RE:New Exploration MethodI think you missed a couple of decimal points in your calculations somewhere.
You are advocating extracting 1000 tons with a 3m x 3m tunnel cross section. That tunnel would only be about 41 m long if you use an average specific gravity of 2.7. So you might not even hit a vein.
However, even assuming we could take 1000 tons of Cleo every year at 400 g/ton that is only about 12 860 oz per year. At $600/oz profit that is roughly $7 716 000 profit per year, or $0.07 /share/year.
C.wells@telus.net wrote: Due to the uniqueness of Pretivm's extreme grade and veiny ore body, I wonder if there could be a case made for a new type of exploration, that being exploratory tunneling through out the deposit. I beleive it could pay for itself just through the 1000 tons of annual extraction. Past drilling has encounterred 1000+gpt grades every 500 meters so I'd bet a 3m X 3m tunnel would encounter extreme grade every 100 meters max. When the high grade is encounterred, they could tunnel down the vein and collect 1 meters sections of the vein which should represent 4.5 tons. Do some sample towering on each section to do grade estimation and when 1000 tons has been collected, ship the ore to montana and see how much gold there is. Compare the results with the sample tower estimate and then wait for the next year to do more tunneling. If they averaged 2000 gpt in these sections then the 1000 tons of ore would contain 64,000 ounces or roughly $100,000,000 in revenue. This exploration method would very likely generate significant cash flow after expenses. To maximize yearly exploration, perhaps they could UP the minimum grade processed to 4000 gpt thereby increasing revenue and the amount tunnelled. The unprocessed material would be put aside for the commercial operation.
The beauty of tunnel exploration is that they would gain much needed information abouit the continuity of gold in the veins which would bolster confidence in the resource model.