Thread by @AkibaLeisman

$mko.v

Happy New Year to all Mako shareholders.

We end 2020 with our mine ready to be turned on in the New Year.

The goals for 2021 are:

Commercial Production in Q2

Resource delineation drilling at Las Conchitas

1st ever regional drilling program

Exciting year ahead!

$mko.v

Mining back in action!

Still only mined 2.5 benches of HG as we focus on stripping at about 20% of full capacity (to save $ pre-prod).

First 2 benches > 0.5 Oz/t!

Last 1/2 bench was caught in the great fire assay backlog of 2020. Should get those back next week.

$mko.v

Footings for tailings press done — last major piece that needs to be installed

LOTS of piping & connections being welded inside

Based on grades of bench above, that bus is sitting on a very valuable parking lot! I’ll report the 1/2 bench next week (week after latest).

$mko.v

Crusher turned back on to run a few tests.

I don’t know about you, but I think we’ll be able to get to 500 t/d just fine on this part of the circuit (that’s 55.5 t/hr from a standing start!!)

Tick. Tock.

$mko.v

Fill er’ up.

Tick. Tock.

$mko.v

OK Sharkheads!

Who wants to be a MILL-ionaire?

Mill #1 is up and running.

$mko.v

Who’s got balls?

These guys do. Steel balls being manually loaded into mill.

Nice stockpile! I wonder how much gold is in it? You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for me to tell you.

$mko.v

Balls loaded, ready for the good stuff this weekend ...

(that’s what she said)

Should receive first gravity cons from the knelson concentrator next week.

Carbon in tanks. Cyanide headed to site today.

Progress on tailings press ramp.

Tick. Tock.

$mko.v

That nutty smell of Sodium Cyanide.

Tick. Tock.

$mko.v

Cyclones, Knelson concentrator and Shaking table turned on.

I think we have a gravity circuit!

Tick. Tock.

$mko.v

Mineralized material being loaded into mill.

(apologies for video quality — I haven’t figured out how to get videos off our security camera yet).

Tick. Tock.

$mko.v

I know what this is for.

$mko.v

OK Sharkheads!

This is from the LOW GRADE historical dumps.

Something tells me our gravity recoveries will be just fine.

$mko.v

Small test pour

On Jan 31st, for those keeping score

Sitting on top of our high grade ore

I know, because there are stylolites in the core

$mko.v

Looks like we’re back to mining money for the first time since before the storms.

Filter press getting assembled.

It was loud at the mine, so either we are recalibrating our mill trunnion, or the cafeteria is out of Funyuns. Either way, should take a day to fix.

$mko.v

Munch. Munch.

$mko.v

Blue thingy into grey slinky = good

(Tailings conveyor installed, attached to overland conveyor — our main bottleneck right now).

$mko.v

By definition, the last remaining item for construction becomes your bottleneck.

The guys are getting the tailings conveyance system built as quickly as possible (should be done week after next).

Those overland conveyors are sneaking up to the TSF!

$mko.v

Those overland conveyors should be able to 👊 the TSF by tomorrow.

Cross structures nearly complete.

Tailings press should get installed early next week on top of the tailings conveyance system.

Great progress.

$mko.v

Full court (tailings) press.

$mko.v

Press starting to get installed.

Overland conveyor at required length.

I said in the PR this morning this would take 2 weeks to finish.

Let’s try to get this done by late next week.

Or is that too much PRESS-ure for the guys?

$mko.v

Freshly squeezed tailings anyone?

Getting there ...

$mko.v

Some people have asked “how important is our tailings management system?”

To put it in perspective, the system will have cost us 40 #bitcoin out of our 550 #bitcoin capital budget*.

*converted to fiat

$mko.v

I don’t mean to keep PRESS-ing the issue, but we’re totally going to be finished with this by next weekend.

$mko.v

This weekend, the conveyor will do something I haven’t done since the pandemic began ...

Put on a belt

(Conveyor belt arrived)

Press nearly complete.

Mills start turning again this weekend.

“Mr. Furnace” onsite since Tuesday getting our induction furnace ready.

$mko.v

One way to make our gravity circuit more efficient is to use a drum magnet to pull out iron recovered from our gravity concentrator.

This will 🔼 recoveries and 🔽 cyanide use in our Acacia reactor at the refinery.

I can’t wait to report our gravity recoveries!!

$mko.v

I love mocha frosting.

