<< I was refering to more recent "overstatement" that later on turned out
to be disapointments to holders, like the Dore D'or of earlier this year and
the 450 tons trial in the wrong equipment.>>
Zeev, I don't think there was any over statement, just hype and speculation
by IPM followers. This was evident on the net and Compuserve . Like any
mining company IPM was doing metallurgic testing, and samples through a
Knelson concentrator had shown better results than previous leaching. IPM
than proceeded with a 450 ton bulk sample. Bulk sampling in metallurgy tests
are very common. No doubt at the time this evolved and with the AGM looming
IPM would have liked to plunk a DORE bar on the table at the AGM.
IPM never made mention of this to my knowledge and there was no news
release as such, but never the less the speculation rose and rumours were
abound that the bulk sample would provide the DORE bar at the AGM. This
speculation was very evident on compuserve.The stock price rose on this
speculation as well. Unfortunately with little time before the AGM there was
no room for error and when things did not work out right with the bulk sample
there was no time to rerun another one.
The bad news was broken and the stock has been digesting this and languishing
with no news until the recent news on the assay breahthrough. I heard
comments from a number of funds that although they were disappointed they
applauded IPM for their honesty and straight forwardness about the bulk
test.
< As for the .01/OTP extraction, my question was more general>>
I doubt whether a company would start a mine on a .01 OPT deposit. However
these low grades are mined if they are nearby a mine site or are part of a
multi mineral deposit, quite often copper. You are correct that these
deposits are mined as bulk tonnage operations of 40,000/50,000 tons/day or
even 100,000 tons/day.
There has been and still is a number of such bulk tonnage copper/gold
mines in BC Canada. The Bell mine started up with a .010 OPT grade along with
0.48% copper at 16,500 t/d. Another low grade mine, Granisle started up with
grades of .004 OPT and 0.43% copper.
One deposit I am quite familiar with is Taseko's Prosperity. It is 744
million tons at .0127 OPT gold and .236% copper. The grades are a low but a
feasibility by Kilborn Engineering show it very attractive as a bulk tonnage,
60,000 t/d using conventional mining and milling techniques. The feasibility
predicts mining costs of Cdn $5.19/tonne (3.80US) and an average NSR of Cdn
$8.74/tonne. BTW Taseko is currently doing an angle drill program on the
deposit that is proving the average grades are higher. A more complete
writeup on Taseko can be found at my web site sentex.net
I will be looking into Global in the next couple weeks. I will send you an
email and appreciate any info that you could help me get my hands onto.
Ron |
