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Gold/Mining/Energy : Winspear Resources -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rocket Red who wrote (16334)	3/21/1999 9:19:00 PM
From: Gord Bolton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26850

The problem with the Kimberlite being soft, if it is soft is that it is sandwiched inbetween two layers of granite. The dyke extends over a wide area. If you take out all the Kimberlite the crack may close-with someone inside and before you have all the Kim out. Kimberlite that has not been exposed to weathering can be very hard this would allow you to leave some kim as pillars to support the roof. If the Kim is soft you have to mine and back fill or put in a lot of teleposts. That is what we have the mining engineers for. With regard to the costs of set up- A low cost modular expandable mill can be set up initially and the open pit can be mined to generate the cash for a larger and more expensive operation to go after the underground stuff. If the numbers are good enough the banks will line up. An appropriate merger is not out of the question.

To: Rocket Red who wrote (16334)	3/21/1999 9:55:00 PM
From: jack hampton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26850

Ya, usually no problems with granite. However, if the kimberlite is not strong, the pillars must be nice and wide for room and pillar mining. Say a 3:1 or 4:1 aspect ratio. In other words they must be 3 or 4 times wider than they are high depending upon the depth below surface (in-situ stress levels increase with depth). The amount of ore you can take out is then a function of how wide you can make the rooms. For instance, if the rooms are 10 metres wide and the pillars need to be 10 metres wide for stability reasons, then you are only getting 50% recovery of the geological resource. Probably better off looking at another method. The consultants will figure this out. Likewise, you need to leave a good "crown pillar" to keep the elements out (rain and groundwater). I would suggest at least 50 metres of vertical height below surface. This ore can be tied up (not mined) for a long time. So what is it Walt? Is the kimberlite soft or hard? As I say, I have not done any due diligence on this one so I hope I'm not giving everyone a mining lesson for no reason. As for the capital cost, much depends upon surface soil conditions. ie. unstable tundra? Stable bedrock? etc. Remember, all the cement, diesel, propane etc. has to come in from Edmonton most likely. Probably around $8,000 a 30T load or so. I'll stand by my $C500M estimate. This is what Echo Bay would have cost in todays' dollars. Funny the way these projects go... the scoping study says $C200M, the pre-feasibility study says $C300M, the feasibility study says $C400M and the guy who builds it does it for $C500M!! Gee, for a lurker, I'm not doing bad,eh? Cheers.