More bad luck for De Beers in Canada

[mike04456]

De Beers delays development schedule for Victor diamond project

 

[pqcollectibles]

Five Years, if the permit process proceeds smoothly and, "$85 million to date at Victor, including $25 million on feasibility studies. Capital costs are estimated at $825 million, once in production.", for a mine with a projected life of 10 years??? And only employ 400 people???

Must be some whopper of a profit ratio there!!

 

[mike04456]

----------------
On 1/28/2004 2:16:35 PM pqcollectibles wrote:





Must be some whopper of a profit ratio there!!

----------------

For a successful mine, it can be. It's getting to that point that's the tough part. /idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif

 

[pqcollectibles]

I guess this is really not much different than the time and cost spent researching and developing a new product.

Hubby is in Pharmaceutical Research. Many YEARS and $$$$ are spent on new drugs that might loose FDA Exclusivity License rights in 5 years of making it to market. Then the name brand has to compete with generics. Not counting the drugs that die in development and never see a return on investment.

Still,..... Seeing the dollar figure and time in print is a bit mind boggling!

 

[mike04456]

----------------
On 1/28/2004 3:36:39 PM pqcollectibles wrote:





I guess this is really not much different than the time and cost spent researching and developing a new product.

Still,..... Seeing the dollar figure and time in print is a bit mind boggling!

----------------

That's actually a pretty good analogy. While the Victor project has been in the works since about 1998, De Beers has actually been prospecting in Canada since the 1960s and has spent untold millions trying to find a productive site. Most kimberlites are actually not diamondiferous, most of those that are, are not economic, and even with the rare economic site like Victor, you typically need to spend upwards of a billion dollars to get it into production. With that kind of investment required, I don't fault De Beers (or anyone else in the diamond mining business) too much for wanting to keep the prices up...