Sorry about some of the typos and spelling mistakes in my posts above, I'm writing most of this stuff between walking my dog and being on the move.
Just a clarification on my last assertion for the more argumentative types.
I said
"You can not find published average forward cost projections for SAR, SBM or NST, at least as far as I can find. Maybe someone else can supply them?"
What I really meant was none of these companies have published current life of mine plans including average life of mine AISC for the individual mines/deposits that they operate and they don't even give bar chart style breakdowns of the percentage production contribution of individual mines or mine groups anymore (particularly in the case of NST). Investors are literally flying blind in most cases. You might be able to go back and look at feasibilty studies in a limited number of cases, like for SAR's Thunderbox mine but in general none of these companies I've reviewed so far are giving any real or reliable forward projections of their expected operating costs on a mine by mine basis. Most of them are just pointing to their past performance history as some sort of measure of future performance success.
If I get more time I'll research NST's 2.984Mozs of reserves that are distributed between Jundee and Kalgoorlie and find out just exactly how many seperate deposits this reserve represents (the company no longer breaks this down for investors) and how many surface openings are need to mine these reserves. My estimates above are more or less right IMO, with more than 9 seperate deposits (depending on definition) and probably 5 or 6 declines (plus a few open pits) to mine this reserve which is essentially the same size as the Syama UG reserve which will be mined from twin declines for at least the next 14 years.
The comparative efficiency at Syama just in terms of the number of required tunnels/openings/adits etc is staggering for anyone that is really thinking about it and then you have the techonolgy effeciency overlaid on that. Think about it, Syama is King on paper so far. It just needs to deliver on feasibilty in the next year or two then we will own an asset we won't want to let go of.Esh
(20min delay)