Getting some refractory clay on our crucible. I wonder if we’ll have a real gold pour shortly?

$mko.v

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the Sharkness bind them.

$mko.v

I think our press might be ready (or ready enough as we have 6 days of storage capacity w/in the CIL circuit).

Is that 1/2 bench 595 I see getting picked away at? 598 graded >20 grams (diluted). Hopefully we can do better than that.

Who wants to start this baby up?

$mko.v

That chunk of 1/2 bench 595 is predicted to be some of highest grades of San Albino (on narrower than average widths)

2 faces mined simultaneously. We’re also free-digging this w/out a problem all as our blast hole rig is on the fritz (should get a new one next week).

$mko.v

Watch out Super-Artisanals!

The fiercest security team in all of Nueva Segovia is reporting for duty!

(we have a “slightly different” security challenge than what we had in Mexico)

$mko.v

Plant moving, Press complete. We have vendor reps on site today making sure we didn’t install the Acacia and Filter Press backwards so they can sign off on warranties.

1/2 bench 595 complete. Starting 592. Deez grades might just be good enough to press release too!

$mko.v

What better way to celebrate #MarchMadness than turning on the press!

$mko.v

🎶 You put the cyanide and the coconut and leach the gold out 🎶

$mko.v

Nice example of how we can selectively mine EXTREMELY HIGH GRADE GOLD by mining the vein to within 30cm tolerances w/in a 3m half-bench.

$mko.v

Oh my goodness!

Is that a blast hole rig? We haven’t had a working one for 6 weeks. Pretty amazing we were able to mine the last 2 benches FREE DIG!

Me thinks we should get a spare.

I think you are going to be surprised what diluted grades we’re pulling out.

$mko.v

This bench we just mined is the area we showed visitors on our November 2019 site visit (to those who managed to make it).

I can tell you that the sticks don’t lie.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1195310575871516673

$mko.v

377 tonnes milled in 15hrs. Looks like the mill gremlins are leaving.

The tailings on the ground never saw cyanide, so you don’t need to call the cops! We’ll reprocess those when our stripping circuit passes QA/QC.

Acacia cyanide reactor making some Au in refinery!

$mko.v

The video gives a better bovine-esque effect.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1380584112793223170

$mko.v

Tails. Fresh and Dry.

Check that one off the punch list.

$mko.v

Gangs are everywhere at San Albino.

Just look at all the graffiti they leave on our walls.

$mko.v

Glad I set my alarm. I have to get to the airport this morning.

$mko.v

Carbon and slurry in the tanks and the jacuzzi is on.

Guys, I think it’s about time we add some cyanide to the coconut!

$mko.v

Ladies, if he:

- comes late to your party
- tries to take all your valuables
- has a nutty smell
- puts gold in solution through an oxidation reaction

He ain’t your man, he’s sodium cyanide being added to the Carbon-In-Leach circuit!

$mko.v

Money Bags

$mko.v

Port of Managua: Putting the “Sticks” in Logisticks.

VERY important filter cloths and plates for the tailings press finally released and headed to mine.

I think our inventory model needs to move from JIT (Just In Time) to JITINM (Jesus, I Think I Need More).

$mko.v

Dolce and Gabbana cloths delivered last night getting installed, right on time for the end of Spring season.

I don’t know about you, but I think I want to put some high grade through this plant next week.

$mko.v

The “un-cyanided” tailings we were storing on the ground have been picked up ready for reprocessing.

The mills, thickeners and tanks are now properly bedded.

We start the high grade next week (initially mixed with these ground tailings), and start using the TSF.

$mko.v

Bertha is having an Arnold Palmer right now (half high grade, half low) — with a twist of lime (to control pH).

By end of week, she’ll be drinking the good stuff.

$mko.v

Not gonna lie. I was concerned when I saw our guys unfurling a big poster with the word “Explosion” on it. Turns out it was a “Donut Explosion” billboard & cost effective tarp to put over our hydraulics.

Also, a “subtle” complaint about the pastries in our cafeteria.

$mko.v

Looks like running the Acacia with correct levels of cyanide works better than running it with incorrect levels.

Either that, or Bertha is going to fail her drug test. She did do > 400tpd yesterday. I’m thinking enough blend - let’s give her single malt grades.

$mko.v

Why spend $3m on the most environmentally friendly way of storing tailings (dry-stack) if you’re not gonna use it.

First detoxed, pressed and dried tailings in the TSF.

