What's all this talk about one ounce being produced. The way I read the PR it looks like they did not complete the processing of the concentrates and they were "estimating" what they might recover.
..."while the exact weight will not be known until the concentrate is fully processed next week, we can estimate that approximately 1 ounce of fine gold has been recovered"...What are they basing this estimate on? Did they see a few flecks of color in the concentrate?
I have read some speculative opinions here from some well meaning folks that don't understand or have any experience with mining methods.
To those that appreciate the observation of a miner with 40 years experience in mines from the smallest prospects to the largest most modern mines in the world, and experience in underground placers both successful and not, I submit:
It should have taken maybe two hours to wash the material and maybe one to two hours to do the finish cleanup of the concentrate. The wash plant should have been tested and ready to work months or more ago. They could run it "dry", or even have ran tailings through it to have it ready to work gravel from the mine. Also, it should have only taken a few days to tune-up, fix-up the wash plant.
The sample was previously descibed as auriferous gravel and now has become "waste rock and fall material".
They need to produce 20 ounces per week consistently to break-even.
Progress is too slow. If it takes several weeks to extract 100 tons, how will they be able to consistently feed the wash plant to produce the minimum 20 ounces?
To really get things moving, they need more than one lead miner. They should have a highly experienced mine foreman to totally manage the underground and surface operations. It would be helpful if the President of the company had more experience in the mining industry. I have seen more than a few executives who are brilliant business people, fall flat in the mining industry, due to lack of experience in that sector. Gary seems like a good geologist, but IMO does not possess the skill-set for the Foreman position. He admitted in his presentation that he is learning some of the mining methodology from the miners.
The 20 ounce break-even amount doesn't take into consideration the extra "contingency" amount that will be needed over a year of operation (again imo). There will be unplanned expenses or upgrades needed that can easily cost $100,000 to $200,000 here and there.
Imo at this point this may be a short-term play only with a sp bump possible after a few ounces are produced, but not sustainable unless some changes are made to the operations soon.
GLTA
