With widespread 360g/t dirt and massive tonnages from surface?
At 3oz Au + 2ozs AuEq from silver and PGM credits, 1 tonne of rock (the size of a milk crate) contains $8250 worth of metal.
At 12oz Au (360g/t) + 5ozs AuEq from silver and PGM credits, 1 tonne contains $28,000 worth of metal.
One small 25t haulpak could contain $700K worth of metal, and any dirt we mine will certainly be coming from the highest grade areas.
Mining studies are used to decide if mining will turn a profit, pit design, geotechnical studies, etc. Not required at this stage. A couple of holes to double check that the grade is good where the trial pits (the size of a swimming pool) are going is all that's required. They key is perfecting the extraction method and that's almost done.
The money from the trial mining can pay for resource / reserve definition for a pit design when we ramp up to full scale Mtpa production, but the 100Kt from trial mining will generate massive profits before that happens.