What is this whole "development ore" you guys keep talking about? ..Jcmancin,. San choose to change their mining plan from the 06 production date to the addition of surface mining hence 007 hinge etc . This required 100 + million which San flowthrough which added alot of common shares dropping share value. Tax regulation dictates on how these funds can be used in which San used some for exploration and most for development like tying in 007/hige below a shaft,portels and ramping. This development finding oz:s should be called development oz and not production oz on the balance sheet. The conversation of past was to the stock pile sitting at the Mill which went from 27,000 tn to 16,000 tn this last qtr. This pile either production oz or develpment oz either way was used to supplement Sans short fall in meeting 1800 tn of ore through the Mill. Understandably here San since adding flotation cells can"t meet mill eficientcy at 1800/2000 tn/day at 97;5 %Development mining vs. production mining

There are two principal phases of underground mining: development mining and production mining.

Development mining is composed of excavation almost entirely in (non-valuable) waste rock in order to gain access to the orebody. There are six steps in development mining: remove previously blasted material (muck out round), Scaling (removing any unstable slabs of rock hanging from the roof and sidewalls to protect workers and equipment from damage), support excavation, drill rock face, load explosives, and blast explosives.

Production mining is further broken down into two methods, long hole and short hole. Short hole mining is similar to development mining, except that it occurs in ore. There are several different methods of long hole mining. Typically long hole mining requires two excavations within the ore at different elevations below surface, (15 m – 30 m apart). Holes are drilled between the two excavations and loaded with explosives. The holes are blasted and the ore is removed from the bottom excavation..