Value Microcaps Junior Miners

[dr_airtime]

I'm into ATM.V (RIO.V)

Small position at 0.73. They'll have to raise equity, but hopefully at higher prices once market figures out this really is La Arena 2.0 with the same management team.

Slide 17 which has the comparable low-grade heap leach project quals is key here.

http://www.atacamapacific.com/investors/pdf/atacama-corporate-update-1701.pdf

I also found the original 321gold.com feature on the original RIO.V here for a background. La Arena was copper-gold porphyry. I'm not sure is Cerro Manicunga is:

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moriarty/moriarty020910.html

I reckon they'll redo the 2014 PFS and start with a 30-40K TPD operation doing around 120-140k oz/year similar to most project on slide 12. They allude to this on slide 14. Maybe they can even start smaller as they should have some decent grades at surface (.50 to 1.00 g/t slide 9) in starter pits on the lynx, pheonix and crux zones of the super-pit. Maybe three nice higher grade starter pits. This is a big resource though, so you need to build it out at the start planning for higher extraction levels eventually.

La Arena was initial ROM ore while the Cerro Manicunga PFS envisioned 3 stage crushing, albeit for a huge 80,000 TPD operation. Slide 12 highlights $100mm of capex savings (no secondary or tertiary crushing initially, valley fill heap leach to avoid conveyor). I'm sure RIO already has an idea how to optimize the project to benefit of shareholders.

In general, looking at La Arena vs. La Manicunga I see:
- similar jurisdiction (Andres Peru vs. Chile)
- similar gold grades
- similar sized heap leach operations (assumin La M is 40k TPD)
- Opportunity to optimize initial production to decrease capex and SH dilution on La M like on La Arena
- Both projects discovered decades ago with resource fully delineated and a ton of metallurgy done.

Now that I finish this post I see slide 20 focuses on a full feasibility envisioning single stage crushing, valley fill leach and a production ramp-up so there you go. RIO has done this before. I like.