Week 2 Senior Design

Critical Findings Workers and their families should be housed in Ruby Alaska – The company should build a dental and medical clinic in Ruby – The clinic should have ER and stabilization treatment capacity for life threatening medical emergencies – The company should provide helicopter air lift to hospitals in Fairbanks

Critical Findings Gold is the single most important metal in your ore – Copper is significant, iron and silver are only incidental You have 2.6 billion insitu tons of ore although the cut-off grade for this amount is unsure Ancorage and Valdez are the only real viable ocean ports currently available – A railway to Fairbanks links to these ports The Yukon River can support barge traffic about 5 months per year – The ocean port where the Yukon River enters the Barring Sea is not viable for heavy shipping – Nennana up the Yukon river has a modest port that can link to the Alaska Railway

Critical Findings Alaska has well trained miners in the area and training facilities at Fairbanks You have gold and silver refining in Fairbanks (you still know nothing about Copper) You know where you can get explosives and where Caterpillar dealers are located. (The type of parts warehouses they have was not clearly shown) Copper, Gold, and Silver appear to have stable markets for the foreseeable future. You have a draft of a wage scale.

Critical Findings You will need to move extensive supplies and products in and out of the mine – Barge, rail, and road appear to be the only viable options. This looks like it will be a big mine

Errors that May Have Impact The rate for purchased power is wrong

More Errors? Medicare is a program for retired person health care – Employers pay a percentage of wages or salaries during employees working years – this was missed in assessing costs – Health insurance rates were based on Medicare not worker families The decision to build your own basic medical may also influence this. Life Insurance Benefits were quantified but not the cost of the life insurance policy

More Errors Wage scale increases were based on the percentage increase over State Minimum wage not for all wages – This error may be serendipitous because by increasing wages 11.5% over your competition you may maximize your chances of stealing workers Workmans Compensation Costs were not found Are you happy with 10 vacation days? No sick leave days were factored in The cost of your proposed education benefits were not factored in Over-time may increase other fringe costs.

More Errors It was said there is no real snow accumulation – Records I have seen suggest over a foot of snow accumulation is average – A lady I met about a week ago who lives in Fairbanks tells me their snow if very light and powdery and that 2 to 4 ft total is common in Fairbanks.

Issues the Group Needs to Come to Grips with It appears that you will link to Fairbanks and the Alaska railroad – Even if you barge between Nennana and Ruby (since the port on the Barring sea is not viable) Salahi has called the high price scenario for historical records – the low for bottom prices and an eyeballed mid price – This produces a huge range in prices – How happy are you with the prices?