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Gold/Mining/Energy : Silver Bull Resources, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: roto who wrote (458)	2/5/2007 3:37:26 PM
From: Mr. Aloha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5637

I think you're referring to slide 29 of their presentation (http://www.metalin.com/Metalline,%20Sierra%20Mojada,%20Zinc%20060625.pdf ), which shows 4.35 billion pounds of zinc in the Iron Oxide Manto (using detailed block modeling at a 3% cutoff grade, not just core samples), but doesn't list the Smithsonite Manto. I believe they were planning on phasing the project, with the first phase mining the Iron Oxide Manto, which has most of the zinc, and the second phase mining the Smithsonite Manto, which is very high grade but smaller in size. The Iron Oxide Manto would provide the first part of the mine life and the Smithsonite Manto would be added mine life later on. I guess they figured 4.35 billion pounds of zinc was more than enough to prove feasibility for a good number of years and then it would be relatively easy to add the Smithsonite Manto zinc once all the process planning was done. If they can go open pit, that will likely change those plans. On slide 23, you can see how the Iron Oxide, Smithsonite, and Polymetallic mantos are all very close together, somewhat intertwined. With underground mining, it makes sense to mine them separately, but with open pit they would likely mine them all together in one huge pit, as it would be difficult to avoid doing that. That means not only would all the zinc from the first two mantos be included in the feasibility study, but also all the silver and copper in the polymetallic manto. I don't know how likely going open pit is, but it would certainly change the project planning and economics significantly. Perhaps this is one reason for some of the feasibility study delays.