Member Info for Cornishknocker

Cornwalls a funny place for employment these days, we actually have really low unemployment levels, the problem is for most tge pay is abysmal, with the average salary around £17000. The jobs here are likely to be in the 40-50k bracket.

From what we've seen from the drilling last year, we are likely to see a doubling of the resource and mine life in the near future, beyond that at present the exploration target is only utilising around 5-10 % of the land that CRL hold tge mining rights to. Once a mine is established it would then be straightforward to look towards the Duchy of Cornwall land to the East, where there are known resources. In reality I think if this goes ahead, th mine will last beyond 50 years.

Here you go Martin, I'll expand for Richy (Coming at it as a mining engineer).

The drive to automation is reducing the risks to the workforce and enabling the mine to operate without a break after blasting.

Hard rock mining has many facets, some of which can be automated (and made less labour intensive) others can, Redmoor will operate a Sub Level Open Stoping system with backfill, so heres the mining cycle, I'll split it into development and production: -

1. Development
This has to be undertaken continually to keep the mine advancing.

The start of the process is drilling, in a modern mine this is done utilising single or multiboom drifting jumbos, it cannot be carried out autonomously, however the labour skill and quantity requirement has reduced over time. One operator is required for a twin boom jumbo, the drill pattern can be uploaded into the machine to follow the pattern, but the operator has to be present as drilling always has hiccups.

Once the face is drilled it has to be charged with explosives, this CANNOT be automated, which is another reason why the driller needs to be there.

Once charged the face is blasted, until automation no one would be able to re-enter for a couple of hours due to the blasting fumes. With automation, remote controlled and autonomous scooptrams can be put to work - however an operator is still required somewhere, although that operator may now be responsible for multiple machines

Once cleared, rock support needs to be put in, again this cannot be automated.

Once the rock support is in, services need extending, this requires fitters and electricians.

At some point diamond drilling needs to take place, again this cannot be automated.

Production
This is where the money is made.

The development miners would have prepared the production stopes for the production miners, here stoping jumbos are used, again one man can do the work of two, but ultimately is still needed.

Once blasting is carried out, mucking takes place, with the mucking from prepared drawpoints or from within the stope - you cannot send a man in to do this, which I where the autonomous machinery comes into its own.

Backfill, this requires pipelines to be set up, bulkheads to be built and fill to be placed, again men still have to be used.

In short automation reduces labour, it doesn't remove the need. Redmoor will still likely employ 200-300 people as opposed to 500-600. That won't be sniffed at in Cornwall.

If you look at the videos, they set up electronic gates, which if crossed shuts down tge equipment

This is a great one! https://www.rocktechnology.sandvik/en/labyrinth/

Although the main haul section looks completely automated.

If you're interested, this is it- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNayJcUL4s

When they say automated, the machines aren't self operating, but operated from a distance, possibly on surface, its something we started doing down here in the 1980's. In a mine such as this will be, an Open stope is an credibly dangerous place to be - you really don't want to be in there as the wall rock is incredibly unstable. In the 1980s, this was achieved using remote control, with the operator in a protected area. In modern mines, the operators are often on surface.

There are still lots of jobs that can only be done underground by people - bolting, electrics, pipework, diamond drilling, development mining etc So I don't think anyone will think less of it.

nb_riley, without trying to be blunt, if you believe $89 Million is a lot of money in the mining industry, you are in for an awful big shock, to be frank it is peanuts for a new mine - at the opposite extreme of the spectrum look at Sirius Minerals, they are spending that every month at present.

I$89 Million would actually be 100% deliverable by SML if Leigh Creek hits 300t/m, say next February. heres the sums: -

300 (Tonnes per month) x 6000 (Copper price) x0.85 (85% value paid) x 0.5 (50% profitability) = US$765,000 per month profit, on top of Cobre, which would see a monthly profit in excess of $1 Million US.

Say we get a PFS in January, that would press the button to start the permitting process, likely to take 12 months, by which stage SML would have $12 MillionUS in the bank.

The build would likely take 18 months, which means by that stage there would be another $18 Million in the bank, so $30million cash available.

It is highly likely that the remaining funds would become available from offtakers keen to secure the product (This is what happened with Wolf and is happening with South Crofty as examples), it is also highly likely that Cornwall Council would see fit to invest as part of their Cornwall development fund.

That is superb for our starting point, as I said several months ago after the last holes were released, there is one hole out to the West which hit very good grades - due to the distance from all other holes that does not feature in the resource at all - once this years drilling is complete, we will see two things: -

1. An increase in confidence in the resource to give us indicated and measured tonnages.
2. An overall increase in the size of the deposit (And probably sizeable) potentially doubling the size yet again.