$mko.v

Upgraded our Knelson pump this weekend. Wasn’t a problem now, as our carbon can handle the high grade, but needed to fix before our stripping circuit looked like that episode of “I Love Lucy”

Can you tell when high grade started? I can. These are concentrate grades.

$mko.v

One of the key issues of CIL availability in April was running out of filter press cloths for the tailings press. Wear and tear was much more than expected, and apparently Amazon Prime doesn’t carry them.

Our team has found a novel solution ... buying more of them.

$mko.v

When you gotta go, you gotta go.

$mko.v

Always a good sign when you need more than 1 bag.

$mko.v

Who’s going to get to the refinery first?

A) Our gold

B) $1925/ozt gold

$mko.v

Bertha looking good with her new pumps.

The race to 500tpd has begun.

Work it, girl!

$mko.v

Looks like Bertha had an order of the Filet last night.

Digested it well too (although the tails grades are likely looking back 4 days).

$mko.v

We’re calling this week’s shipment “Bah Bah Black-sheep”, because she be 3 BAGS FULL!

Should get to the refinery tomorrow.

$mko.v

Carbon stripping in the elution circuit.

We were cutting short our stripping cycle to 8 hrs (from the 12 it should be) to get more strips done & avoid overwhelming the CIL with gold.

Now that the gravity circuit is working great, we can run this normally.

$mko.v

Checking in on getting to the Porcelana Zone.

I’d say we’re close.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1392154224599916544

$mko.v

For anyone who ever wondered what dry-stacked tailings look like after they get rained on …

(Brownies)

We should have enough of a platform to get our radial stacker running in a few weeks. We’ve been stacking them with trucks up until now.

$mko.v

One of the unsung heroes of our mine is our assay lab.

We processed over 38000 samples last month.

We could never mine the way we mine using our grade control program, and we’d be completely in the dark with our plant/metallurgy without it.

$mko.v

When we ran out of filter cloths in April, we were replacing them every 200-250 cycles. Now that we seem to have the correct recipe for tailings, we decided to see how long this last batch could run before needing replacement. We were at almost 750 cycles!

$mko.v

Porcelana. So close you can smell it.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1401981887204179971

$mko.v

Should have gone with our last shipment, but we needed to replace and repack an induction furnace crucible before pouring these boys.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1409915595106230274

$mko.v

Perfectly sized Jesse, sitting on top of our super-high grade oversized rocks. Need a jack-hammer for these boys before running them through our crusher.

Although this was a useful experiment to determine that blasting the ore is better than free-digging it.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1377680847965392902

$mko.v

I like my tailings like I like my Rieslings … DRY!

$mko.v

Since this is no longer > 3 fluid ounces of liquid, can I take this on the plane with me tomorrow?

$mko.v

We found the Super-Artisanals!!

After exposing a vein at LC, it looks like it was picked to the tune of 1.2 tonnes of ~ 1 opt material ~3 weeks of work.

What’s more impressive was that according to this analyst they were able to compress 30,000 years of work into 2!!

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1318519398014029826

$mko.v

We used to include wood from timbering/workings as a byproduct credit, but due to the ⬇️ in lumber prices we’ve stopped.

Was an issue with the plant for a few days (see carbon - wasn’t preg robbing, just gummed up screens). We now have > screening mechanisms in place.

$mko.v

What really impressed me about our geologists, is their ability to color within the lines!

This is a section from a skinny part of the vein before Porcelana and some channel samples from the 1/2 bench down dip - nice grades! Truly epic how we are controlling dilution.

$mko.v

At Potrerillos, the exposed mineralized veins come with their own in situ rock hammers!

$mko.v

Big debate amongst our geologists at Las Conchitas tonight.

Is this a bleb, or is this a blob?

(It’s a bleb, and mineralized)

$mko.v

You can see how the pit was designed to have a little nubbin to take as little of the “Dead Zone” as possible.

While we’re scratching the surface of Porcelana now, we’ll be in the Sweet Meat in about a full bench (6m away).

https://twitter.com/akibaleisman/status/1184815660154675201?s=21

$mko.v

Great video showing how we are controlling mining dilution to < 30cm on either side of the vein.

This was from a while ago - we can get to < 20cm now.

Our dilution control program is without peer.

$mko.v

Our geos get upset every time I make fun of them for putting our mine-site core shack LITERALLY on top of the best part of the San Albino vein.

Well, I guess we’ve got to build a new one (platform complete).

