RE:RE:RE:RE:Putting a Price on NovoHello Oscar,
Thanks for that. I think you have enough information there to work out the approx minimum output and maximum cost of Gold production, processing BC ore at the Eagle Plant.
Novo's problem/opportunity was that they could not exploit the opportunity to buy Millenium's operation until the owners threw in the towel. Novo knew that Millenium's process would not work economically using their available ore feed.
Novo, (who bought rights to the Beatons Creek ore a while ago, from Millennium) have worked on this deposit for several years. It is quite different in characteristic to the ore that Millenium was using. There are plenty of News Items in Novo's News Archives which tell you what they have done over the years at BC, including one which describes putting trial quantities of BC Ore satisfactorily through a pilot plant, (presumably similar in design to the modification they installed at MIllennium/Eagle when they were carrying out the refurbishment.) This mod will recover much (maybe 70%) of the nuggety gold present in BC ore by gravity separation during the milling stage, the balance being recovered by the CIL process already present. To be honest I've no real idea how much improvement one will see in output/cost as a result of this mod but my guess is that it will be material. Maybe the content of the PEA will help.
Your comments re the potential problem that Novo may have in establishing a suitable quality feed for use at the Eagle Plant are valid. However I would suggest that the difficulties that hard rock miners face in establishing ore quality for processing (even after establishing feasibility studies) far outweighs what Novo need to do to ensure that excavators, diggers and ore transport trucks can provide a consistent ore feed to the Eagle Plant. Alluvial gold miners do this all the time.
The 43-101 resources report covers only a small proportion of the ore present. Just enough to enable Novo to raise cash to justify buying the Millennium Mill. In the case of Novo's purchase of the MIllennium Mill the smallish borrowing requirements was sourced from Sprott (Eric Sprott already being a long time investor) without the need for a PEA. He presumably could see that the loan would be quickly repaid despite the usual PEA/Feasibility Study being absent,
If you are waiting for an opportunity to buy a second hand plant, there is not much to be gained by publishing a PEA| which tells the world how profitable the operation would be in your hands after you bought it. However publishing a PEA in the near future should establish the value of the Eagle Mill/BC ore operation and maybe fend off folks who might be interested in taking over the story!
All IHMO.
SM