Hi Claude, The figure of .064 0zs.comes from their own website. If you convert that to grams it is .064 x (1oz.=28.349)=1.81g/t.
Yes, the silver contribution will reduce the total cost/oz gold by $15.00/ounce and they have over 52 million ounces of silver. With a projected mine life of at least 11 years they can, and probably will, produce more than 2-2.5 million ounces of silver per year. Given those figures 52 million divided by 11 years would work out to almost 4.73 million ounces silver/year. Their initial production plan is 19,500 tonnes/day and they will increase it to 27,000 tonnes after 2 years. I noticed that the 19,500 doesn't quite work out to 750,000/yr but that is their figures, not mine. I also noticed that at the top of the page they say 750,000 for 3 years, but in the second paragraph, they say 2 years, so it's not clear if it's 2 or 3 years before they will move to the higher rate.
They are planning to mine the highest grade ore, which is at the north end of the deposit, first. This requires no overburden removal, so it will maximize production from the git-go. So the initial grades will probably be much higher, than the overall grade of the deposit, but it is the average over the whole deposit that is the bottom line.
Cheers
Shirley |