Geos: costing engineers money since 5000 BC

$mko.v

We’re mining half bench 562-565 right now. Still not in the “Sweet Meat” of Porcelana. Just the narrow El Jobo vein directly above.

I would guess < 10% of “ore” mined in July was Porcelana.

We should get into the real part of the zone at 556, and possibly even 559.

$mko.v

This is a better look of El Jobo with channel samples and its true width.

Grades would run about 1/2 ounce in the vein. Remember, this is the sh!tty part of the deposit.

$mko.v

A few changes in 2 years!

$mko.v

3rd rig.

$mko.v

Looks like we have some more gold to sell, even after our $4B market order last night.

(Your eyes are not deceiving you - the color of these buttons is getting progressively more golden)

$mko.v

Wow. This mine has certainly opened up!

Plenty of working faces to get tonnes.

$mko.v

Rigs 4 & 5 (man-portable) getting loaded for shipping. We should get them to site in a couple of weeks.

Who’s ready for a real Mako-F’n drill program?

$mko.v

Tuesdays aren’t just for tacos anymore.

$mko.v

What’s on today’s menu?

These buttons are running 5-10% higher gold content than normal. I’m not sure why.

I’m guessing it was because we began to regenerate carbon. We also continuously optimize the current in the EW cell. But whatever the reason, I’ll take it.

$mko.v

Big day today. Today is the first time our independent board members will meet the controlling shareholder (I hope they enjoyed the little sprinkle of rain we got last night in NY/CT).

A big day requires big accessories.

$mko.v

Just got some complaints about losing internet in El Jicaro for a couple of hours because of the inch of rain we got last night.

That was better than my post-apocalyptic drive from NY to Greenwich yesterday morning!

Who wants to see what the grade of that Sweet Meat is?

$mko.v

Carne Dulce

$mko.v

The first two were from the CIL-elution-EW circuits. The last bitty one was from the gravity-acacia-EW circuit (first time ever > 60% Au).

Me thinks we need to run the gravity circuit more or less full time, now that we’re picking up some sweet meat.

$mko.v

We’ve decided to raise capital to fund our 60km exploration program …

… by selling gold at a MAKO-F’ing profit.

(this week’s haul)

$mko.v

In 🇲🇽 they have Carne Asada

In 🇳🇮 they have Carne A-Sweet-a

That area by channel 21 in 1/2 bench 556 is well over 3m thick. Grades I suppose are good too.

$mko.v

New discovery at San Albino imminent!

Our geologists are moving our old core shack sitting literally on top of the best part of San Albino to a new location.

It is almost guaranteed that the new location will also be on top of a lot of gold.

$mko.v

Our shallow, lightly dipping deposit allows for creative exploration

When rig is available we blanket targets w/ blast holes — this can go ~18m deep

It’s like a subsurface geochem program. We target hotspots with core

I wonder if we’ll make a discovery this way? 🤔

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1377680847965392902

$mko.v

Buttons.

$mko.v

Since energy costs are en fuego, how much are we impacted?

Of ~$1.9m/mo in minesite costs, we spend ~$300k on diesel (~50/50 operations/generation) and ~$25k on propane — a high % of costs.

But it’s a low % of revenue because our grade is so Mako F-ing high!

$mko.v

Sharknado VI: The Golden Tiburonicane

Villagers desperately try to get gold shipped before 9AM so it counts as Q3 revenue, but a rare Central American weather pattern powered by gold dust and sharks threatens their plans.

Find out what happens this November! 🦈 🌀

$mko.v

Look what we found on this bench.

A little WD-40, and she’ll be as good as new.

$mko.v

I like big buttons, and I can not lie.

$mko.v

We often brag about our assay lab, which can process > 40k assays per month.

But I think our artisanal miner friends have an assay lab that works just as well.

$mko.v

Ground clearing for the Central Pit has commenced. We’ll start mining our second pit which contains the Arras vein next month.

Unfortunately at Arras, we have to settle for grades like this:

https://twitter.com/akibaleisman/status/1435576790546792448?s=21

$mko.v

Next half bench more of the same. Me thinks we were a bit too conservative on our void model.

Those old-timers were definitely there. Why they didn’t take everything is a question I’ve been asking.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1442173669997006852

$mko.v

To pour 6 buttons, we had to start smelting at 4AM and didn’t stop until around 10PM last night.

Hard “Proof of Work” for our shiny stuff.

$mko.v

I don’t want to tell our geologists how to do their jobs, but I’d dig there.

