Transportation and processing costs!
Thanks drichard for the transportation calculations.
Remember that my calculations were made on a assumed stated conservative 0.05% cobalt.
Now this is a quote from "thewife" regarding a trench sample;
"Trenching this copper vein produced grab samples ranging up to 8.0 % copper, 86 g/t silver, 1480 ppm cobalt, 1.82 ppm indium and 222 ppb gold . 0.1% = 1,000ppm. so: 1480 X .1 = 0.1480%
You will notice % cobalt is 0.1480% or to round it up......0.15%. Now this is three times my conservative estimate of 0.05% which gave $187/tonne. If the Cobalt is consistent at 0.15% we would have 3 times that amount or
$187 X 3 = $561./tonne. Nice! But what if it is higher?
I can't comment accurately on refinery costs because they widely vary from plant to plant, from district to district, depending where you are in Canada....availability of energy etc. Also heap leaching is considerably less expensive than floatation....so cost of chemical etc. comes into play. However from the plants I have personally visited they are rarely over $100/ton. They may be more now, but I simply haven't seen it. If the above plays out, it would be reasonably to conclude that Cobalt alone would cover all the costs (transportation and refining) leaving the rest as "Creme de la Creme".
The point I would like to stress is: that there are values here that most are not taking into consideration. Further.......is there a little nickel, a little moly? You can see how something that seems to be insignificant can in effect be a real value booster!! That is the main point that should be taken from this scenario!!
Solver's musings