Will,
Correction on my last post: $100/carat should read $100/tonne, and $50/carat should be $50/tonne
It doesn't sound very promising at $100/tonne, assuming a depth of 300m:
Even if capital costs are only $500 million, and operating costs are half that of Snap Lake, at $156/2 = $78/tonne, this would still bring total operating costs in the model to:
17 million tonnes x $78/tonne = $1,326,000,000
This may be prohibitively expensive, and doesn't include costs of exploration, prefeasibility/feasibility studies, marketing, and sustaining capital costs.
I guess the key will be to look for exceptionally high grades and/or carat values. We should have a very rough idea of grade in February, but the carat values will have to wait for more extensive bulk sampling.
B |
