RE: RE: Phone Conference Today The open pitting they refer to is the East Mine Crown Pillar, where no changes are noted for the last four years of Reserves/Resources statements published by Aurizon. Permitting and other work could have been ongoing for the last several years with the plan to fill capacity regardless of grade.
You have a shaft with a capacity that it is permanently out of sync with the production capacity of the plant--in the wrong direction. Then, you want to deepen said shaft and develop a long drift for new production areas--your shaft will now have less ore capacity as an increased amount of deep waste must be hauled out before you can mine the future of your company. The extra depth will also decrease the amount of ore you can haul to the surface to mill because of extra travel length.
Given engineering and permitting lead times, this problem should have been addressed years ago.
Maybe Paspalas just fell out of bed earier this week and realized these facts, but I doubt it.
In defense of Paspalas, he has only been employed at Aurizon since August of 2011. Aurizon has its own corporate culture, no doubt, and exactly how much free reign he has isn't known to us. A number of the BOD (founders) have been around since 1988 through the middle 1990's--how pliant and open minded they are isn't known to us either. David Hall was the president and CEO for a long time before Paspalas.
This rotten egg should be laid at the doorstep of those who spawned it, the BOD; either because of steadfast (over several years) refusal to deal with reasonably foreseeable issues, or chronic ignorance reagarding how their company works. Don't shoot the messenger.