Help me understand mining banking jargon

Hi all,

I am trying to familiarize myself with all the jargon associated with natural resources/mining team within an IB. I have been reading pre feasibility studies to try and strengthen my understanding, but I am unsure of a few things and don't really have anyone to ask. Can you please confirm my understanding of the points in the table are correct?


Target Parameters   

1 Life of Mine from production start 9.6 (Yrs) 2 Ore Reserve – Base Case 21.4Mt 3 Waste : Ore ratio 4.76 4 Copper Grade 1.02% 5 Copper cut-off grade (excluding silver credit) 0.34% 6 Silver Grade 10.3g/t 7 Processing Life 8.8 (Yrs) 8 Processing Plant Capacity (July 2020 to Sept 2023) 2.5Mt 9 Copper in concentrate – LOM 203kt 10 Copper in concentrate – LOM 447Mlb 11 Copper in concentrate – Annual average 24kt 12 Copper in concentrate – Annual average 51Mlb 13 Silver in concentrate – LOM 6,097koz

14 Silver in concentrate – Annual average 690koz

My understanding:

  1. Simply the life of the mine
  2. 21.4 million tonnes of ore to be mined over the life of the mine
  3. For every 1 tonne of ore there is 4.76 tonnes of waste. If we use point 2 above is it right to say there will be 101.86Mt of waste? (21.4Mt * 4.76t).
  4. Every unit of ore contains 1.02% of Copper?
  5. Minimum amount of copper in ore to be acceptable?
  6. 10.3 grams of silver per tonne of ore?
  7. Operational life of processing plant
  8. Plant is able to process 2.5 million tonnes of ore per year
  9. Mine will produce a total of 203 kilotonnes of Copper
  10. Mine will produce a total of 440 million pounds of Copper
  11. Mine will produce an average of 24 kilotonnes of Copper per year
  12. Mine will produce an average of 51 million pounds of copper per year
  13. Mine will produce a total of 6,097 thousand ounces of Silver
  14. Mine will produce an average of 690 thousand ounces of Silver per year

Now is it fair to say that If i wanted to forecast revenue of Copper, say $2.50 per ounce, I would just multiply that by point 12 to get a yearly revenue number?

Appreciate the assistance but hopefully i have understood it!

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