More guessing on profitability.
OK, lets start with a proposition that one GRU at McAdies recovers 13oz gold every hour, running at about 50% duty, 80 tonnes gravel/hr, 5g/tonne gold.
The GRU and water pump could use $60 of diesel every hour, and one person (I'm being careful here) stands next to the GRU looking after it at $60 per hour chargeout. As part of the contract, two medium diggers and their operators could cost another $400 per hour. The GRU would also be billed out, let's say $200 per hour. Total running costs if everything goes right could be just $720 per hour, and the worst that can happen is that the rig breaks down, stopping the income flow. The contractor would carry any repair costs I guess.
With no better figures, I guess the wholesale gold value might be over NZ$1,000 per ounce in the raw state, some silver to be extracted etc. The govt fee is fairly small, so let's say income is $13,000 per hour, costs are $720, wow! over $12,000 per hour profit. Is this too good to be true?
One would hope that there's not some sort of 50/50 profit sharing going on with Dunstan Mining, the contractor, as mooted for Ophir. Fair enough when it's over or around their mining permit.
Now if $12,000 profit per hour was doubled with another GRU, and assuming there was no shortage of 5g/tonne gravel, and again running at 50% duty, how long would it take to make the NZ$12mill GEL is looking for?
1,000 hours of operations, 500 hours for each GRU, so just a few weeks.
Just a reminder about the levels at Ophir:
http://www.contrafedpublishing.co.nz...ons+again.html