Steve Busby
Analyst · CIBC. Please go ahead.
Let me start with the second part there first. The mining is running quite smoothly, the operation is running well, we still have the support of local law enforcement escorts on the access road, all that's working incredibly well for us. So the mine is operating very smoothly, we're very happy with that, we don't anticipate any changes to that going forward. Relative to the cost at COSE during the first half, great question. Actually, during the first half of the year, we moved just under 3 million tons of spent ore that was sitting on pad 1. Pad 1 was the old pad that mine finders had originally built, that had failed. And we are now approaching the point of the leach pad development at Dolores, where we want to expand into that pad 1 area and repair and upgrade what was there originally, so in order to do that, we have to remove that spent ore. There is actually some value in that spent ore, so we're removing it, like I say it took about 3 million tons out during the first half. And the team at the site, actually collaboratively, they were able to re–anticipated some production out of that ore, based on the grades and the recovery projections we had on that, they went through some pretty extensive testing and proved that by better cyanide management, better ph management, we could actually enhance the recoveries of that material. So a lot of those costs that you see in H1 is additional reagents that we use during the bad pad 1 relocation. As we move into H2 of 2019, that's going to drop way off. We slowed that way down, we just needed enough room to start or do technical work in repairing that [indiscernible] of pad 1 during the first half of the year. We're now – there we're building on that pad as we speak, so we’ve slowed that rate of movement of that spent ore way down, there is about 2 million tons left and we – it may take us as much as a year to move that next 2 million tons. So you won't see that cost impact moving into the second half that we had in the first half. Relative to the pulp agglomeration plant, we have now got the third set of filter expansion kits on, the plants running really well, we're consistently achieving about 5,000 tons a day through it, just under 5,000 tons a day, recoveries are at what we expected. The site really likes it because we get that recovery immediately versus out on the pad. As you know, we've got quite long leach cycles out there. So as we start to move into high-grade ores later in the year, we're really excited about that pulp agglomeration plant delivering returns right away for us.