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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (68381)	4/28/2001 2:11:54 PM
From: goldsheet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116759

When you have a open pit mine where costs may be 75% capital / 25% cash versus underground where it may be the opposite 25% capital / 75% cash, you do very different things. Ore grade variation and high cash cost make high grading a requirement underground to minimize daily operational costs. Meanwhile, the primary objective of an open pit appears to be to run as much tonnage as possible through the high cost capital equipment to spread the depreciation over as many ounces as possible. It may be as simple as quality (underground) versus quantity (open pit), and quantity appears to be winning.