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Hi Dasut,
Thank you for the explanation , from your explanation which are the most appropriate ore processing methods chosen needs some consideration a technical understanding of mine operations, possibly then the original team were out of their depth and it wasn't until a more experienced team confirmed which plant was the most appropriate that was a deciding factor in abandoning the project .
I assume there are likely operational cost differences between the two different processes
https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/gold-ore-roasting-techniques
https://www.mogroup.com/insights/case-studies/mining-and-metals/robust-low-cost-biox-process-at-fosterville-gold-mine/
It would have helped share holders understand the Cey managements reasoning to abandon B.W. if a brief explanation of these issues had been given at the time
Tibbs
Talking of all the pundits who tend to be a bit worse than monkey throwing at a dart board with half marked up and half down, who are at least right 50% of the time (but then have no interest in sucking punters in to buy) this from Slater over on the Hochschild board “ I find it comical how Andrew Maguire can still come on every week with such conviction and enthusiasm about 'silver to imminently break the financial system' and pretend that the previous 999 nonsense predictions never happened. Maybe he has amnesia and genuinely think it's the first time he's said it.” So do I and on gold, and all the others who have been calling on it shooting to the stars and then when wrong again blame the lack of buyers on conspiracies, quite Trumpian in this fake news world of his and his friends’ creation.
Major European markets traded higher in the premarket session of Thursday amid the release of a new slate of corporate earnings.
Earlier, Daimler Truck announced its earnings for Q2 2022 rose 18% to €12.1 billion. Siemens AG's revenue climbed 11% to come in at €17.9 billion, while ThyssenKrupp AG and RWE AG posted gains in sales and EBITDA, respectively.
The DAX gained 0.21% at 8:03 am CET, while the CAC 40 added 0.18%, and the FTSE 100 declined 0.17%.
The euro was down by 0.18% against the dollar at 8:02 am CET, selling for $1.02816. In comparison, the pound lost 0.23% to go for $1.21867 simultaneously.
Baha Breaking News (BBN) / JG
Simply Wall St articles seem to be mainly generated by a computer algorithm and all follow the same format / layout. The numbers are generally useful, but the interpretation of them leaves a great deal to be desired (IMO) and always fail to recognise the broader market / global issues.
Yep, like I was saying at the start of the year- inflation would top and start to drop later this year- bit sooner than i thought- let's hope it continues. Again, as I've said many times, any recession will be shallow and it's nothing like 2008 as the drivers are different.
Tibbs I saw first hand the problems related to refractory ore at Bogosu in Ghana where a roaster was installed because this was at the time the way to process such difficult ore that can't be leached using cyanide.
The roaster didn't work so the initial company involved in the mine had to be baled out the funding organisation. Eventually a BIOX plant was introduced and as far as I am aware is still in use.
Reading between the lines because I can't find anything to substantiate the reason for Batie West being non core, would suggest together with Lycopodium , the new team decided the ore body at BW just wasn't viable for Centamin and their knowledge/Experience base.
Hi Dasut,
Thank you, it would be good if at least there is a chance to get something back, lets hope so! Also Centamin's never delivering the promised updates on these projects erodes investors trust and raises suspicions about the managements integrity and professional abilities.
As you rightly point out Egypt has not been without its problems, the farcical court case is still awaiting either a ruling, or declaring null and void should Law 32 ever be ratified by the SCC!
The withdrawn diesel subsidy dispute remains unresolved and although it may only be $20 odd million or so that amount of cash could be very useful at these times , but even though Centamin has a very strong case and would most likely win the Egyptian authorities would then have very great difficulty in paying that amount back all at once!
Tibbs Batie West was only part of the deal with Ampella and as I say if they get a couple of mines up and running we are on the right track. So not entirely a sow's ear but has delayed them getting into production but better late than never.
Exactly ,read kitco gold index.
Inflation was below forecast, reducing pressure to increase interest rates.
Possibly because dollar dropped?
Gold price rose sharply on 1.30pm US inflation news. Explain?
Re recent 'Simply Wall Street' publication on Cey 2022 Q2 update?
https://simplywall.st/stocks/gb/materials/lse-cey/centamin-shares/news/centamin-plc-loncey-just-reported-half-year-earnings-have-an
This publication is not very impressive, going on about “revenue”.
Revenue is a product of ounces sold (approx. produced) times gold price received. The latter is not under control of management.
I did not carry out a detailed analys but did see that the financial were not terribly impressive after deducting the high levels of capex.
Even so, a dividend yield of 5% is more than decent placing Centamin in the top tier of precious metals company paying dividends.
The fact that they pay out so much indicates that management is confident about being able to afford it in the long run.
Looking at the large drop in capex in the near future, that is reasonable.
Working cost should also come down once things have bedded down the transition to owner mining.
Hopefully their strip ratio comes down as well.
In my mind, if you want exposure to precious metal companies, Centamin is a pretty decent choice!
Kees Dekker
The present methods of reporting by mining companies don't give investors the whole picture or indeed analysts enough of the most relevant information.
https://www.newcrest.com/sites/default/files/2022-07/220721_Newcrest%20Jun%202022%20Quarterly%20Report%20-%20Exploration.pdf
The example above is focused on exploration results.
If you have a technical report on reserves, a discussion of exploration results is part of it. However, the report would also include the overall geological model, the outline of the deposit, the resources and their level of confidence, how it would be mined, the conversion factors (mining recovery and dilution), processing, production schedule both for mining and processing, cost structure and a cash flow model, preferably on an annual basis.
For an “operating mine” the company is exempt from providing a cash flow model.
Why?
I have no idea as the whole purpose of the report is to prove these are reserves and by definition these have to be economic.
