TomanderGot a reply to my questions The current inventory of ore is on a fault zone with massive talc. Talc is present in host rocks and throughout the ore body however there is some implication in the reply the ore they have now has more of it present. The feasibility mentioned there is talc in the ore. I will have to verify this. I didn't see it as an impediment when I scrutinized the FS. So far they haven't considered Merrill Crowe for the tailings. (I am sure they don't really want to do much more capex in Bolivia but sacrificing 250-350K oz in silver recovery and between 5-10K oz of Au production annually is a significant hit). The updated 43-101 at the UMZ will include inferred reserves (add 700kt to the reserve). If they run out of iron sponge they may substitute scrap iron (albeit at a sacrifice of recovery),.
Most importantly they are going to produce EVBC for grade optimization and not mine life which kind of surprised me as many other firms are lowing underground cutoff grades to about 1.5 g/ton of those with byproducts. So my expectation is expect they will produce 100- 105K oz at EVBC in 2013. If they do this the ave cutoff grade will be much higher in the mine plan and mine life perhaps sacrificed. (They could lower the cutoff later when they don't need the money as badly).
To the naysayers that the UMZ isn't important the less money they get the more the company will be diluted in the form of a JV or share float in the future when it is time to construct Copperwood. As for recoveries printed those were averages over the life of the mine. In the initial years the recoveries and grades produced were much higher if you look at the feasibility study life of mine cash flow.