The chief executive of mid-tier gold miner Iamgold Corp believes low-grade deposits are the future, whether the industry is ready or not. He wrote a research paper about his strategy last December, called "Condemned to Excellence." Drawing parallels between the development of low-grade gold and the oil sands, he argued that miners would have to focus on controlling operating costs to run low-grade mines throughout the business cycle. The conventional wisdom is that average grades fall during good times, because high prices make marginal deposits profitable, and then rise again in weaker markets, as lower-quality mines are idled. Some deposits with low grades can be reinvented as higher-grade assets, with mines designed to exploit richer areas and treat the rest as waste.
Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/businessNews/~3/UeFbLwqg1VQ/story01.htm
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