Strpping Ratio and Things Stripping a deposit of overburden, removal of the rock/dirt on top of the ore, is nothing more then an earth moving exercise.$2 a tonne seems very high, I would expect costs of less then $1 per tonne, maybe as low as .50. Time will tell.
Lets remember, excessive,imo, capping lost us 650,000 ozs of gold, Phase 2 was not counted and again imo Aurizon will do a phase 3 - analysts expect up to 3m ozs here. Aurizon has some problems with other projects and this is pretty much the best of their bunch, tell me what else do they have to keep production levels up, or increase them, for their shareholders?
Think about this - If this does, as forecast, hit 3m ozs by next July's 3rd anniversary date,where in the world could you pick up M&I for $40 an oz? You just bought 1.5m ozs of gold, mostly in the M&I category, for $40 an oz ($30 for Inferred) while most Co's are paying well over $110 an oz, do you think you could afford to prestrip?
Take things a step further.....
and look at it another way - Aurizon (if the deposit is 3m ozs of gold), gets another 450,000 ozs for doing a Feasability study, and arranging financing for NioGold - basically Aurizon gets almost 2m ozs of gold - 1.5m + 450k = 1.95 ozs of gold - for $40.00 per oz and say $20m for the studies. Thats just $80m!
Other Co's - $100 an oz for M&I = $195m plus the cost of the studies.
For $80m - plus pre-stripping costs - Aurizon gets a 2m oz gold mine ready to finance for production, thats $3.4 billion worth of gold at spot of $1700, a 10% in-situ value of $340m - ask yourself - Is Aurizon going to walk?
ttfn
nopoo