Petaquilla Minerals Ltd PTQMF

RE: RE: RE: RE: Sedar Quarterly Results

[wwadehammer]

VB,  as to your point 4 on heap-leach having an effect on lowering production cost per ounce, it could be true.  But as Crdy says, the big 300,000 ton heap-leach pad is just now ending its first cycle, it's hard to see it having a big effect on dropping the overall production cost per ounce this last quarter.  But for arguments sake, lets say that heap-leach produced 3,000 ounces and the mill produced 17,000 ounces in the last quarter.  Production costs  were lowered from $550 to $480 on a quarter to quarter basis.  If the cost of production thru the ball mill stayed about the same ($550), then the cost of heap leach per ounce would have to have been around $15 an ounce which doesn't seem reasonable.  If heap-leach was a big success, management would have talked about it in the MD&As.  A possible explanation is that we have completed top level stripping work and are now processing the higher grade ore of 3 to 5 grams per ton.