Member Info for FatherTedFeck

Where the funk is it?

Because we don't really care if they stuff up the country, as long as they let us mine!

LM But there's no further benefit from drilling beyond an indicted standard, especially when it's going to be bulk extracted anyhow.

same as any commodity, you want to be in the 1st quartile of costs.

It's such a low capex project that IRR would be better off trying to keep 100% and develop it,. (Except that they aren't mine builders, I guess.) hmmm, hang on, maybe jv is the way to go.

because of the space people?

FTJNY, I think that's quite a good summary mate. We're all speculating to some degree.

rcgl2, yes, something like that.

Is this in sympathy with big brother Solgold?

Mm, Alpala cave does project to have lowish capital intensity - upfront capital cost per annual pound of production - especially compared to your new Andean projects needing desal plants, build a town etc etc. So they weren't lying there. But block caves simply have more engineering risk than open pits do. If you had two identical BFS's but one mine was open pit and the other block cave, you would go the pit all day long. (Please keep in mind I'm talking with expertise i don't actually have.)

Well, there's been a big big sell-off today which would endorse that opinion! A more optimistic opinion would say "Why the hell are you trying to do it the hard way, and risk the whole company (expensive cave, big upfront capex) when we can do it the easy way with far less risk and stress. (open pit.) The thing is good for 50 odd years...why run down and F one cow when we can walk down and F them all, etc etc

Ok, you don't reduce the block cave upfront capital risk by starting open cut, but you do sidestep/defer that risk.

mm, that's not a contradiction. the high grades at Alpala (cave) would deliver fast payback, 3 or 4 years, which is great on a mega project. But, the revised - open pit focused - study/plan would reduce the risk of a very large capex, if it can get us started on a much more modest basis. You reduce the risk of the big block cave capex by starting smaller and with less capital intensity, by starting with surface mining. Alpala cave still promises fast pay back, (assuming it goes smoothly.)
But it presents a large upfront risk due the bucks and engineering involved.

Jezzoo, there's plenty of that we could point to, but I don't think that's today's specific problem.

DBW, my hunch is that that may be correct - that they have had more drilling success at Tandayama, necessitating a reprioritization of the whole Alpala project. Now IF this is true, then it's f'ing awesome news! (And also F U to the fools who waited an extra 4 years to drill it.) We had the early visual results from T-A, saying it was shallow and was hitting D-10 lookalikey mineralisation. Then why release the news in this order, painting a doom&gloom mood? Surely better to say we got 5 holes and they're shiney and they're in the lab...and also, based on this new success, we're rejigging the mine plan massively, and massively in favour of the company! Alas, we got this instead.

CD, the amount of speculative fiction you can pack into a single post is truly amazing. You don't have to believe ideas just because they pass through your own head.

Whether they "have to" try and improve on the Alpala plan, or they merely worked out that *they can* do so, the delays will be the same. Where did they say they "had to?" A one year PFS delay might lead to a two year earlier mine start date, based on the new approach they indicate. A faster, lower capex approach *might* be the best thing to happen to solgold since hole 5.

I wonder how we would go with only 300 employees?

CD, the good news could be as soon as "we've put 6 holes into Tandayama and it's a corker." Which would explain this strategy turn around. But, we'll see.

I don't think you particularly understand the exploration-to-major takeover dynamics.