Hi DT that’s a good question on what kind of smelter penalties are acceptable in a concentrate. It really does depend on a number if factors, and the metals recovery amounts of the key metals being extracted versus any smelter credits or penalties.

It also depends on the type of metal concentrate you’re talking about whether it’s a zinc con, copper con, lead con, etc… and if precious metals are present as co-cedits. For example, Silver often accompanies a lead or zinc concentrate, or gold may be included in a copper concentrate, and these may offset some of the deleterious elements like antimony, mercury, arsenic, too much manganese, bismuth, cadmium, etc…

The dream is a clean concentrate, with no or few deleterious elements, but that isn’t common in the way mother nature creates base metals or even precious metals deposits. Often some of the pathfinder elements are the nasties, but it comes down to the concentrations and balance of metals.

Another example is that in many Rare Earth deposits there are radioactive elements like thorium and uranium present, which makes extraction all but impossible for 99% of companies without a radioactive license. This is why Energy Fuels has a huge leg up on producing REEs from mineral rich sands.

Anyway, it comes down to the metallurgical tests on what the recovery rates of the key metals are, plus any co-credits, and minus any smelter penalties, to see if concentrates will be economically viable. It also depends on where the smelters are located that would purchase the concentrates and if any deleterious minerals would be deal-breakers or not. Some won’t accept “dirty concentrates”, or some have tolerances where they can blend dirty cons with clean cons, and will pay a company 60%-80% of the metals value, compensating for the penalty minerals.

This is where many projects bite the dust economically, and unfortunately it is often after taking investors on a ride for years with promising drill programs and resource estimates. Many investors only focus on those areas and then get blindsided later in the development story when the “gotchas” show up.

This is why I often ask companies working on building resources about any early metallurgical work, as it really should be done earlier on to determine if it even makes sense to proceed, not just on the deleterious elements, but also to see which processing method should be used, and if this is going to be economic, all things considered. Some companies know they have issues long before they do a resource estimate, or PEA and prolong doing met-work to avoid the market realizing this inconvenient truth until the PFS or FS.

I like to see companies start the met testing as early as possible, and find companies that routinely skip doing it or that avoid those questions as suspect. There are also development projects that have been on the market for a while, and people question why nobody has taken them over and sometimes it is the deleterious minerals present that are the fly in the ointment.

Good companies test early, and get this figured out in the earlier stages, and will abandon problem deposits early on. Crappy companies resist doing this or just push it off for a while to mine the investors longer and keep pulling a paycheck (sometimes for years) before finally admitting there may be issues in metallurgy. Good topic DT.

Definitely worth looking at. I prefer VUL over SALT. In addition to the shares, VUL has a 3% NSR.

Oh dang I just realized you posted something on metallurgical testing here. That is much better and more thorough than the note I sent over and it is definitely something to consider beyond drill results, depth, mining method, etc…

Your conversation triggered a memory of something I saw on the Southern Silver site recently and that was that one of the posters indicated Silver recovered was estimated at 95% and Zinc @ 92%. Not sure if it was from a metallurgical test or what, but if so, sounds significant.

Agreed, as the market starts taking bumps point by point on it’s way down, The Fed will start feeding in liquidity until the advance begins once more or until the money printing doesn’t have an effect. Rather than admit to their mistakes they will keep this charade going on as long as possible, and it will be sanctioned by whomever is in The White House. The politicians do not want a crash on their watch. DT

My account showing +3.83% when actually it is -4.5% down. Then end result is the same, but all the positive stocks are false. More like lazy book keeping.