Interestingly the big surge in FCF and the accompanying share price rise from the 20 cent level in RSG's case came predominantly from the mining of the same ore body that is being developed as an underground operation now.
The sub-level cave mining technique is a bulk UG mining technique that replicates the types of ore movements that one can expect from open pit mining at similar costs. I would need to get an industry reference to back this statement but the anacdotal evidence/example is that this mining technique is used to mine iron ore (magnetite) UG so you wouldn't be able to efficiently compete as a miner of a bulk commodity like iron ore with the large volume open pit iron ore miners BHP/RIO unless this mining technique is relatively low cost. Of course magnetite miners also compete by using benefication to achieve higher grades (thus higher prices) than the current average DSO ore that is being shipped, but a large part of their abilty to mine iron ore UG is down to bulk UG mining techniques.
LKAB mines iron ore in Sweden using sub-level cave mining and ore is now coming from depths of more than 1km in two UG mines. That's deeper than Syama's current reserves and shows the potential of this technique to be able to access parts of the remaining 2.7Mozs resource at Syama which does not form part of the current 3Moz reserve in the UG deposit and even points to potential to extend the Syama mine deeper than the limit of the known resource.
LKAB says this about their UG iron ore mines;
"LKAB's underground mines are among the most high-tech anywhere in the world. Safe and resource-efficient production, with well-developed production methods and processes, are vital for our profitability."
And it's no coincidence these mines are in Sweden where all this cutting edge mining technology is emanating from. That's the home of Sandvik the contractors to the Syama UG automation project. I'd need to do some more research to find out what if any Sandvik technology is being used at Kiruna and Malmberget. I'll try later as I've got a bit of research on my plate to complete the previous line of argument I'd started in this thread.
Remember as I said this is a sub-level cave mine first and an automated mine second. The principal advantage is the mining method, the cost savings and effiencies come from the automation.
It's funny how we seem to embrace technology in the rest of our lives but in the stale old world of mining some investors are fearful of it. Esh
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