OilCan61, I'm back. Interesting read. It appears that they come away from the property with a finished product seperated at whatever purity the customer requires. How much more of this could we produce per day, with the more modern equipment available now? It should certainly equal their output.
I tried to estimate what our hauling needs will be, using the Niobec mine's table-1 outputs. Kinda rough, but here goes.
How many lbs of finished product will we produce per week? It looks like they processed 1,060,000 mtons in 2006. At 6lbs(from somewhere in the recesses of my mind) of niobium/ton of processed materials, that should have yeilded about 176,666 lbs of product/yr, or 3,397 lbs/week.( Thats $84,925 /week or $4,416,000/yr). That figure looks too low. It appears to be a process that can go on year round, too. The process is quit complex, which usually translates into extra time consumption. But having to haul only the finished product is much more profitable, IMO.
One 18 wheeler hauls 80,000 lbs us, 40 ustons or roughly 36 mtons. (About $2,000,000 @ $25/lb.) So that 3397lbs, or even twice that amount (6800 lbs), should be shipable in a much smaller truck on a weekly, or monthly basis. It doesn't look like we will need to use a heavy shipping option like the train. This doesn't get all of our ore out of the ground in 20 yrs, so I suspect I have something plugged in that is incorrect. Check it out, and tell me where I'm off base. I could be in the Sahara Rain Forest for all I know. Wouldn't be the first time. Its 1 am, going to bed, have to get up early tomorrow afternoon. GLTA LC
