I've done a fair whack of looking into this, given the extensive history and previous study of the deposit. From what i found, the reason that they never mined it initially can be put down to firstly; the original permitting was done for an open pit shell, and due to certain environmental sensitivities in the area (coastal proximity, the biodiversity within Laguna de Salave) this was rejected pretty quickly, and secondly; the washout in the gold price paired with the grade/tonnage of the proven reserve in 2014 made the project seem borderline uneconomical for the underground plan (Over 1moz, but under 2g/t). Besides, Astur Gold looked to have acquired a fair bit of debt, and by the time they had released the PEA for the underground op, they would've been heading under already, and would've looked like a bad investment case.
Since, BDG has proven up a much higher grade component of the resource, and has focused solely on an economic underground project, while keeping their expenditure low. In turn, they've funded a bunch of research (recent academic studies) and done a heck of a lot of reading themselves. This last factor, added to the undebted structure of the business, and the macroeconomic situation within europe (and spain specifically), lead me to believe that development permitting of the project is probable within the next 2 years, on the basis that a concentrate only is mined, and a longwall stoping/cemented tailings backfill method is used.
This is only my opinion however, and i can't speak for the boards future movements in permitting and development. I do know however, that they've done a lot of research into the history of Salave, culminating in several well referenced academic articles easily found on the net.
BDG Price at posting:
16.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
