Surely you're gonna dispute what I post. Are you going to be nice?
It depends largely on assumptions. The gabbro is huge, so billions of tonnes but the whole thing can't be mineralised (can it?)
I've assumed (confidently) that the gold is disseminated (with negligible nugget effect) and has a porphyry-like distribution, so grade is relatively evenly spread through the gabbro but with zonation of grade, i.e. from zero to ~5oz/t so I apply a
Mineralised Tonnage factor: 2%? 5%? 30%?
I've done it for Gold only at Tres Estados (excludes Ema, excludes Pt-Pd-Ag-REE)
Dimensions: 1200m long (conservative - gabbro is 4km long) x 600m wide x 250m deep (easily open-pittable. Conservative - could extend 1km or more depth-wise given the 4km strike length)
volume (LxWxD)
x 2.8 (density - could be up to 3.5)
= 504Mt
x 5%? (Mineralised Tonnage factor - conservative)
x ?2oz (recovered gold/tonne: ? Gotta be conservative here)
= 50Moz gold only. Could almost double that with the additional Pt-Pd-Ag-REE equivalents
Of course we're limited to 100,000tpa during the trial mining period which is:
100,000t
x 10%? (Mineralised Tonnage factor - I increased this because they'll mine the best patch)
x ?2oz (recovered gold/tonne: ? Stayng conservative here)
= 2Moz gold only
When the drilling comes in I can take the brakes off of the Mineralised Tonnage factor because we'll have a better handle on it and I'm sure it's gonna be much higher than 5 or 10%.
Of course we'll also have a much better handle on the grade which is north of 2oz/t hopefully.
I'm putting on my Zaphod Beeblebrox sunglasses now....
Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses
The
Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. They follow the principle "what you don't know can't hurt you" and turn completely dark and opaque at the first sign of danger. This prevents you from seeing anything that might alarm you. This does, however, mean that you see absolutely nothing, including where you're going.
