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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jackjc who wrote (55586)	1/20/2008 6:31:38 AM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78409

I was just being negative to stir the pot. I don't actually recall saying that 100 dollar open pit silver was a bust. It would be touch and go underground, unless your orebody was 100 feet wide. Probably work if the orebody was 30 feet wide and regular, even. Long hole stuff. If the metallurgy was very simple, i.e. float and leach and smelt. OP? Should make it, provided it mills. But you only get 80%. They used to mine 3 ounce silver in Cobalt, back in the dollar an ounce days, in some small open pits. I don't think they made much, but they did it anyway. Maybe I overestistated the probable costs of electrowinning zinc. They did say however that if they could make a con by float and sell it too. So that reduces capex over leaching. However leaching makes a high value product with cheaper throughput. Skorp won't reveal costs, but they may be below 40 cents/lb. If they, MMG make a zinc con and sell it, it could cost <25 cents to produce the con and 37 cents to smelt it. 6 to one waste to ore: mining cost, 1 buck a ton capex for equipment. 6 bucks for mine to crusher thruput. Milling about 12 bucks all up. So 20 bucks. If they have 9% zinc they will recover 7. that is 140 lbs in zinc and 20 dollars in cost. 15 cents a lb all up. I must be missing something. Maybe Capex is 400 million, not 100 million. But even with that capex, cost is only 25 cents a lb to make a con. 27 cents with interest. So that is close to 65 cents a lb. with smelting. 20 cent profit at 85 cents, worst case. But I don't think it will cost 400 million to build a 4000 ton per day make float con and ship op. I really can't see those costs at all. Even the more complex electrowinning plant could cost less than that. If they can tap the mex grid, easily then it may cost less than the Namib op, which had far less infrastructure. "The 66/11kV step-down switchyard. Skorpion has increased Namibia's power demand by 25%." Lotsa power demand there if the go sexydoubleyou. If they SXEW then things is different. I don't know the capex, or how they can use the Skorp process. It will cost more than 18 cents to make zinc. Much more. (But they get more for it.) I guess about 45 cents max. to make the zinc, despite the much lower initial skorp numbers. for one thing, Skorp makes its own acid. MMG must pay 110 a ton for SO4 acid and ship it too. And the organic solvent must be taken into account. All in all it will take some number crunching. And zinc has to hold over a dollar I would think to make it bankable in this market. Zinc may be bottoming, but it was predicted that the market might 'stabilize' in 2008. In reality if I had 300 feet of 100 dollar open pit silver I would not bother posting on SI anymore. I would go to Gstaad and try to find out if any chick Swiss bankers are lonely. EC<:-} "Skorpion is the only mine presently using solvent extraction electrowinning to process oxide zinc ore. Skorpion’s reported feasibility cost is $0.25 per pound, actual costs have not been disclosed as yet. Skorpion reached full production of about 150,000 tonnes per annum in 2004 and is reported to be highly successful producing SHG (99.995%) zinc that receives a premium on the LME due to its exceptional purity." ********************************************