Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Cheers for the info. I'll have a dig to see if I can find any other info showing they'd be likely to support a mine here.
There is a major river, quite a way to the South of RC, plus 3 boreholes, which are useful to measuring and maitaining water quality. A few creeks etc pass pretty close to RC, and these will need to be carefully managed.
However companies spend millions and sometimes a year or more drilling boreholes, measuring the water table etc for their EIS. All the work is pretty much done for RC. Its just risk mitigation.
Sorry that last post was a bit dyslexic! You get the drift!
Ella - Apparently the main environmental concern is pollution of the water table and it is the same with all sorts of mining operations.
I read up a bit about it after Iceberg posted that he'd noticed an old 'settling pond' on the satellite image for the site. It is one of the methods they use to is one of the methods for removing the harmful and I had to lock up what it was for! Settling ponds is one of the ways they clean water the waste water used before releasing it into the environment (pouring it down the hill!).
I can't remember his exact words either but got the impression he just threw that in to justify drilling hole 4 from the same pad, which was then aborted.
Hole 5 was then started from a different pad to explore what we hope will be the "ole 5 shows this deposit isn't big or very big, its massive, yes massive '
Hi CE,
I haven't a note of his exact words but enviromental concerns was my interpretation of what he said. Please feel free to quote him directly. Perhaps you could also persuade someone to post an email from CB stating that there are no concerns in relation to getting a mining licence assuming the resource is economic.
Hello Ella,
Did CB say environmental 'concerns' , 'considerations' or something else? I guess the way his words are quoted and the interpretation of what he said depends on the individual's agenda?
In the interview CB mentioned environmental concerns as one of the reasons for reusing th drill pad. It made me wonder how that consideration aligns with mining a monster. I've no idea if it os an issue - did a bit of googling but came to no real conclusions. If it is a significant concern it would be have a similarity to something else recent I have observed.
Iceberg,
look forward to your 10 line summary of that wee doc.
No I can say that much now. It’s crown land and was in favour of ALL AA activities.
Vulcan Forest !
I hope this is not the reason AA sold it off at a cheap price.....
A good question and whilst doing some research I've come across all of the AA documents...the permits, the drill locations, env impacts, etc.....it will take be a little while to go through nearly 200 pages...
Keep entertaining Andrew. We need to pass the time whilst we are waiting for both drill and results. Going by CB vocal quotes ie. "We are past big we are past very big this is a matter of how big". "This is more like the Melbourne cup". " This could be the leading future copper production without Gold consideration". These are what he indicated, not exact words but general direction. This leads me to believe we are talking well over 2mts. Also makes reference to compare in excess value to Boda.
Thank you for the giggle Andrew. I raise my glass to you fine Sir.
Best,
Mr T
Ella
I think it should improve valuation. Being in the Vulcan state means Racecourse should..
live long and prosper :)
(Sorry. Beam me up scotty.....and quickly! )
Is the fact that Racecourse is in the Vulcan State Forest likely to impact valuation?
@theiceberg,
Did a quick search on Google and established there are 33 companies actively involved in Copper in NSW - (exploration, advanced exploration, development applications, and obviously mining) found the following companies mining copper to a lesser or greater degree in NSW (in no particular order)...
Straits Resources Ltd
China Molybdenum Co Ltd
KBL Mining Ltd
Nonfemet
Toho Zinc Co Ltd (2 locations)
New Gold Inc
Newcrest Mining Inc
Glencore Xstrata
Link for further research...
https://www.business.nsw.gov.au/industry-sectors/industry-opportunities/mining-and-resources/base-metals/copper-in-nsw
AA is in the 33, and is included in "exploration". The data is from a government website so i am assuming is fairly accurate and up to date.
ATB Shorn
ATB Shorn
The 2mt contained copper buy-out option was what AA stipulated. Not all majors would have the same threshold. CB has said in a few interviews last year that majors are not interested unless there is a minimum of 1 mt contained copper. He also said in a recent interview that our goal was to get to at least 1mt – which supports his view that majors would be interested in ‘only’ 1mt.
So it is likely that even if we don’t get to 2mt we will get majors interested. Don’t forget the 2mt threshold that AA stipulated was when POC was much lower (circa $6600). That would now be equivalent to 1.5Mt at $9000 POC. AA have first option to buy at lower than 2mt according to John Cornford..
All that said, from what CB is hinting at and from what has been reported from drill results, I would be amazed if we don’t get to at least 2mt against a cut-off point of 0.2% Cu.
Shorn - The better the grading the more profitable it will be to mine and that will obviously influence how attractive this is to the majors. That said, £20bn worth of copper that is economic to mine is unlikely to be sniffed at!
Iceberg - Thanks for your take on where H5 is located. I am praying this is the drill that provides evidence we are not only sitting on a monster but a giant kraken with golden cathedral spires for tentacles! Maybe even a few kiddies as well?!?
Shorn, my layman's answer would be that 2mt of copper is worth $15billion plus in the ground at $7.5k per tonne copper.
Even if a plant cost even $2bn and the marginal cost of extraction was 33% of the copper sale value (I'm pretty sure it would be much less than that with a state of the art capex set up) there would still be $8bn of profit for the major doing the mining over maybe 20 years.
(less of course the $500m plus + to pay XTR)
Scuse the guestimate numbers
This copper also appears to be relatively close to the surface and in a great low risk mining area.
The other thing is that many of Australia's big companies operate within say 100km or so...this mean overheads will be far lower, they can share mechanics, HR departments, IT, parts are easy to get and out sourced skills will already be in place.
It's probably too far to ship for processing but if say oz minerals, has an existing asset 80km away, they want to upgrade the facilities and so they could easily bring down any used Separation equipment, crushing equipment, and general earth movers. Instead of putting them in storage of transferring them 3000 km away to a different site.
There must be 2 or 3 companies that could have economies of scale with us. Whatever A A do...
Shorn said "Simply put if we pass the 2Mt mark but with a lower -> average grade would the size be enough of a "investment" pull to the majors for the reasons above ?"
Good question. I think you would need to ask those with personal geology & mining experience. There is also the point that AA are not just sitting on their hands waiting to see how XTR get on. They will have potentially dozens of fingers in pies around the globe and anything XTR comes up with will be viewed in light of those other prospects. Bushranger being where it is though is an attractive factor.
Yes i second the thanks to Andrew, Cygnus, Iceberg and others.
I randomly (nothing to do with mining...) had reason to cross paths with a Geologist out of Queensland and mentioned my investment into an explorer in the Lachlan fold in NSW. He knew of the Xtract drill and his comment was that "it is a really interesting find and one that needs to show some decent grades through assay". (Which we are all eagerly waiting for).
My question is around the potential grades of mineralisation and the effect on the value to Majors in the area including AA.
Meaning the maths is quite clear - double the mass half the grade the value is the same, and increasing copper prices and the potential of a super cycle very much helps, particularly when future demand is potentially outstripping future supply.
Simply put if we pass the 2Mt mark but with a lower -> average grade would the size be enough of a "investment" pull to the majors for the reasons above ?
Also to what extent is Boda a comparable situation in terms of potential investment value to majors ?
ATB Shorn
Andrew, Cygnus, Iceberg and others. Many thanks for all your input. I feel I should immediately revise my earlier expectation of a near term sp from 10p to 18p/20p, and my plan to buy a modest sailing dinghy to a yacht :)