Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/263953
www.resourceworld.com 49 F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 4 continued from page 17 develop infrastructure, process the ore, reclaim the land plus a host of other things – all for the meager price of $40 per tonne of rock? Generally speaking, a large mineral deposit amenable to bulk mining methods would have a lower cut-off grade than a smaller deposit having the same grades. The ideal mineral deposit needs to be large and situated close to infrastructure. ISR (in-situ recovery) solution min - ing and mining of brines is cheaper than hardrock mining. Therefore, potash, lith- ium, uranium or copper could possibly be recovered at much lower costs with a lower initial investment and would be easier to permit; however, not all mineral deposits are amenable to ISR mining. Some compa - nies might be disclosing in their PRs that their drill grades and metallurgy are good and similar to other operating ISR opera- tions but in order to be able to do that type of mining the deposit has to be situated below the water table – in other words, soaked in underground water. If the deposit is on top of a hill in an arid zone, there is no way it could be subjected to ISR. An investor should also avoid compa - nies that have good drill grades, calculate a mineral resource and then tread water for years. There are most likely hidden prob- lems associated with that company and/or their mineral deposit. Bail out before it's obvious the company is a loser. An investor should also look at the date of the reserve calculation as some compa - nies display reserves calculated at the peak of the gold price cycle. At the current low gold price, their reserves would be much diminished and the project could be ren- dered uneconomic. Large, low-grade sub-economic projects are resuscitated at times of high metal prices; however, they may not be a good investment because metal prices could come down again before the first shovel hits the dirt. It is usually better to buy into new projects that have reserves and resources calculated in periods of low metal prices because in this way investors would be exposed to the upside potential of the project in the event of higher metal prices. A note on uranium exploration - gamma-count readings are indicative of mineralization but cannot be used in esti - mating resources because onlty accurate chemical assays can be used in calcula- tions. The same is true for any other type of XRF readings obtained in the field. METALLURGY Ore is a natural mixture of different met- als and elements – some good (valuable and easy to mine and separate) and some bad. The main metal to be mined and the co-products generate most of the revenue while the by-products are not economi - cally significant but they can add credits and lower the production costs of the main commodities. Deleterious minerals or ele- ments (arsenic, mercury, etc) contained in ore would attract smelter penalties and could make permitting more difficult. If gold is locked in a pyrite-rich rock with arsenic or the host rock contains too much carbon it might be difficult and expensive to process that type of refrac - tory ore. It is important to understand