Pretium - Brucejack, the little mine that couldn't

The market loved Pretium's Q1, 2018 production figures (link).....for a day (lol)

Ramping down the shareprice

Why? Was there another another spectacular miss on grade.....again?

(looks through notes) - ohhh, juts missed by a mere 5.4 g/t or 35%.

But good news everyone, we've managed to miss out planned head grades every single month in the quarter. At best, they only missed by 4 g/t.

Don't panic

Now that we have 9 months of production figures, lets us look at the ramp up!

Milling

Ramp up went smoothly, they reached and exceeded plant capacity within 3 months.



They are milling consistently 5-10% more than planned. Good job guys.

Recovery

Spot on!

and now it gets interesting....

Grade

Consistently bad, typically missing by a third, and this has a knock-on effect

Production

So the difference in actual and projected (from the PEA) gold production is a measly:

~150,000 ounces
I know that some people think that the PEA isn't useful for anything, except when you need $811M to build a mine, or another way to put it:

They have been so efficient, they've decided to mine the material planned for years 16 and 17, to save the good stuff 'til last.

Another way to put it is, if they continue at the same level (head grade, mill throughput and recovery) for Q2, 2018, Pretium will have achieved the impossible normal*, they will have:

• mined and processed 25% more ore and produced 25% less gold than outlined in the PEA

For that, I think you should get this:

The Sidam Touch

Personally, I can't wait to see the financials next month and the updated Mineral resource update in the fall.

If you've got this far, I have a mathematical challenge for you:

Get the numbers to work?

When I try it, I get Au production = 74,051.4 ounces, a difference of 1,338 ounces.

Or, to produce 75,689 ounces the head-grade needs to increase to 9.3 g/t Au or the recoveries to 99%.


*unfortunately, missing production targets is quite normal for mining companies.

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