ore % does of course fall off away from ca 67% vei

ore % does of course fall off away from ca 67% veins (thus separators and if need be beneficiation plant which Chinese use on a regular basis) but have enough from 1 vein for est 46 years at Panamax / month- overbroad govt games designed to use red tape to solve the illegal mines problem is apparently holding up shipping-it was such red tape that combined w unexpected country wide cancelling of permits Dec 2011 that prevented a Dec 2011 shipping and new audit regs after issued permit of Jan 23 2012 resulted in delay of shipping -for which govt punishes CWRN- left hand not knowing what right hand is doing

As u mention, with a new Mex govt admin as of Dec 1, the new govt officials need to be taken care of in the manner in which business is conducted in Mexico -however doing so would violate USA law-1 of the conundrums USA businesses deal with

As CWRN posted sometime ago Bob had estimated 35-40% of the 200k tons of 0-1mm to be processed by trommel was iron chips-which would be ca 75k tons (37.5%) as sinter fines.
I had posted an independent article a long time ago which indicated sinter fines brought a price ca 85% of the larger iron product.

The 0-1mm have already been through the regular magnetic separator to remove dirt etc, but go again thru a magnetic separator acquired July 3 for the trommel apparently to remove small particles of dirt missed by the regular separator or which was ensconced in the chips etc.

By now they would presumably have far more than the 75k tons iron chips of June 2012 but even at only 85k tons current spot price of ca 150/ton times 85% ,which is $10.837 million for the sinter fines byproduct. 

The fertilizer product as per peoples dd and info posted by CWRN, goes for 90 /ton as is for the worst product posted on yellow pages alibaba by 3rd rate producers (some probably unlicensed or illegal) to up to 550/ton if processed further by onsite processing plant-as mentioned by CWRN in March-

I remember bingos 9-8-12 post ( some of the info I didnt have when I wrote post 2128) that fert was worth 3 times more than the regular iron product--lowest iron price at the time was 87/ton times 3 is 261/ton. If we are conservative and average the lowest price for a 3rd rate product by an otherwise off the books producer on alibaba w bingos estimate we 'd get 175/ton for fert by 125 k tons  fert as of June 2012 or $21.875 million plus 10.837 million for sinter fines equals $32.7 million US dollars (and without raising the price of fert to correspond to current iron spot of $150/ton)

divided into a possible 800,000 tons of production-which I believe has a cost of 10/ton or less (info I didnt have June 2012) at 10/ton would give total pro cost of $8 million (trucking and shipping are not part of production cost).

So the income received by the waste byproducts of production would exceed cost of pro by $24.7 million divided into 800k tons is a negative cost of 30/ton for the main product in this hypothetical-we dont know actual tons of pro nor actual sales price of byproduct until sold-so of necessity its a hypo-but based on current prices and the amount of byproduct as of June 2012 and estimate of 800k tons production.

Even at only 90/ton for fert would have negative cost of production

A few other metal producers have negative cost for main product-e.g a hypo silver producer who sells byproduct of other minerals-I do know of one at a ca previous silver cost of 1/ton due to byproducts

As per the posted many times chart some producers have a negative cost of pro due to premium ore alone,for they get an extra ca 5/ton for every % iron above the 62% benchmark (they have a 3rd bench now at 66%). Very few producers have this fert byproduct-which one rarely hears about.

last 2 PR's just say fertilizer is sold into the organic fertilizer market. If fertilizer is 62.5% of the 200k tons (100-37.5%), then would be 125k tons fertilizer .

Amount of fert and sinter fines byproduct could be much greater now which if pro is 800 k tons would make the figures even more favorable.