I've looked at this for a while now and don't see the logic of incurring the overburden stripping costs up front vs driving a decline or shaft in the area between the two deposits. Initial capital costs for UG would be much less than a $100 million (?) in stripping costs. I suspect operating costs would be similar or less than open pit, you could do the work to convert to reserves vs resources and the likelihood of environmental approvals would be much higher. All those points are attractive to whoever will mine Albany. If it ever got to the point of mining the surface crown pillars (top 50 or so meters of mineralization) the amount of OB that would have to be stripped would be much less than for an open pit to 500m depth and a much smaller footprint. Add in systematic OB stripping to supplement tailings for backfill of block and cave mining addresses a systematic planned stripping of OB over mine life, tailings management, lowers CAPEX during startup and expenses stripping during production. So why open pit when UG mining might make it more viable and attractive! ... Been There