HEAD GRADE QUESTIONI was alerted to Novo's news release, dated December 20, 2018, wherein they had conducted mechanical sorting trials at Karatha, producing concentrates from 92.1 gpt to 792.4 gpt. The "Mass Sorter Concentrate" was well-below 1% of the total ore processed, meaning the amount of material that would be shipped to the mill after sorting would be relatively small as compared to ore that is normally shipped.
I don't know enough about the mining process, but everything else equal, Does anybody know how the above ore concentrates translate to head grade? Or, is that part of the "learning process" as we commence production? Would the head grade be MORE or LESS than the above amounts?
A couple of additional points:
(1) Karatha is a project which is made up of 7,600 square kilometers of property (per Novo's website).
(2) We have also learned that the efficiency of the Steinert sorter has been IMPROVED over the last two years, bringing more "fine" gold into the concentrate.
If the head grade yielded by the sorting technology is anywhere near the ore concentrates shipped to the mills, it seems we would make money hand over foot from Karatha alone - even if Egina turns out to be an absolute ZERO. Am I wrong?
Calculation-wise, I guess I could attempt to average the sample sizes from the news release and compute how that translates into net profit over the entire 7,600 square kilometers, taking into account a conservative AISC? Something tells me somebody has already done that around here - some very smart human beings lurk (but one has to admit we have our share of dummies too).