Well Randy keeps playing hide and seek with Barrick doing most of the hiding!
This project will play out badly for both SLW as well as ABX.
Pay your taxes Randy.
Randy Smallwood from SLW on today's call:
I would like to highlight that this guidance does not include any of the optionality contained within our portfolio. The potential expansion of our flagship asset, Salobo, as well as top-tier development assets such as Pascua-Lama, Rosemont, Navidad, Toroparu and Cotabambas, will add significantly to our annual production once they are developed.
Jorge Bernstein
Okay. And you mentioned in your comments as well about a lot of the optionality that you have on projects that have not yet been sanctioned. But particularly Pascua-Lama -- is there any change there around the recent naming of Barrick to have a local executive there? And do you think that project could change your economics to be higher, going forward?
Randy Smallwood
Barrick is -- first off, this is a project that demands further interest -- further investigations on Barrick. And that's one of the reasons Barrick is pushing it forward, it is a very attractive goal project. It's obviously got some hurdles in front of it and Barrick is working their way forward. Their concept is of course to explore the possibility of going underground and perhaps coloring on the Argentinean side. We haven't seen any of the studies; they are still ongoing, on their side.
The production in terms of throughput would -- I'm going to hypothesize here -- would be obviously much less than it would be from an open pit. But the grades would actually the substantially higher to justify coming from underground. And so in terms of metal production, I'm not expecting if -- again, the studies that Barrick are completing are nowhere near complete. I think they are looking for third quarter this year or fourth quarter this year.
But I would say that even if it goes forward with this potential underground development, from our perspective the metal production would be probably not too much different than what we forecast. But, again, that's based on just my feelings behind the economics that would be driven by an underground development.
