RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:I,ll Give This A Crack Opeating costs (less direct mining and processing) are $195M at Diavik, and $130m anually at EKATI for comparison. I woud lhave like to provide them at TMAC, but these numbers are no longer public to me.
These are all year operations costs - not seasonal like ASton is proposing - however anything smaller and yuo are losing economies of scale; which is what all mines operate on and the initial point of discussion we entered into on thie mis-sized crusher (that on Tusday wa the best new story at Aston and the REASON this was about to go higher).
How many tonnes of ore at 2.5% do yuo have to mine to make 1 tonne of 50% concentrate? Even at $15/tonne of ore mined (terrible low number by a factor of 3-4) you are at $375/tonne scooping costs for a tonne of 50% concentrate equivilant (never mind processing and shipping).
ONe other point; the SCIENCE EXPERIMENT that these guys performed produced 2 pounds of 53.7% concentrate. Done beat me up about an implied field recovery of 50% given this last statement.