THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Auryn management recently let us know that if they were to build their own froth flotation plant at the ADL, AND IF THEY WERE WILLING TO STORE THE DISCARDS/”TAILINGS” ON-SITE (instead of Enami storing them at their facilities), THEN THE ECONOMIC IMPACT WOULD RESULT IN AURYN EARNING AN “EXTRA” $5,000 PER TONNE OF ORE MINED. This would translate into an “extra” $100,000 per 20-tonne truckload of ore shipped.
I keep trying to “reverse engineer” management’s statement, so that I could get a better understanding of the breakdown of this “DIFFERENTIAL”. Even if management was only producing 40 tonnes per day (2 truckloads), which is an extremely low production rate, this “DIFFERENTIAL” would result in an EXTRA $200,000 PER DAY in profits over and above what Enami would pay them if Enami were doing the froth flotation of that ore. Based on 300-working days per year, this would translate into an EXTRA $60 million in annual profits, over and above the profits made if Enami did the froth flotation of the ore.
One thing I’ve learned is that Enami DOES NOT want to store the discards/tailings of their client’s ore on their premises, and they are willing to pay handsomely if their clients do their own “froth flotation” on-site, and store the discards also on-site. Operating on a plateau makes this fairly easy for Auryn.
The math is kind of interesting and it tells us how much money people are willing to pay for this silly stuff called “gold”. If you are mining 1 gram per tonne gold, then this means that the grade of the gold is only 1 PART PER MILLION. Why is this? There are 1,000 kiligrams in 1 metric tonne and there are 1,000 grams in 1 kilogram. So, 1 “GRAM PER TONNE” (1 gpt) gold is equivalent to 1 “PART PER MILLION” (1ppm) gold.
For crushed ore, this means that for every “grain of sand” of gold in a stockpile, there are 999,999 grains of worthless “gangue”. Yet 1 gpt gold is the average grade of gold being mined in open pit operations worldwide. So, mining is basically a “how and where do we store the discards” business, and Enami’s attitude is you keep your own discards and we’ll reward you handsomely.
Miners willing or financially able to build their own “froth flotation” plant, will pay an average of $10 per tonne of ore mined after you factor in the CAPEX of one of these facilities, the life expectancy of the facility and the “daily throughput” of these facilities. The daily “OPEX” or “operating expenses” are also factored into that $10 per tonne statistic. This is a very INEXPENSIVE “beneficiation” process.
Wait a minute, how can a young gold producer willing AND ABLE to build its own froth flotation plant, and pay an average of $10 per tonne mined to build and run it, SAVE/EARN an “extra” $5,000 per tonne? The LEVERAGE available here is 500-to-1, IF, IF, IF the junior gold producer can swing it, and build its own froth flotation facility, and store its own tailings. My investment philosophy is to only add to my position in a stock, IF certain milestones are met. Accessing this 500-to-1 LEVERAGE, via building a flotation plant on-site, is therefore one gigantic milestone to reach if it happens, especially if it happens in a NON-DILUTIVE fashion.
Well aware of these numbers, the Auryn BOD UNANIMOUSLY voted in favor of building their own flotation plant. I don’t think they would have announced this fact until AFTER they had the financing in place. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Maurizio continued his policy of advancing all of the cash needed until production commenced, but time will tell.
Historically, “froth flotation” will increase the grade of the ore mined by an average of over 4-TIMES. The range is in between 2-TIMES and 20-TIMES. The University of San Sebastian’s Mining Engineering Department has been fine-tuning the most efficient “customized flow sheet” for the froth flotation of the ore from Auryn’s DL2 Mine for a little over 2 years. Whatever they came up with is “baked into the cake” in that $5,000 per tonne “EXTRA” income figure. I’m going to guess that when Enami does the froth flotation for their customer’s ore, their approach is more of a “1 size fits all” approach. I would assume that they’re certainly not in a position to put in extended amounts of time to tailor-design every one of their thousands of client’s froth flotation flow sheets, but I do not know this to be a fact.
As I recently learned, a lot of that 500-to-1 LEVERAGE is not associated with simply increasing the grade of the ore by an average of 4-fold via froth flotation. The next step in the process after froth flotation is typically the “CARBON-IN-LEACH” (CIL) process. This particular process, which is made a lot more efficient if the ore had been previously “froth floated”, magnifies the grade of the ore by an AVERAGE factor of in between 667-fold and 2,000-fold. In other words, 3 gpt gold ore gets converted into 2,000 to 6,000 gpt gold ore. THIS APPEARS TO BE THE SOURCE OF THAT 500-TO-1 LEVERAGE AND NOT THE FROTH FLOTATION IN AND OF ITSELF. Froth flotation “sets up” the CIL process to be much more effective.
In the case of Auryn, “CARBON IN LEACH” would involve dissolving the gold within the “flotation concentrate” resulting from the froth flotation process, in a dilute cyanide solution rendering it a liquid. This liquid is then exposed to activated carbon and the gold “adsorbs” onto the surface of the carbon. The gold is then separated from the carbon.
The keys to accessing all of that 500-to-1 LEVERAGE would have many components. The foundational component would be HIGH-GRADE ORE. Without HIGH-GRADE ORE most miners could never afford to put in their own froth flotation system. Other factors would include, being willing and able to store the discards on-site, having your own “customized flow sheet” for the froth flotation process, being able to bypass Enami’s fee structures, and being able to prepare the hyper-concentrated “float concentrate” for a more efficient “CARBON IN LEACH” process. Keep in mind that if the grade of the “float concentrate” was enhanced by a factor of 4-fold, then three-fourths of the tonnage of the ore originally mined, never needed to be TRANSPORTED or run through the CARBON IN LEACH process which is more expensive than the froth flotation process. Getting rid of a significant percentage of the waste rock/”gangue” right from the start, via an INEXPENSIVE beneficiation methodology like froth flotation, saves a lot of money when the resultant “flotation concentrate” advances to the next, MORE EXPENSIVE, step in the beneficiation process.
When the froth flotation process increases the grade of the resultant “flotation concentrate” by 4-fold, this means that three-fourths of the worthless “gangue” has been removed. This translates into the ability for the cyanide ions to “find” the gold particles and dissolve them in a much more efficient manner. The huge multiplying effect in concentration of the gold, occurs during the CIL process, not the froth flotation process. We don’t know what the multiplier effect is for the froth flotation process Auryn is about to deploy. All we know is that whatever it is the ECONOMICS are greatly improved.
People talk about the “head grade” or “run of mine grade” of ore taken out of the adit and that’s important in order to be able to afford your own flotation plant. What’s even more important is what is the grade of the material being transported in a truck, down the North Road, to its next destination, whether it be a CIL plant or a smelter. What’s also critical is what did it COST, to achieve that SHIPPING GRADE, on-site, between the mining of the ore and the froth flotation of the ore.
Spending an average of $10 per tonne in order to access that 500-to-1 LEVERAGE seems like a pretty good deal. As the cash starts to flow, Auryn will no doubt be considering building their own CIL plant on-site just as they did when considering building a froth flotation facility. Junior gold producers in Chile that are mining 1-2 gpt gold ore are probably never going to be able to access these sources of LEVERAGE. Recall that the artisanal miners that mined that very same DL2 Vein, averaged SHIPPING GRADES to Enami of 64 gpt gold without any beneficiation done on-site. The average froth flotation plant in service today takes an average of about 158 days of production to pay itself off.