I find this interesring where they speak about the depth and how they think they will be able to go deeper in years to come because of technology. As you see, I couldn,t get the full article, because I am not subscribed. Nevertheless, it seems indicative of easy resource(near surface) may be coming harder to find. This in effect should put a higher premium on new finds near the surface. They might as well mine 1g/t stuff at the surface through open pits as mine 8g/t 3000m below in mine shafts because of the economics. At todays gold prices, and if we can define a resource of 1 g/t at or near surface, we will undoubtedly be open pit. Its also possible who ever gets the Tesoro, may want to extend the existing shallow mine shafts to access the high grade gold to compensate the open pit.

All jokes aside, and this was mentioned here before, that we could mine this ourselves. It really wouldn,t cost that much to upgrade the existing facilities and get new equipment in. We could probably be mining in a couple months providing permits could be obtain quickly. The rainy season is from dec - may, the other months ore could be trucked to Dynacor across the river. I dont know if Dynacor could handle a 300t/p/d high grade stuff, but it seems they are expanding. I don,t beleive there would be much trouble getting financing to start up the operation. It would provide lots of employment for the locals and the Peruvian government would look favourably on this. The downside of this scenario and what I dont like about it, is the time frame to get return on our investment. I rather the Tesoro sold to a miner quickly, so that we can move on. I guess I just threw this out there again to show that there is unlocked value in the Tesoro in more than 1 way, more options.

Heres the article:

March 21, 2011

Wits Gold Expands Its Options, And Will Now Be A Producer As Well As An Accumulator Of Gold Assets

By Charles Wyatt

When Adam Fleming, now chairman of Fleming Family & Partners, founded Wits Gold back in 2003 the price of gold was US$350 per ounce. Ghastly Gordon had done his worst by selling off a large slice of the UK’s reserves and, apart from Adam and Minews, optimists for the gold price in the years ahead were not that thick on the ground. Gold had gone through a bear market lasting the best part of 20 years. So how could anyone have envisaged that gold would be well over the US$1,000 mark before 2010? But it was a price like that Wits Gold really needed just as a starting point, when it set out to accumulate gold resources in the prolific Witwatersrand Basin at depth. And by depth we are talking about anything from three to five kilometres underground. Deep, but not totally out of reach: developments in remote control mining and ultra low profile machinery may make mining down to depths of 5,000 metres, and possibly beyond, practical in the coming years, but at a heavy cost.

When Wits Gold had its beginnings, the big South African gold producers were under pressure from their government to ‘use it or lose it‘. Harmony, as well as Anglogold Ashanti and Gold Fields all had gold resources at these deep levels which were not due to be mined for many a year, and certainly not at that gold price, so it suited them to do a deal with Wits Gold whereby they sold ‘old order’ mineral rights, had them converted into ‘new order’ rights and retained the right to acquire a 40 per...