$mko.v

These channel samples are on section and at depth to SA19-155. I guess the drill hole was right.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1436729795379806211

$mko.v

Yup. That will reconcile nice.

$mko.v

We were going to wait until the 30th for a month-end clean out, but our electrowinning plates were getting too full (a good problem to have).

So this is the penultimate shipment of October.

$mko.v

Blasting at the Central Pit (Arras Vein) has commenced.

We will be mining the Central and West Pit (San Albino Vein) simultaneously going forward.

$mko.v

Complaints you like to hear:

Guys at the refinery just asked for a bigger barrel mixer to mix flocculant with our gold concentrates before smelting.

The old one was too small.

$mko.v

Trick or Treat! 🎃

These are certainly better than candy-corn!

I think October will be a good haul.

$mko.v

Bertha was having all the fun this year.

Now it’s time for Betty to take a spin.

$mko.v

I count 5 mining faces (hint: one of them is sort of hidden). How many do you see?

I arbitrarily told the guys to do a complete LOM resource reconciliation when that bottom center platform is complete (1/2 bench 550). That still looks like ~2 weeks left to me.

$mko.v

Looks like it’s buttons for brunch.

$mko.v

According to our mineralogical studies, authored by some of the best geochemical minds on the planet, we have determined that grey shiny stuff is correlated to yellow shiny stuff.

$mko.v

Grey shiny stuff good.

$mko.v

And remember. This is from the open pit.

I wonder what would happen when we start looking at the underground?

$mko.v

You can see old-timers were here, but they left most of the HG zone intact. Certainly more than we modeled.

SA16-MET20 drilled through void & muck. We modeled that as a separate unit.

I will hold our resource model up against any RESERVE that’s out in the market.

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1459873529957081088

$mko.v

That looks like the last mineralized section in 1/2 bench 550 at Porcelana (you can see blast holes getting full bench 544 ready).

That means we can get the LOM reconciliation report together.

I won’t bother MDA on 🦃. I’m in 🇳🇮 next week. So the week after.

$mko.v

For those wondering where Potrerillos is, it’s to the left.

$mko.v

That’s some nice Galena! This sample would grade multiple ounces.

$mko.v

Me: “Zoran, I’m only going to be here for a few days, and I would like to see La Segoviana. How long will it take?”

Zoran: “Have you ever seen Indiana Jones?”

I hope he means the gold statue scene and not the snake scene.

$mko.v

Freshly poured buttons anyone?

$mko.v

18km away from the mine at La Segoviana.

Prob’ly Nothin’

$mko.v

And about 400m away from that. I like the Galena in this one!!

Small miners need about 30 g/t Au to make it work for them, but this was a particularly nice sample (none of that 1 ounce dregs).

$mko.v

Cool video of our freshly-pressed tailings.

$mko.v

At San Albino, we put the “morph” in morphology.

A good example of the detail we needed to go through to get a handle on the geological model.

It’s also why delineating a “big” resource is difficult. Don’t confuse that with us not having a shark-ton of gold.

$mko.v

The SW pit of San Albino (pic taken from north Las Conchitas).

While there were a bunch of high grade hits since 2011, we couldn’t make heads or tails of the model, so there are just 450 ozt in the resource.

Guess what? we can make heads and tails of the model now.

$mko.v

No freakin’ way!!

Look who else is in our office building in Managua!!

$mko.v

We have 2 rigs at Las Conchitas now. One at Southern Block — down dip of the Mango vein.

Other at Northern Block, doing condemnation drilling for an expanded waste dump. But the down dip projection of San Pablo ain’t sterilized.

I wonder if we’ll find anything?

https://twitter.com/AkibaLeisman/status/1412106604862922757

$mko.v

Our gold was so scared of #bitcoin today, I had to scurry it away in an armored vehicle.

(Btw: not sure why the color looks like this (bad camera angle?) — it actually graded relatively high Au content).

$mko.v

Me thinks we’re gonna need to move that haul road shortly!

$mko.v

OK Sharkheads!

It was a tough week last week, so we went to some bars last night.

$mko.v

Looks like the Flomax is working.

$mko.v

No comment.

$mko.v

Last pour of 2021.

As each of our countries’ business holiday calendars seem to observe Christmas/NYE on a different day this year, this is from stripped material from before the evening of 12/25 — so we’ll have just over 6 days of inventory heading into the New Year.

@threadreaderapp unroll