From this scoping study it is important to remember that the consultant is one of the leading consultants in this kind of mining operation, they have robustly tested the economics using tough figures to come out with this NPV. Personally I would love to read through the whole scoping study.

The figures in the PFS are likely to be very very good...…

In my opinion....

There are so many funding options here for SML, a raise is the last resort, but to be frank a small raise to fund full control of Redmoor would be a no brainer, within 12 months I believe Redmoor will be worth at least £50 Mill on the market cap. As plenty have said, a short term loan is highly possible, with our annual income it wouldn't be a problem -its quite possible this could come from an existing shareholder as opposed to a financial institution.

There isn't much to comment on at the moment, although now we have a binding contract for the purchase, I expect the scoping study will land any day.

In my view some people have thought too much about Hanns Camp - its termed as highly prospective. This does not mean theres a high chance of finding something, in fact its closer to the opposite. It means its a greenfield site where practically nothing is known about it, it is close to other nickel deposits in a similar setting - so there may be something there.

To highlight the point, I live in Camborne, its home to some of the largest tin deposits in the world (Including whats been mined), 35 Miles away you are in Bodmin, its close, geologically the setting is similar, with the granite thrusting through the country rock, which led to the placement of the tin and copper in Camborne - however to date no one has found anything of any importance in the Bodmin area. If someone was to rock up next week and start exploring there, it would be termed "Highly Prospective".

What I am saying is there is more chance of finding nothing of economic significance at Hanns Camp than a bonanza deposit - but that is a possibility.

I would have thought another 10 holes would more than do it

Youre ofv with the final figure there minnow as youve applied the the 0.7 concentrate factor. You dont need to as the RNS states 150 - 180 tonnes of copper not copper cement. In other words its 215 - 257 tonnes of copper cement @ 0.7% copper

Retreating the existing heaps should net us up to usd1million

It's 5 x 0.7 x (0.85 x 6400) = 19000 USD (5t at 70% copper at 85% of LME price)

It's not a resource update for Redmoor next week, it's a scoping study, which will have the following outputs: -

1. Proposed mining methods and mine layout.
2. Initial plant design.
3. Costings with NPV and IRR.
4. Work required to enable PFS.

It could be worst, you could get under the sprinklers on a gold heap leach, they use Cyanide!

The plan once Rosman etc are in production is to go to 300t/month, as the client will take that.

With regards to Rosmann East in particular, it has a really low strip ratio, meaning really cheap production.

First thing, the rocks not an issue, we've been doing it for hundreds of years down here, lots of drilling and blasting.

Mine design is pretty straightforward, we are likely to see a combination of a vertical production shaft and decline primary access shaft.

The miine will have a lot of production levels, probably around 12, as the ore body is steeply inclined (Makes gravity mining easy) The hard rock ensures stable stope walls which reduces dilution.

With regards to the resource, the size is currently inferrred, this means infill drilling is required to bring that up to indicated or measured categories - and there is the potential for a lot more to the West and deeeper.....

Hi BH (I'll answer the Redmoor one seperately)

The Leigh Creek deposits are oxide hosted (Most copper production comes from sulphide ore bodies), this makes seperation incredibly easy - you mine the ore, crush it and pile it in a heap, you then place sprinklers on the pile, which spray dilute sulphuric acid, which reacts with the oxide ore to produce copper sulphate solution.

You then run your coper sulphate solution through the kennecot cone, that contains scrap iron, the copper sulphate reacts with the iron, dripping out the copper in the form of the cement into the bottom of the cone.

In short its a continual process, however it takes time to ramp up as the copper sulphate solution increases in concentration.

The first phase at Leigh Creek is to retreat the existing heaps, as you get a good return for very little Cap Ex.

The second phase, due this year is to start mining Rosman East, giving fresh ore to be treated. This will then be followed by Paltridge North.

From what I've seen the main reason for previous failures was over compaction of the heaps (SML spent time "Fluffing them up"), if they are over compacted the solution runs off the surface rather than sinking into the heap.

If you have a Sulphide mine, the ore bodies are much larger, but the processing is much much more expensive, as you need froth flotation plant to float of the sulphides.

Normally copper is sold in copper anodes (ie big plates of metal), to do tjis you need a solvent extraction/electrowinning plant. As it happens SML have a nearby customer who requires a soluble copper product to produce insecticides and wood treatments - they currently import the cement from South korea, theya re willing to take all of our product for 85% of the metal price - its a win win.

Exactly that Slurm, if we were turning other customers away that would be a different issue.