RE:I'm no geologist, but I'd trade 5% of my ounces for 9% grade
It makes sense. I know we were all hoping for an 8 M ozs reserves but if you have a mine that is limited to 9 MT/year for the early years, the way to increase production is to increase the grade. We need to keep in mind that at 0.5 g. Au/t cut-off, we have 2.7 M ozs at 1.25 g. Au/t which for a heap leach/1000 tpd mill is pretty good. At 9MT/year, that is good for 8 years, just enough time to get a permit for expansion and process the lower grade material that would have been stockpiled. So, I agree with you, the fundamental is still there; this is a mine and it can grow significantly. Now, management has to market the importance of grade vs. reserves as pretty much all of us were expecting reserves to grow.