RE: thanks for the infoIt was not the potential to leach the ore that was off, but rather the engineering assesment of the clay content.
Here is how leaching works in normal rocks;
1. Crush porous rock to optimum size for solution to gold contact to rapidly leach gold from the rocks.
2. Trickle solution of CN onto pile of rocks heaped up with lines that distribute solution uniformly through the pile.
3. Collect solutions in the lower part of the pads and sent to recovery of gold.
Here your problem is in step one.The rock is not simply porous rock, its clay rich. The clay goes with the solutions and starts to channelize the solutions so they do not do step two properly. So you need to fix the material so the clay will not end up keeping the solutions from reach all the rock that you loaded on the pad.
You accomplish that by aglomeration. This is simply adding cement to the mix in a small amount in order to form new 'rocks' to load on the pad. The clay gets held in place by the cement. You do not want to use a lot of cement, because it costs money and can also cause problems and you do not want to use too little since themn the clay will still be free to gum up the works and keep solution from your rocks.
The engineers figured on too little cement. Simple as that. The bulk sample was possibly not representative enough of the deposit as a whole, because when they used the suggested amount for aglomeration they ended up with a channelized pad. Big Oppps. But it does happen in a start up as you are getting the kinks worked out in the design.
Now that problem is corrected. Its a timing issue in terms of investor expectations, but reality is that the pad is now working well and you are not that far off schedule.
The longer term still comes down that you do not need to agloerate ores from the Cantarranas Formation. Those are in decarbonitized limey argillites with great ground prep. That ore will be a lot easier to handle and long range its where the ore has grade and size for expansion. Thats why the announcement of your VP Exp was so good for you guys. Increasoing ounces from the same amount of tons processed reduces costs and allows greater operating lattitude.