Niocorp Developments Ltd (NB)

[LCP77]

Niobec costs

The grade there is lower. They have been, and continue to be, very profitable with conventional underground mining methods (38 years I believe). But a low grade, large, homogenus deposit can lend itself to block cave mining. Huge upfront costs are incurred but they would get another 50 years out of the mine. Plus there would be a giant hole in the ground when done. I doubt the corn farmers would like that. Iamgold is not doing well. They can't do it. They wasted $650MM on acquiring a low grade large tonnage gold property in Canada - they are under stress. They probably did this "expansion" plan to help them sell Niobec. But it got expensive. Too bad for them. They could have bought Niocorp for cheap like I personally suggested to Steve Letwin. Not anymore. ;)

I'm good with 30 to 50 years of conventional underground and very profitable mining for Niocorp.


Here's an animation of block cave mining.