Note to readers: I've started a new post to consolidate the continuing discussion with DonaldDDukc about his experience at VG. Way too many RE, RE, RE's infront of the last title to keep track of this.
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Continued.....Thank-you DDD for your reply.
Please see my follow-up comments and/or questions denoted as [HB77........]. I look forward to your folllow-up replies. A few questions for you if you don't mind: 1.) Could they instead take 1 day off every two weeks for maintenance with very little additional risk to a potentional breakdown and who is actually setting the once a week maintenance schedule, Victoria management or the equipment manufacturer? No you cannot do that. You change oil for every 5000 km. It is like a recommendation from the engineers. but you can do 10,000. If you do 15,000 I think your motor is permanently damaged. The management is already going rough at the crusher. It is already on the verge of falling apart. [HB77 Follow-Up Comment - So you say "No you cannot do that", but then say it's like changing oil...engineers say you need to change it at 5,000 but you could get away with 10,000, but if you go 15,000 the engine is damaged. So it seems that going to a bi-weekly maintenace schedule is not an absolute NO but is instead a best practice. And in a perfect world where production is meeting or surpassing expectations, etc that would be great but that's apparently not the case (at least not at this time).
Currently, the once a week maintenance schedule is halting the movement of ore on the HLF conveyer system 52 days a year! By your admiission (and verified by VG's latest results), that the HLF system moves an average of 30,000 tons a day. VG 2023 results reported stacking 9 million tons on the HLP at .72 gpt which confirms your estimate of 30,000 tons a day average x 300 days p/year = 9 million tons).
So using the 30,000 ton per day average, that 52 days p/year of maintenance is resulting in 1,560,000 LESS tons of ore from being stacked each year. So by changing the maintenance schedule to bi-weekly, VG could increase stacking by 25 days per year or about 780,000 more tons of ore onto the pad! And yes, there is increased risk of a breakdown BUT VG would then have 25 days to fix any conveyor breakdown issue IF it even occurs and for every day it gets fixed in less than 25 days, is an extra day that ore can be stacked on the pad that we wouldn't otherwise get.
Using the figures in the latest Eagle Technical Report (which VG management should be following),
in 2024 VG should be stacking 10,494,000 tons of ore on the HLP at an average of .73 gpt which should result in production of 193,900,000 ounces of production. So essentially VG needs to stack another 1,500,000 tons more ore in 2024 than the 9 million tons they did in 2023, and so how do they do that?
Well, if they could move to bi-weekly maintenance and assuming no major breakdown occurs with the HLF conveyor system, that alone would add 780,000 tons to 2024 stacking which would result in 9,780,000 tons or about 32,600 tons per day average vs. the 2023 / current 30,000 tons average. Now, considering the potential reward, I ask you again, could VG management move to a bi-weekly HLF conveyor system maintenance schedule and is this reward worth the risk? ] 2.) Is any of the crushed ore being trucked onto the HLP, in addition to or as an alternative to using the HLF spreaders during maintenance periods to increase / maximize ore stacking on the HLP? It was discussed. They used to have a road dumping ore to HLF without crushing but the management decided the recovery rate is too low so they stopped . Now that road going from pit to HLF is sitting under the dump so it is impossible [HB77 Follow-Up Comment - I don't understand how the recovery rate could be too low unless the ore they were trucking was also too low. Truck higher grade ore and the grade should be higher as well. Regarding the road now sitting under a dump, I'm pretty sure that if VG management needed that road, they've got big enough equipment to reopen that road pretty quick. If it means them being able to stack the remaining additional 714,000 tons of ore needed (additional to the 780,000 more tons achieved by bi-weekly maintenance) to meet their 2024 10,494,000 tons stacked requirement, then the dump has got to move. ]
