Take a look at what NCU said on the release of their Feasibility Feb 7th 2012:
''The Feasibility Study was prepared under the direction of Tetra Tech, Inc. ("Tetra Tech"), an industry leading international engineering firm, with substantial input from Merit Consultants International Inc. ("Merit"), which compiled and reviewed the initial capital cost estimate. ''
I'm going to find out a couple more things on that process...but while we wait.
2 very good recent papers recently written by Jay Collins: Jay Collins is a professional engineer and President of Vqancouver based Merit Consultants international.
This guy is hands on, no BS, old school type og guy.
June 1 2012,
1) Cost overruns on capital development, an ever growing concern
Also, our company, Merit Consultants International, has a long-term vested interest in seeing to it that projects that are supposed to be financially viable at feasibility do move forward. We are also deeply concerned that, in our opinion, the bar is being raised so high on capital cost expectations that financiers and developers are becoming too hesitant to move forward.
So, where are things going wrong with capital costs?
So, for Galore Creek, Donlin Creek, Conga, El Cobre, Mount Milligan, Tasiast, Boleo and all the other projects out there that have spiraling capital costs and eroded schedules, developers take care.
Remember that the devil is in the details and the details are in the management.
http://www.meritconsultants.net/i/pdf/Open_Letter_June_1-2012.pdf
2) June 27 2012
In the age of computers we have created generations of proficient computeropertaors but not necessarily ones with the qualities needed to best understand the output.
I think all of us were mesmerized by the professional, if inaccurate, look of things.
Meanwhile, plants were being built based on non-dimensional equipment layouts that compromised access and resulted in more field adjustments; documents were prepared with little more than a glance, let alone a technical review; huge databases of quickly outdated and often-slanted information were being held together by the slogan “more is better.”
We started to relax back into a posture that said, “It has to be right. The computer says so.”
http://www.meritconsultants.net/i/pdf/2012-06-27_NR.pdf
