Good to hear they are planning optimization studies for the 2014 plan. This is the fine-tuning. I don't really know how these things work but you would think that the optimization comes after the upgraded pit design, or maybe it contributes some wisdom to that design. At any rate, it looks like progress.

Tim Horseley, Mining Manager at global specialist consultancy Coffey Mining, said that mine optimisation doesn’t need to take a lot of time or be an expensive exercise, but has very real potential to add significant value, sometimes in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of an operation.

"Synergies between the processes can add or destroy value and so it is vital that the project process is assessed from the in-situ resource through to cash revenue generation. There is a significant amount of value to be realised by being able to model and understand these synergies, particularly with respect to the definition of ore locally within a mine and how this impacts on productivities, costs and the downstream processes,” he said.