Understanding Junior Miners
This one-off pdf publication has drawn on the technical expertise of a ‘panel’ of specialists with considerable experience in the mining sector.
IT AIMS TO HELP:
- Investors chart the waters of interrogating and analysing early stage and development juniors
- Bankers lending to junior miners developing new projects
- Directors of junior mining companies when faced with greenfield project proposals
- Students undertaking academic courses that involve understanding mining projects and junior companies
- Government officials in countries where the public sector is seeking to become more actively involved in its resources sector
- Managers in junior mining companies who may have joined with one set of specific skills, and are required to get a broader perspective as they move up to more senior executive positions
- NGO’s seeking to understand more about mining projects affecting local communities

Examining Core
Synopsis
A.1 INTRODUCTION – Style and content

Preparing core for Assaying in remote region
The one-stop ‘holy grail’ of valuation in an environment where data on resources, reserves, operating costs and even processing technologies are still uncertain
Essential road map for travelling
A.2 AIM MINING COMPANIES SNAPSHOT
Potential attraction of juniors to majors
What links with majors can mean for juniors
What are the assets the company owns?
B.1 RESERVES AND RESOURCES
Different levels of asset content reporting
Reporting and responsibility
B.2 NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OFTHE MINERAL ASSETS
Regional Prospectivity
The Platinum group Elements
Diamonds
Gold
B.3 EXPLORATION METHODS AND EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
Criteria for an effective geoscientific evaluation
Sampling methodologies, data and integrity
Reporting of exploration results
Estimation and reporting of mineral resources
A final checklist: key questions for determining the effectiveness of a mineral resource estimation
Diamond exploration – different challenges
Improvements in exploration technology

Fiona and Cu in rock
Economic exploitation of the assets
Do they actually own the assets?
Will the assets deliver an economic return?
Developing the assets
Open pits
Underground operations
Processing/Metallurgy
Balancing between grade, throughput and recovery levels in achieving an economic return
Issue specific to PgE juniors, where ‘downstream is more important’
Logistics issues
Management record in developing projects to production stage vs. finding /purchasing property rights
C.2 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Prediction, prevention and treatment
Environmental assessment procedure
Integrated environmental assessment (IEM)
Social Impact Assessment (SIA)
Financial and valuation issues
The cost equation
What items are included in ‘cash costs’?
What other cost considerations should be reviewed?
Revenues
Spot of long term prices?
D.2 VALUATION ISSUES AND APPROACHES
Net asset value (NAV)
Ore in the ground
Net present value (NPV)
Discount rates
Probability weightings
valuation approaches by potential industry buyers
Producing companies
Managements and Board Issues