hello 2mar$, today's report: mining is simple and complicated
the equipment involved in australia seems rudimentary, not substantially different from jack's toys, but just bigger
the planning / logistics, while seemingly complicated, may be intuitive, and only require basic math to deal with.
the mills remind me much of mad max movie sets.
gold mining in australia seem really simple - just dig for cash.
(1) our queensland gold mining operation just started, but really only dozer-ing dumps, loading road trains, and putting on pads stuff we shall process as and when we have enough to keep the mill busy through the rainy season when we may have to stop with the dumps transport
(i) the queensland mill is ready now, and can start operations as soon as having enough dumps on the pad so as to keep operation continuous
(ii) we have enough oxide and sulfide dumps here, there and everywhere to keep ourselves busy for several years, first with the oxide, and once the sulfide circuit is read, say in 9-12 months, then sulfide. as the sulfide ore is generally of significantly higher grade, we may wish to accelerate the program even as the oxide ore processing can be kept going for a good long time.
(iii) shall have off site biz planning session immediate after chinese lunar new year's break so as to stop w/ flying blind / dead-reckoning
(iv) even as we are moving oxide dumps, and checking sulfide dumps, we are drilling where the ancients had earlier mined, to check on grades of never mined sulfide resources and once mined oxide goodies
(v) we are checking out to buy a second hand sulfide mill / circuit at 1/5 of original new value, move it for another 1/5 of new value, and reinstall for a third 1/5 of original new value.
the prospective savings is one attraction. the accelerated timing to readiness is more of an attraction.
(2) we have paid option money on a third project, this one located in tasmania, intending to take down the project on own capacity. australia mining assets really have been trashed.
the project is a tailings project w/ its own mill but the shuttered mine is a lead and zinc beast, and the associated mill not very useful for gold.
(i) we are only interested in environmental protection good work. we do not intend to mine for anything.
(ii) we intend to clean up the tailing pond and squish out the last drops of gold goodness and silver fineness out of tailings resulted from eons of lead and zinc extraction
(iii) the gold mill we shall put in will take 18 months to ready, and then be kept busy for 10 years
(3) we may have found a jv partner for our second project, located in ... let me see ... new south wales.
the gold and antimony mine and mill that can be operational w/i 12 months, firstly outputting concentrates, and then, 6 additional months later, put out metals
(i) china supplies 80% of world's antimony
(ii) we may well become the world's largest antimony resource / metals supplier outside of china
(iii) we may work with central asian refugees originally based in london and now relocated to hong kong
(iv) do not know until we know, until the drop-dead date of february 4th and the moment of truth
(v) we may walk if the terms are wrong, because a bad structure would be fatal
(4) below are some recent pics of our queensland operation.
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