matter. (although Norilsk was richer though narrower; richer partly due to its nickel/copper credits) On display in 1989 was a core section from the Roby Zone that was part of a 1400 feet wide section that ran 0.07 oz/T PGM's average. There have never been a core intersection like that anywhere else ever drilled. I ran into similar rock (to the aformentioned Roby Zone) in an other area, and could get nothing done with it! I prospected that and 100 million ton PGM deposits in the area to no avail for a few years in the 1980's. That is an example of the massive ignorance/stodginess of the industry then and now.)
We have nothing like the Bushveldt, although Sudbury has some comparitive features. Our Norilsk is in Ungava with its superb nickel. Our money market is not engineer driven, but broker-market driven, so we are slow to catch on to magnificent profitability stories that could be derived from the use of ammoniacal reagants used in the Sherrit-Falco process for cobalt and platinum -- that were formerly patented, and have now put medium scale platinum-nickel-cobalt processing within the reach of small to medium scale miners. If people in the brokerage community sufficiently grasped these financing realities, Lac Des Isle would have been profitable 15 years ago, with a PGM metal processing plant, and areas like Ungava and BC would be dotted with producers of Pt and nickel-cobalt. (I know of cobalt resources in Ontario that are vast, and they run 0.20% cobalt!! -- 44 dollars US in Cobalt alone) All kinds of 1% combined material in nickel-copper is now probably profitable - but it goes ignored because of the 'Inco hangover' -- which is not operable anymore.
canadianmetalsexploration.com has perhaps 250 million tons of 55 dollar Pt-Ni rock in BC and it is being ignored. It is perhaps profitable at 20,000 or less tons per day. Interesting story and one to keep your eye on.
Sudbury rock is not always hard. Really gabbros are a relatively "soft" hard rock for the most part. The norite of Sudbury is unusually hard to drill and abrasive, but it is unique among gabbros in that.
The thing that makes hard rock areas good to open pit or underground mine is the rock is hard, the pit walls are stable, and the underground stays up too, if you don't overfracture like they did at Creighton. So hard rock is a blessing in disguise. The rock PFN is in, is not norite per se, but gabbro, so it is a different animal. It is fairly massive, so fairly steep pit wall are probably called for, bring costs down a tad. the thing to keep your eye on with PFN is the scale of the resource. It is low grade rock, but it is remarkably consistent, and perhaps vast. They are running into hole after hole of the same stuff, and it looks like it runs for miles. Literally perhaps ten. And they have not drilled below 500 feet except for one hole that ran into high grade. If they drill deeper there probably is a core width higher grade underground mine of not inconsiderable size. This thing could get big. They have 6.5 mile step outs with some Pt values in them. I don't think it will all run, but if 40% of it does it will be a very large mine for sure. So far their hit rate on strike is over 90%!!
PFN is a story that we will watch for the next 4 years. -- ditto Canadaianmetalsexploration and ditto Ungava. The drive is to produce these catalyst metals, and this drive will have its ups and downs, but in the end they will produce. If we scale our plants well, and add end processing, AND IF CANADIANS AND AMERICANS INVEST.. we will end up with the CONTROL OF the world's supply of PGM's -- because WE HAVE THE RESOURCES...
BTW -- Canadian and SA mine costs for the most part due to scale and depth issues are the same despite their lower labour costs, which is not that much dramatically lower in the deep mines. In their open pit mines it is not much different at all. Their profitability threshold is not lower than ours at all. (It couldn't be as costs in an opencast mine are driven by energy and capex more and that is the same ore greater in SA.) The latest open pit mine in SA, run by Anglo Plats is about the same grade as Lac Des Isle and PFN.
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