Anton- a few comments...

Gold and silver are measured in troy ounces as opposed to avoirdupois (~31 grams versus ~28 grams). But we still use avoirdupois for "pounds", so there are 14.8 troy ounces (gold) in an avoirdupois pound. (Remember the old joke about which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold? A pound of feathers weighs more!) There are 12 troy ounces to a troy pound, which is where that number comes from.

We won't know the silver:gold ratio of either the ore or the dore bars until SFMI gives us more numbers. I'd also like to know if there is more silver left in the remaining 200+ lbs- maybe they left behind any silver present as the sulfide...

As far as cocktail chemistry, last weekend I brewed up a batch of IPA. It's fermenting in the kitchen right now- bubbling away quite happily. Gives the house a nice yeasty smell- almost like baking bread!

I agree that the concentrate was amazingly clean- I've mentioned a few times (especially "over there") that it looked like a clean and complete separation coming off the table. That makes smelting both easier and cheaper.

And to clear it up- SFMI is processing unmilled ore, not tailings- unless you consider picking out pieces with visible gold to be "processing". I've been thinking about this- and I think that the ore may not even have been picked through. I think the miners may simply have been producing ore faster than it could be either picked through or hauled down the mountain. And the mine shutdowns due to the financial crisis may have caught them with these huge stockpiles. What we see may actually be as much stockpiled good ore as stuff rejected because it had no visible gold. Just a thought...

If the dore bars are 30% gold that is phenomenal. Your values of $1.5M for this batch and $15M for the next one would be right in the ballpark.

At the meeting, one of the employees mentioned a target of 200 tpd by next May (I think). That would be using the present setup, with maybe some add-ons. They would have to expand into the other empty half of the mill building to get to 500tpd- but that should be doable. Remember, they put this mill equipment together in 5 months- and that included putting up the building!

Speculation on a buyout price? If they can get $15M in 6 months at 100 tpd and 0.75 oz/t, then what can they make at 400 tpd and 2-4 oz/t? That would be $320-640M/year! At a 10x multiple, that gives a sp of $12-25/share. Or assuming 4M oz in the ground, with explorers selling for $1000 per in ground ounce, gives $16/share. A very conservative $250/oz still gives $4/share.

As far as royalties, Pierre gets his cut of Sinker operations whether it is from GHDC or Bissell. I don't think there is any reason to rearrange the companies or do a buyout- unless PQ just wants to take a lump sum rather than a stream of cash and not worry about it.

That 2.45 oz/t includes silver, since it is "gold equivalent ounces". In other words, the value of the gold plus the value of the silver adds up to the value of 2.45 ounces of gold.

Cupp's estimate of 19M tons includes ore grading lower than 2.45 oz/t. Kinross would have been able to profitably mine much lower grade stuff. It appears that he assumed the average grade would be aroung 1/5 oz/t, or 6gm/t. From his report:

"Approximately 19.35 million tons of mineralized ore is calculated to exist on War Eagle Mountain. Approximately 165,000 tons of ore have already been produced, with an average yield of 2.52 ounces of gold equivalent ($ 1,638) per ton. An estimated (4) million ounces of Gold equivalent, worth $ 3 Billion, is thought to be minable on War Eagle Mountain."

If he's only getting 4 million oz out of 19M tons, thats about 1/5 oz/t. Unless he thinks that 4M oz would come from less than the 19M tons of ore.