3.) You say you lost 30 days of crushing due to mechanical problems or other stupidy. Can you better describe the mechanical problem and stupidity? Are the mechanical problems preventable and is the stupidity being effectively dealt with by VGCX management? While I dont want to blame anyone, some days are just from jesus. Some days are from human decisions. but sometimes we could blame jesus less.I shouldnt write out too much. Eagle mine catch 600 oz a day. Some is at crusher. Some is at pit. If you bounce around in Yukon, you might hear about how are prone to making things fall apart in pit but it also has something to do with parts. And that also have something to do with Mr. Trudeau's decision to decarbonize Canada. Off course in Canada, you can blame everything on Trudeau and people say yeah to that but that is almost equivalent to blaming jesus. You got to tie your own shoes. Jesus dont tie your shoes [HB77 Follow-Up Comment- you say "Eagle Mine catch 600 oz a day", so I'm interpreting that as you saying that VG produces about 600 oz per day. So based on 300 days p/year of actual production, that equates to about 180,000 ounces p/year. You also say that rumors around the Yukon are that workers are prone to making things fall apart in the pit but that also has something to do with parts. According the VG management Annual Report statements, VG management has apparently taken steps to proactively purchase and have more spare parts on hand to speed up maintenance. Are you saying that there is still an issue or is this issue improving? ]
4.) Is the low ore grade (0.8ppm to 0.6ppm) perhaps the result of some ROM (Run of Mine) ore getting in the mix or why do you think this is occurring? No . by design or 43-101, we are expecting 0.8 on average. We I talk about low grade, it is has something to do with unexpected outcome in the orebody model. Usually you get some dilution but when you get more dilution than expected and your rock is not shyt.( This is more of an underground thing). so you are not balsting garbage and you get garbage, it means your orebody model is little bit off. We do a lot of assaying to confirm grades in the pit against ore body. but sometimes we get 0.3 -0.5. 0.3-0.5 is not completely bad, it is just breaking even. It is not making money. Of course, you are not going to make to 200thousand oz with 0.5ppm. Not to mention that you only get 70 percent. (60 percent is like immediately out in 2 month but the rest 20 percent you are looking at erosion) HB77 Follow-Up Comment - In order to achieve stacking an average .72 gpt grade on the HLP in 2023, are the examples you give perhaps just temporary considering that VG had 2 quarters in 2023 where they intentionally stacked lower grades as part of what they refer to as 'Mine Sequencing'? And if the ore body model is a little bit off, will this issue not change (improve) when they move to a new ore body area?
5.) Any lastly, if you were put fully incharge of Operations, what would you do to fix all this to get production much closer to the 200K ounces target? I would sell that piece of junk to the unfortunate people in Coeur or Barrick or Agnico Eagle or Kinross or whoever. [HB77 Follow-Up Comment - So you previously mentioned that achieving 200K ozs a year production is not impossible "in theory" yet you now say you would just sell that piece of junk to the "unfortunate" people in Coeur or Barrick or Agnico Eagle or Kinross or whoever. So why are the people at these other companies "Unfortunate" they would be able to pick up VG for a mere $344 mil CAD market cap and an operating mine projected to produce 165 to 185K ounces in 2024?
One thing I've learned about managing is if you really want to know what's going on or fix a problem, you need to ask and work directly with the boots on the ground! Most problems are solveable if you put enough heads together and I suspect this is no different. They're not building rocket engines here! Of course you can. but if you mention a problem, some people think you are trying to make them look dumb to boot them. Then they get hostile. so I usually say nothing and do nothing unlike my early years. Thanks again for your insight DD (or DDD), I'm really looking forward to your reply as I'm sure others on this board are as well. HB77 Comment by DonaldDDukcon- (2/28/2024 8:50:04 PM)
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Artemis Phase 2 NPV released, can VGCX do the same.
Replying your concerns
A few questions for you if you don't mind:
1.) Could they instead take 1 day off every two weeks for maintenance with very little additional risk to a potentional breakdown and who is actually setting the once a week maintenance schedule, Victoria management or the equipment manufacturer?
