OT
It is true that heap leach and placer earn miners earn more. Heap leach has low capex and low throuhgput costs, a winning formula usually if metallurgy is your friend. Placer mining is one of the the most profitable businesss on investment/earnings ratio of all time, next to raw diamond mining. (about 75% profitability for both before taxes.. OK it could not be after...) Only Microsoft exceeds it.
(An aside on profitable businesses) -->
It may be germane to mention to the potential investor in this mining market that despite DeBeers whispering campaigns, raw diamond mining and selling is the most profitable business ever invented. I mean simply digging the stones and selling to the cartel, not cutting or selling of cut gems. This business alone average 75% profit. The smallest diamond mine in the world makes 20 million per year profit. The largest makes one billion per year (Orapa). It has to make that as it is outside South Africa. One mine in South Africa, the Premier, has made one hundred billion dollars in one hundred years.
Canadians have been unwilling to invest in diamond exploration.
In fact of the 3,000 kimberlites discovered in the world, perhaps 50 of them have become mines. That is one shot in 60. That is as good or better than other blind shots at more developed prospects in gold or copper, and it is far cheaper to discover the worth of proceeding, once found. This too is given many lies.
It is far more expensive to drill off a large gold mine than it is to test a drill hole for kimberlite chemistry. Finding gold mines averages 30 dollars per ounce. The lack of willingness to invest in diamonds, since it is indicated that Canada is far richer than South Africa, is based on pure investor ignorance.
The Canadian diamond mines so far have more large gem diamonds per ton than the South African average of total diamonds per ton, by a factor of 3 in some cases. Which, by the way, is figured for all caratage down to 1/100 of a carat. And I know one other thing. There is a penalty in production since the Cartel buys most of the diamonds. They lie about the quality. I am very sure that the Canadian diamonds are twice the quality of the pay the cartel is offering. They skinned the Aussies for about 50% on value. The stones I have seen from Diavik are VVSI or better. Clear, unblemished, perfect to the core. The CSO evaluations do not jibe with what I know. And I knew testers at the Van labs of the MPV stuff where DeBeers bought in. The troubles Aber had with permitting and the subsequent buy in by Rio Tinto makes me suspect some one was paid to hassle them into submission.
The Russians were not that stupid. They saw the SA's coming and heaved them out of the country. They started their own industry basing it on 3 pyropes and some Yakuts River stones.
They are the world's largest gem sellers now, not the South Africans. Soon it will be Canada. Will Canadians own the trade? I fear not. I know not. They are not that collectively brilliant as investors. They don't do their homework. After all, many of them still buy VSE stocks that have oscillated for 20 years with tales of riches with the same old stories and no geologists on staff. It is sad.
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