I think that this is a smart plan and a good use of the company's limited cash reserves.
As indicated in the company's previous announcements Pearl was to be a relatively high cost operation and with the volatile AUD POG at present it may have resulted in depleting a resource without a material amount of margin being enjoyed by shareholders.
With the higher grade Alliance South ore, whilst it will take longer to get up to operational capacity, it should yield better margins per oz for shareholders and a faster cash+bullion build up over the medium term.
It will also allow Pearl to be better understood via drilling prior to mining which in turn may yield a better, more efficient mining plan.
I would be interested if anyone has the skills to work out what the estimated ramp up of production could be for Alliance South.
I note that at the end of Q1 there was 2kt of Alliance South ore on the ROM and now there is 3kt. At the current rate of 1kt every 5 weeks then I'd assume ORS would initially only be mining about 2400 tonnes for this Q + the 2kt stockpile @ (say) 9 g/t @ (say) 90% recovery for the coming Q + low grade tailing throughput for an estimated 1,149 oz + whatever they get from the low grade tailings for $1.6-$1.9m of revenue.
Sound about right?
Cheers John
ORS Price at posting:
5.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