No you cannot do that. You change oil for every 5000 km. It is like a recommendation from the engineers. but you can do 10,000. If you do 15,000 I think your motor is permanently damaged.
The management is already going rough at the crusher. It is already on the verge of falling apart.
2.) Is any of the crushed ore being trucked onto the HLP, in addition to or as an alternative to using the HLF spreaders during maintenance periods to increase / maximize ore stacking on the HLP?
It was discussed. They used to have a road dumping ore to HLF without crushing but the management decided the recovery rate is too low so they stopped . Now that road going from pit to HLF is sitting under the dump so it is impossible
3.) You say you lost 30 days of crushing due to mechanical problems or other stupidy. Can you better describe the mechanical problem and stupidity? Are the mechanical problems preventable and is the stupidity being effectively dealt with by VGCX management?
While I dont want to blame anyone, some days are just from jesus. Some days are from human decisions. but sometimes we could blame jesus less.I shouldnt write out too much.
Eagle mine catch 600 oz a day. Some is at crusher. Some is at pit. If you bounce around in Yukon, you might hear about how are prone to making things fall apart in pit but it also has something to do with parts. And that also have something to do with Mr. Trudeau's decision to decarbonize Canada. Off course in Canada, you can blame everything on Trudeau and people say yeah to that but that is almost equivalent to blaming jesus. You got to tie your own shoes. Jesus dont tie your shoes
4.) Is the low ore grade (0.8ppm to 0.6ppm) perhaps the result of some ROM (Run of Mine) ore getting in the mix or why do you think this is occurring?
No . by design or 43-101, we are expecting 0.8 on average. We I talk about low grade, it is has something to do with unexpected outcome in the orebody model. Usually you get some dilution but when you get more dilution than expected and your rock is not shyt.( This is more of an underground thing). so you are not balsting garbage and you get garbage, it means your orebody model is little bit off. We do a lot of assaying to confirm grades in the pit against ore body. but sometimes we get 0.3 -0.5. 0.3-0.5 is not completely bad, it is just breaking even. It is not making money. Of course, you are not going to make to 200thousand oz with 0.5ppm. Not to mention that you only get 70 percent. (60 percent is like immediately out in 2 month but the rest 20 percent you are looking at erosion)
5.) Any lastly, if you were put fully incharge of Operations, what would you do to fix all this to get production much closer to the 200K ounces target?
I would sell that piece of junk to the unfortunate people in Coeur or Barrick or Agnico Eagle or Kinross or whoever.
One thing I've learned about managing is if you really want to know what's going on or fix a problem, you need to ask and work directly with the boots on the ground! Most problems are solveable if you put enough heads together and I suspect this is no different. They're not building rocket engines here!
Of course you can. but if you mention a problem, some people think you are trying to make them look dumb to boot them. Then they get hostile. so I usually say nothing and do nothing unlike my early years.
Thanks again for your insight DD (or DDD), I'm really looking forward to your reply as I'm sure others on this board are as well.
HB77
Comment by
DonaldDDukcon Feb 28, 2024 9:48am 
92 Views
Post# 35903551
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Artemis Phase 2 NPV released, can VGCX do the same.
200koz is impossible. only on theory
The feed to HLF varries from days. On a good day, we can get 40,000 tonnes -30,000 tonnes. On shitty days you get 20,000. The ore grade varries between 1.2 -0.3 ppm
We take one days off each week for maintenance
so in one year you will have 300 running days.
300 days*40,000 tonnes*1 ppm Au * Recovery Rate@70% /31= 270 thousandOz
That means we are very good boys
Then if you are all alcoholics and idiots?
We lost 30 days of crushing due to mechanical problem or other stupidity
Sometimes we cannot get 40000, it might even out to 30,000
Ore grade can get as low as 0.8ppm or 0.6ppm
Then
270*30000*0.8*0.7/31=146koz
That is so much lower than 270 koz
That is the difference! 146 really sucks. When the management sell their 250oz story. it is not impossible