BRALORNE GOLD MINES LTD BPMSF

Oh dear , oh dear oh dear

[miningman3]

The  most relevant data  in todays  press releasae is rather well disguised.

 

Take for example  the quoted broken ore inventory of 3971 plus 4949 tons ,  or  8920 tons.  Lets call this 9000 tons for simplicty.  Now compare  this value with the broken ore inventory reported in early April 2011 of 25,000 tons.   Stockpile has dropped by  16,000 tons or  64%.  What this means is that the milling rate has dramatically exceeded the mining rate. Co incidentally , the reported milling rate of 16,803 tons since April almost exactly matches this 16,000 to drop in the stockpile. This implies that  the new reported value of the stockpile represents the total ore mined over the last 10 months.  9000 tons mined over  a 10 month period is of course 900 tons per month or 30 tons per day!!!!!   This is pathetic  and  unless the miners really pick up the pace,   the mill will be shutdown due to lack of ore supply.

 

Now lets look at milling values. To Jan 31st  management reports 16,803 tons milled. in early Sept 2011,  the same management reported that to the end of August milled tonnage was 8579.  Clearly  the tonnage miled over the last 5 months has been 8224 tons .......... OR LESS THAN 55  tons per day.  Again this is appalling for a mill rated at 100 tons per day that supposedly  has the ability to be expanded to 280 tpd.

 

Now lets look at reported grades.   To  end of August 2011,  reported head grade was  0.254 ounces per ton.  To end of Jan 2012  reported head grade is 0.264 ounces per ton.   Does anyone realy think that this management will EVER get head grades upto even 0.35  ,  never mind the 0.5  ounces per ton they keep aluuding to in press releases.

 

Now lets make an assumption that nothing dramatic changes,  either for the better or the worse.  If the mill continues to outperform the miners at 55-30   or 25 tons per day,  the mill is out of ore in  9000/25  or 360  days.     Lets say the operation gets shut down in  Oct 2012,  in order to avoid all the nasty weather that has been causing frozen lines.

Check out my post of 4/4/2011,  " Broken Ore Inventory"  .  Looks like  I might be accused of having an accurate crystal ball

[AlternativeView]

Nice analysis miningman3, Too bad you overlooked a very important factor:  the underground crew (6 miners I think) has been working steady on mine development over the period you examined.  They have not really been "mining" at all.  Now that the decline has reached the BK zones, the stockpiles can be replenished (with high-grade feedstock)

[miningman3]

  AV,  OK  I'll concede that your suggestion might have some relevance,  but lets try to put it into perspective.. Of course  your comment about actual mining activity   does not affect  my calculations related to average daily thruput the mill.   Would you concede  that regardless of what the miners do , it will require some sort of major

[AlternativeView]

Of course I agree the mill through-put needs to improve. More than you might think.https://www.bralorne.com/i/pdf/Presentation.pdf This is the most recent presentation. Page 4 says the focus is getting production to 500TPD. And this is recent, because the graphic on Page 14 is dated February 27, 2012. So do they need to build a new mill? The current one looks prety small.

[miningman3]

 Well,  I was unaware of the new presentation and its contents.  Company press releases have  documented that   average daily thruput thru the mill   was  less than 60 tons per day for both the last 5 months as well as since April.  Am I the only individual who thinks that   for a group that  claims their focus is a 500tpd facility,&

[AlternativeView]

miningman, That was an interesting but slightly off the point.  The question was and is:  Given adequate feedstock, can this mill do 500 TPD, or do they need a new one?

[miningman3]

 Well this is of course just my opinion but  based on what I saw  about 10 years ago when I had the opportunity to wander thru the mill,  the mill buiding is` adequately sized  to accommodate`a 500  tpd plant but no I  am pretty sure the` existing mill would never be capabale  of doing better than  120-150 ton per day. You'd need to dramatically

[AlternativeView]

Thanks for that. Looks like they really have their work cut out for them. Maybe a good first step would be to install a second ball mill and upgrade all the failure prone components at the same time.  This might get them to 300 TPD without having to upgrade 800L haulage, tailings lines, etc. 300 TPD at .4 oz/t would be a good start.  120 Oz per day is about 40K oz per year. The real work