Excellon have trying to get Platosa to work for the best part of a decade. They've had problems with the unions, local communities, and water.
However, for me, the deposit's biggest Achilles heel is its size. Earlier this year we got the latest and greatest resources (link).
What is the correct word to describe them....
But unfortunately, with less boobs. Here they are....
Here are the resources from December 2014 (link).
Do you see how the M&I resource grades have plummeted from 2014 to 2018. I'm sure this is because the deposit has been mined very carefully and 3 1/2 years of very successful, profitable high-grade mining of a complicated deposit has taken its toll, but......
Ohhh, the production grades have been nowhere near the resource grades. The started off great, and then went on holiday.
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| continued mediocrity |
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| the 2018 numbers look ok for the base metals |
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| a general decline |
But for me, these are the funniest statistics
Wow, 10m drill spacing to accurately define the resources. I remember teasing Pretium about tight drilling.
Here it is visually (just for the mine area)
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| I wonder if the difference between resource and mine grade is because drilling has removed so much material |
Holy Feck, you've drilled >358km (same distance Flint, Michigan is from Toronto) of drilling to have defined a total of ~1.2 million tonnes @ 682 g/t Ag, 6.2% Pb and 7.4%Zn?
- 498,000 tonnes of resources @ 548 g/t Ag, 5.6 % Pb and 5.9 % Zn
- 696,469 tonnes produced @ 779 g/t Ag, 6.7% Pb and 8.5% Zn
Or to put it another way. Excellon have mined and defined:
- 1,194,469 tonnes grading 1287 g/t AgEq, or 49,458,316Moz AgEq
- Drilled 358,070 meters
- So this works out to a success rate of 138.12 oz AgEq per meter
If we compare that with Silvercrest's Las Chispas project we see:
- Total drilling 83,230m
- Total resources: 86,701,200 oz AgEq
- Success rate = 1041.7oz AgEq per meter
