OK - My dad always answered my stupid questions with a stupid answers... and apples do not fall far from the trees...
My thoughts on this crazy thing...
1) FMNJ is not the first US based company to try and crack Cerro Rico... Maybe that have a better angle than the others - but it is still a risk.
2) Total size of ore body in the mountain - close to 1,000,000,000 MT. Is all of it profitable??? Time will tell.
3) Total amount of Ag in that particular mountain - approximately 115,000 MT. Is all of that profitable to be mined??? Time will tell.
4) Total amount of Sn in that particular mountain - 1,500,000 MT. Is all of that profitable to be mined??? Time will tell.
5) Do we need to build roads - yes and no.
6) do we need to build a processing plant - yes - at least one.
7) how long will tose reserves last - considering that we cannot open that puppy up (OPEN PIT MINING) - it will take a LONG time to get the material to the surface. Also, open Pit is a much cheaper method of mining - so we are going the expensive route.
8) how quickly can we get started - well - we have to:
---get to the particular ore bodies. Yes I know that the mountain is full of tunnels... but we need tunnels to the newly identified ore bodies. sincethe mountain is currently being mined - and has been for some time - does anyone really think that we are going to be able to walk down into the exhisting tunnels and start pulling out ore for processing...
---INFRUSTRUCTURE REQUIRED:
------ventilation so we can improve the lives of the miners who are currently working for about 20 or so years before they die of Black Lung from the asbestos.
------methods for removing ore. Currently on the backs of the miners - not good enough if you want to support more than one processing plant (as proposed by some here)
------shoring up the exhisting tunnels to prevent cave-ins. Unfortunately - the people mining this site right now are not working together with a master plan. they blast with little to no regard for the structure that remains. Also they are working as several factions - and fights break out when they run into each other - DYNAMITE FIGHTS!
That is enough food for thought right now... I will be back to this tomorrow...
However as a parting thought...We are a long time away from $5.00 folks! Perhaps 10-20 years.
