how much gold/tonne to make a profit

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found this old mine report at a garage sale and its a 2 level mine depth at 40 metres. with an tunnel on level 2..
there is a geology report dated at 1985 and it says 5 samples taken from the face and samples are .03 G/T .01 G/T 3.82 G/T 1.89 G/T and 17.71G/T

the mine closed due to the war and was under lease for awhile and due to the owner of the lease that had it for 10 years being an interstate guy nothimg has been done to the mine since the war...

any one have an idea how much grams a tonne small scale miners need to male a profit..??

ill be taking a drive up there on the weekend to look again at the mine.
 
3.82 Grams to the tonne is probably the lowest you would go.

At $50 a gram, that would be only $200 per 1000kg of dirt.

How you process that dirt will be your expenses. If you do it alone, without equipment, it would be profitable.
Otherwise its not worth it.

The 17.7gram a tonne figure is more reasonable. And that would probably allow you to start mining at todays gold prices.

Also, samples are only an estimate obviously. So could have more or less.

Would be interesting to see what other minerals they assayed, that can also help profits. All depends
 
Sounds like a great find, are there any other descriptions of the material that was sampled? Sampler probably determining not just the rich vein but the surrounding host rock to see how widely spread the gold is. Remember to take lots of photos and write details on your sample bags.
You can get an idea about the value and cost when you can estimate how large the vein or veins are. If you get a full analysis a good geo can tell you the likelihood of doing ok with it further in
 
ben2363 said:
any one have an idea how much grams a tonne small scale miners need to male a profit..??

It depends on how much it costs you to extract the ore body and then process it.

However if you had a few samples at the higher end (eg: 15 - 17g/t) then it might be worth having a look at.

Statistical sampling is a weird science, you'd have to examine the rest of the report to understand whether that 17g/t would be likely to be repeatable throughout a large enough portion of the ore body.
 
Thats Hard rock figures, and I bet its oz per ton not G!
We are profitable with alluvial at 1 oz in 100 ton... .3 per ton!
Draw even, move along at 1 in 300...if the digging gets hard..
 
Some of the big guys are making money at 3 or 4 gpt ....
Just by processing lots of tons....
One mine I did a shutdown at it cost Aus $900 to reclaim 1 Troy oz...
This was a couple of years ago when gold was Aus $1400 oz

Cheers Nanjim
Jim
 
the old lease owner had the lease for years but never worked it because he was interstate. he got a geology report done in the 80's to try to get investor's in.
report says he tested a surface quartz reef 30 metres from the mine and got 2.01 G/T and 3.41 G/T. and he states he only did chip samples. im assuming chip samples are just chips of the rock with a hammer..

he later says the lease owner should do a few drill samples.
 
ben2363 said:
the old lease owner had the lease for years but never worked it because he was interstate. he got a geology report done in the 80's to try to get investor's in.
report says he tested a surface quartz reef 30 metres from the mine and got 2.01 G/T and 3.41 G/T. and he states he only did chip samples. im assuming chip samples are just chips of the rock with a hammer..

he later says the lease owner should do a few drill samples.

Please take out identifying location details and post pics/write up what happens. Its a cool story.
 
ben2363 said:
the old lease owner had the lease for years but never worked it because he was interstate. he got a geology report done in the 80's to try to get investor's in.

Has the mining license expired? I'm assuming this is Victoria?
 
I think you will find if you were willing to take a lease out on it, the costs, red tape etc would be prohibitive! :eek: :( :N:
Also most likely depending on location ( land status ) Private property, State Forest, historical area, National Park etc, may or may not allow mining.

Very hard to determine wether you have a deposit that could be worked for profit.
Mining Regulations in Victoria make it virtually impossible for a small operator to run there own show, mid 80s law changes pretty much destroyed it.
 
Swinging & digging said:
I think you will find if you were willing to take a lease out on it, the costs, red tape etc would be prohibitive! :eek: :( :N:
Also most likely depending on location ( land status ) Private property, State Forest, historical area, National Park etc, may or may not allow mining.

Very hard to determine wether you have a deposit that could be worked for profit.
Mining Regulations in Victoria make it virtually impossible for a small operator to run there own show, mid 80s law changes pretty much destroyed it.

I've just had my third appearance in Land court for....bugger all.... I haven't stuffed up, I'm compliant, but, new/changed departments just want to make things frikkin hard... One question about "Why? or Nah.." Bang, youre in court. Adjourned again, so the department can work out more cr*p rules...
And I'll say it again.... "Dont get me started on the Fire Levy"......
 

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