Gold Mining Equipment for this Project

by Arie K
(Israel)

I came by your site just a couple of weeks ago, and find it very interesting. I do not have any experience in using mining equipment like excavators and wash plants, but I was involved in a small diamond mining project in West Africa (using manual local labor). I am a semi-retired 58 years old and looking for new interesting opportunities.

I have some questions mainly regarding the purchasing and operating of the equipment needed for this project.

The two most important items needed are the excavator and wash plant. What would be the quantity of gravel we would have to process daily in order to run a balanced operation meaning not to purchase unnecessary expensive equipment, and still run the project at a reasonable pace. That question is directly linked to what is the approximate ratio of gold/tone yield, on those sites based on your tests.

What would be the approximate cost of purchasing and or leasing of appropriate above 2 items on the local market, and what would be the cost of employing local people to operate the equipment.

Do you have any idea how deep to the gold bearing gravel, and how deep until the gravel ends.

I do not speak Spanish. What would be the cost of using a local translator?

I assume we would need to use local labor to some extent (beside heavy equipment operator/s). How many you estimate, and what is the approximate daily cost for labor?

Looking forward to hear from you
Arie

Stan's response: You are correct, the excavator and the wash plant are the two most important pieces of equipment in your mining operation.

A deposit for an excavator will be between $8,000 and $16,000 depending on the brand name. A wash plant will cost about $8,000 to $10,000. In all, it is estimated that you will require between $40,000 and $50,000 of up front working capital to get started properly with your mining operation. You should also have double that amount as a contingency reserve.

Expected production volume should be around 250 cubic meters of gravel each day. The project owner is using a projected grade of .4 grams of gold to the cubic meter of gravel. That said, the project owner is a very conservative man. If he estimates a grade of .4, you could likely double that figure in real life.

The gold-bearing gravel begins approximately 1-3 meters below a sandy overburden. Gold values increase slightly the deeper you go. Based on test results over a wide area, we expect to see these gold values remain consistent.

Bilingual personnel will be available for you along with an adequate sized crew. Many more details will be available in the Free Information Package as soon as it is available.

I hope that helps!