Really bad. Bad. What first should have been level, like flat, and you were like, tilt? Okay. You should have told him to see right in front of you, not the site.
Alright, the only part of that I’d agree with is I could have spent more time to get level. But I didn’t want to — I didn’t want to keep the truck waiting.
Tell him that. Tell him that my number one priority is always production.

Muchas were expecting that, were you?

It’s proving a little bit tricky to follow what’s happening here. There’s people going everywhere. I think we’re in their way a little bit.

At the Golden Eagles Cooperative in Bolivia, Parker and the crew joined the 32 mine owners for the gold weigh.
When we first turned up, these guys said that they were taking half a kilo a month.
Yeah, which doesn’t make a lot of sense based on their own workings.
The crew suspect the true figure should be four times what they’ve been told.
If they’re right, it could be a lucrative investment opportunity for Parker.

Let’s have a look.
Oh wow.
Oh yes, it’s made of wood.

The Cooperative uses a wooden gravimetric gold table, similar to Parker’s in the Yukon.
That’s cool.
Ah yes, see… how many hours’ worth of pay is this?

Okay, it’d be interesting to know how much dirt can go through a chute an hour.
Then we’d be able to know grams per yard.
We’d have a metric then.
Yeah, all we need to know is how many dump trucks a shift.
So they’re running four dump truck loads down the street per hour.
There’s about 15 yards in each dump truck — 60 yards an hour.
Then we’ve got it.

This is good.
The miners use mercury to bind the gold together.
See? See quite a bit there.
Wow. Jeez.
Always freaks me out when they just touch mercury like that.
But I know it’s not dangerous to stand near it though, is it?
No, not like this — unless it’s being burnt.
Then it’s bad.
Touching is the least dangerous, then ingesting, and then burning.
But even when you’re touching, it’s still an accumulative thing — like over time, it’s not good for your body.

So that’s mercury — it’s full of gold.
It’s like a cheesecloth to squeeze the mercury out.
The mercury burns off the gold, but you’ve just got the gold left.
Gotcha.

Be interesting to see if they had outside investment — if they’d be open to changing their techniques and how they’re doing things — or if they’re pretty set in their ways.
Like, if Parker brought his techniques here — big, big change.

[Music]

These guys are making the best effort possible to do it the safest way they’ve got.
The retort basically allows you to recycle the mercury, and it keeps it a little bit more contained.
They’re trying not to let it get into the water systems, into the atmosphere.
If you have to use mercury, this is the way to do it.

These guys look like they’re on a different planet, like they’ve landed on Mars.
So that’s it — magic’s happening in there now.
This is exciting.
This is cool.
I’m excited.
Are we allowed in there?
I don’t know if we really want to be without all the equipment on.

Once the 960 yards of dirt have been processed, it’s time to weigh the gold.
Oh my God — that’s good, right?
Oh my… okay.

To consider making an investment, Parker needs to see at least 9 oz or 280 g of gold — the moment we’ve been waiting for.
More than 50 grand.
More than 70.
More than 80.
More than 90.

They don’t have enough weight there, do they?
No. What is that, 91 grams?
This — 97.9.

3.2 oz worth $5,440 — a third of what Parker hoped the mine would be making.
Is that a standard result?
It’s not bad.
I’m not saying it’s bad.

Do they ever test to see if they’re losing gold?
The recovery rate is 65 to 70%, right?
Yeah.
But I would bet that if they narrowed up their sluice box a little bit, and put a couple different types of riffles in there, they could probably get that up to at least 85%.

Yeah. No worries. Thanks, man. Thanks, guys.

Okay. And we’ve got all the numbers now. We know the gold weight. We can do some math.
Going to be like an ounce per 300 and something yards.

Is that…
That’s shitty.
But yeah, I think that they’ve had some really good weeks or months over the years, and that’s been able to pay for equipment and stuff like that.

And then now they can kind of get by.
Yeah, it’s a shame.
But the biggest issue is that there’s — what — 32 owners here?
Yeah.
32.

32 owners for an ounce per two or three hundred yard ground is not what we’re here for.
So we’ll keep moving.

Well, good job. Good investigating, Tai.
We got there in the end.
I think this was — it was definitely an introduction to Bolivia.
I’ve never seen a mine site before that has 32 owners.

But after running the numbers, I just don’t think it’s a place for Parker.
And I can totally understand why.
You know, it has to be a tens-of-thousands-of-ounces kind of project, right?
If you’re going to go to the other side of the planet.

When it comes to the whole cooperative model — I’m not a very cooperative person.
So I think I’d really struggle with that.
We’ll find something.

I’m Parker Schnabel, and you’re watching Discovery Australia.
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