The marker regulatory authorities are not on the side of investors!
Kees Dekker
Opinion of Kees Dekker-
About Batie, it is non-core in my mind because the very low grade makes it unattractive given the risks associated with a project in Africa and a political high-risk country at that.
Doropo is better, but still not fantastic.
No wonder they downgraded Batie!
Quite so Mr Bond, it doesn't fit now and it didn't fit then!
But that said they BOD are paid handsome remuneration packages to safeguard the best interests of the company and as such they should have carried out the appropriate due diligence!
The region has always been a basket case place of political instability and coups, that surely must have excluded it from fitting he company core projects criteria, and as you rightly point out the other obvious questions are why was the sale being made by Ampella and how many other miners were interested in buying?
In the meantime over £100 million down the lavatory!
Any of the jersey BOD that were responsible for this crass deal and the near ruination of Sukari should be sent down the yellow brick road!
Fair comments 3Bear,
I was also once a Vodafone holder although I got out after an acquaintance who held as senior position there had been complaining that the company was haemorrhaging funds on ill thought through acquisitions and growth obsession , as it turned out he was right to be concerned!
As you say a coup in BK , part of the extra costs of mining in West Africa?
As Dasut mentioned it seems now apparent the the Jersey BOD were indeed sold a "Sows ear" rather than the "Silk Purse"!
But then it all comes back to a lack of due diligence before buying the permits on the part of the Jersey BOD and to some extent the behaviour of Andrew Pardey and others who were on the ground
That said I fail to see how there can be any excuse for the failures of the BOD with regard to Sukari, they were either ignorant of fit and proper mining practice, or complicit in the deceit of share holders by allowing the operation to be run on a wing and a prayer basis for short term gain!
3 Bear, wise words,, and great Horgan I appears to have a strategy to get it together on ounces and costs - hugely sensible to reduce the divi rather than pay it out of our cash savings - particularly in such a dangerous gold market. When I Posted that I rashly bought some more recently, when gold touched 1680 and Cey was 77, I said I expected it to bounce to near 1800 before continuing the fall and much further. Well we are there and US CPI comes out today which could be the catalyst. I very much hope I have got it wrong, as is so easy to do, and Cey and gold continue their rise, as said I am holding as gold is tremendously fickle, not I believe from wild conspiracy theories as many here believe alll of us do, but investors double guessing who will buy and sell with rising rates and inflation, but I still believe a tumble is in order before new highs. The key in mining remains that over time costs do not rise faster than gold, and over the last few decades costs have risen faster than inflation while gold has more or less tracked it. So good luck Horgan, and thus us.
Equities in Europe traded lower in the premarket on Wednesday ahead of the newest update on inflation in Germany. Several countries on the Old Continent, such as Italy, will also release the same report throughout the day. The United States is also expected to reveal its numbers concerning consumer prices in July.
The DAX declined by 0.15% at 7:39 am CET. At the same time, the FTSE 100 dropped by 0.21%. Meanwhile, the CAC 40 decreased by 0.24%.
Both the euro and the pound sterling stood flat against the dollar at 7:47 am CET to sell for $1.0213 and $1.2081, respectively.
Baha Breaking News (BBN) / JR
Happy hump y’al
There's been a coup in BK so the quality or otherwise of the site is irrelevant. If you don't have political stability, you don't have a mine.
I have not seen other companies interested ,so far, in crappie Batie with its geology.
It did not fit with criteria of CEY, which makes sense.
Time to move on, I think.
The $40m paid for 4 m ozs resource (they never bothered to update the resource to my knowledge is about $10/ozs which is basically a very good grass roots discovery cost.
To be very clear they bought the Batie West Permits AND the Doropo permits. Doropo stands at about 5 m ozs, and probably will grow
So the $40m investment has given them access to the ground which contains at least 9 m ozs, which is not too bad.
I have not seen anything that would pass for a DFS on Batie, and the mina questions were
1. the high stripping ratio
2 the refractory nature which required a fine grind to acheive gold liberation (sub 10 micron). What I dont know is how many samples and what volume of earth was used to decide the entire volume of the ore was all refractory?? Or how was the Geomet model constructed? and/or How many Geo met samples were actually measured. The Batie affair smells sub -standard professionalism, at least in disclosure to their share holders.
best
the gnome
Tibbs sorry didn't answer your mention of lack of technical detail . If you go to the Centamin web site and look at Doropo there is a good deal of detail both technical and management summary albeit 2021 and 2019.
We are promised an update I believe in the next qtr which will be interesting as the more exploration/drilling they do the larger the reserve. I appreciate that grades aren't anything special but an additional 200,000 ounces a year for a minimum of 13 years providing costs kept in check isn't too shabby.
Tibbs When Batie West was bought from Ampella it came with other properties and Batie West was the one that had pretty much all of the work done by Ampella so was basically seen as the jewel in the crown. However the type of ore needed larger volumes of oxide ores to become viable. Were they sold a pup maybe but must reserve judgement without seeing what was on offer and hindsight is a precise science.
OK considerable holes drilled but I don't have access to the number of holes drilled at BW against Doropo and ABC basically was the exploration fund spread across all resources and what percentage allocated to each and others.
What I will say is that if they bring in Doropo and ABC we are going in the right direction, but maybe a question worth asking is what is the total cost over and above the 40 million Australian dollars that was paid for Ampella's resources.
Tibbs yes the money has to be paid back to the bank and it will be a cost but how does a company grow if it doesn't invest and this is one of the ways the majors grow.
Not that long ago Sukari had over $300 million in cash in the bank and the balance is currently $175 million so to be honest if Centamin are to grow they need to borrow.