RE: Historic Use of the Mining Names Bonanza and Morocota28 Oct 2025 17:18
Richard... you sent me on a rabbit hole of a history lesson. Very interesting stuff publicly available. It got me wondering why the previous owners of the mine, St Elias, sold it in the first place if the grades were so good. I found this article:
"In 2014, a company-appointed review concluded that the Tesoro property was “not currently economically viable to put into production” due to issues including the narrow vein nature of the deposit, the required high cost per tonne for mining and milling, and the logistic hurdles (such as water source proximity) in the area.
Mr. Krause has also concluded, through his investigations, that, in his view, the Tesoro Property is not currently economically viable to put into production due to the logistical hurdles, required capital costs, proximity to nearest water source and fundamentally the narrow vein nature of the Tesoro gold veins. The narrow vein nature, the amount of tonnes that can be mined per shift considering the mining costs per tonne, milling costs per tonne (contract milling vs. building a mill) and the potential gross tonnes of this deposit indicate that the Tesoro Gold Project is not economically viable."
No company went near it for nearly 10 years until Echo decided to raise the white flag on Gas.