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Hi Dasut
Fair and relevant comments, Martin Horgan has integrity and certainly does not shy away from doing what needs to be done and indeed has already made a considerable number of decisions and followed through with the necessary actions, something that that others of the old club were reluctant to do, you may recall that some months ago I also commented on the fact that Youssef had been given another job title "Country manager".
Youssefs selling of his shares for a property deal did not go down well with the BOD which caused embarrassment and possibly was the final straw!
Spoon I hear your frustration and agree there has been as Tibbs explains some rubbish management and misrepresentation and short term gains creating long term disasters.
Results when mining can be achieved by short cuts and this is what has happened at Sukari what we appear to have is a narrow hole in the ground when we need a wide hole in the ground, so to get the hole wider they are having to employ a contractor to widen the hole (over simplifying but trust you get my drift).
4 or 5 years of creating this issue isn't going to be corrected quickly and results aren't going to improve for some time. As gnome rightly says strip ratio of over 10:1 means 10 times as much waste producing 0 ounces and at a direct cost to the bottom line. Unfortunately this is a necessary evil and nothing Horgan or any hands dirty miner can sort out any quicker unless they throw even more money at the problem and employ another contractor with more equipment and doubt very much that this is a solution worth looking at as more costs to the bottom line won't improve your results.
I am not sure I agree that Horgan lacks technical hands on abilities as when I listen to what he has to say he comes across as very knowledgeable in pretty much all aspects of mining.
Unfortunately he joined Centamin at least 2 years too late because given the decisions made during his tenure we would have been in better shape than we are currently although in my opinion we are way better placed than we were this time last year.
Whether Horgan is a "good chap" or not I have no idea in fact I hope he is far from it and is a strong ruthless SOB and gets things done, maybe another thing that hasn't been picked up on is there has been a change of General Manager at Sukari and that suggest Horgan can make difficult decisions and has put someone in on the ground floor who understands the nuts and bolts of mining rather than a political appointment.
Are you still in here mr Tibbs.. I must say, I got in then Sukari happened and my instinct started to flash.. but things do go wrong.. but I find the older I get my instincts seem to be right more often than my 'judgement'!
The present situation at Sukari with loss of market is a direct result of bad or unsound mining practice and it's pretty obvious who is too blame, its no good trying to sugar sweet the facts now.
Kees Dekker's reports of 2015 & 2018 were warnings of the reality and offered opportunities to the management of the day to put things right, but instead Pardey denied the findings and although initially entering into dialogue with Kees then failed to supply his supposed correct data, instead Pardey then contacted the Seeking Alpha editor and tried to get Kees Dekker silenced.
When questioned on the 2018 Webinar after yet another RNS guidance cut in 2018 despite three weeks previously predicting output of over 600,000ozs Pardey denied any knowledge of the 2016-2018 Kees Dekker reports warning of impending dire consequences through previous years high grading to pump up output, this was deliberate deceit and misrepresentation of the facts to the share holders, further more this deceit was condoned by Josef & Youssef El Reagy.
Why did hedge funds like Worldquaint take short positions on Centamin over so many years, pretty obvious now they must have had an pretty strong inkling that all wasn't as well as being claimed.
After the revelations about the true situation at Sukari then it would not be unreasonable for share holders and the market to question if the claims made about West African reserves are accurate or even to be relied upon.
Matin Horgan has already proved his integrity, credibility and indeed professional abilities by what he achieved with his previous company.
I had many misunderstandings or misconceptions about large scale gold mining techniques but I am grateful to Dasut for since teaching me taught me a a tremendous amount about Sukari and gold mining in general.
That said whilst I admit my misunderstanding of the gold mining industry I do have a greater understanding of integrity and whilst I am always willing to accept that no one is perfect, mistakes can happen and that in most instances the benefit of the doubt should be given with an opportunity to put things right, there comes a time when the continued deliberate bad practice and deceit can be tolerated no longer, as with Sukari!
I implore everyone to read and digest the last paragraph of Dasut's post it is VERY relevant, I would say more, but it would be inappropriate in an open forum for several reasons at this time!
Best
Tibbs
When you are deep in an open pit, the stripping ratio gets higher and this means it takes longer to turn the ship, in the case of wall instability... strip ratio for the quarter was 10.3:1...I would like some more description on this from the mngt, or from the CEO or both....
Total material moved (waste and ore) of 30.4Mt (FY: 110.2Mt), a 43% increase YoY, driven by scheduled increased
material movement and improved operating efficiencies and productivities.
Total open pit waste material mined for the quarter was 27.7Mt (FY: 97.8Mt), a 56% increase YoY, driven by the
successful execution of the accelerated waste-stripping programme, improving the long-term flexibility and stability of the
open pit. The strip ratio for the quarter was 10.3:1 (waste:ore) (FY: 7.9:1).
Open pit ore mining in Q4 continued to focus on the Stage 5 North and Stage 4 West areas. Total open pit ore mined for
the quarter was 2.7Mt (FY: 12.4Mt), a 24% reduction YoY, at an average mined grade of 0.93 grams of gold per tonne
(“g/t Au”) (FY: 0.86 g/t Au), a 26% improvement YoY, driven by scheduled higher grades delivered from Stage 4 West.
Tibbs, what I understand is results or the lack there-of.
I do not accept excuses for poor performance especially when the excuses seem to be centred around Horgan being "a good chap" rather than any explanation as to why remedial action is taking an apparently inordinate amount of time.
My opinion is Horgan is lacking in the technical/geological side of gold mining, he either needs more support at executive level from people with this background or we need a CEO with dirtier hands. CEY needs real miners at the executive level at the moment rather than deal makers which is reflected in our lousy share price. The market is a relatively unbiased judge of performance and it certainly does not concur with your quite inexplicable hero worship of Horgan.
Spoon
Hi Dasut,
Binned my post after reading your far more capable assessment. Yes Barrick is global leader but do others not far off in stature wish to secede a Tier 1 asset like Centamin in a possible and indeed probable major world mining location to Barrick. What would the reaction of their shareholders (institutional) to handing Barrick this on a plate!!!! without at least resistance to make Barrick pay at least fair price if not as most aggressive take overs work out above reasonable market value. Going to be a very intersting time going forward and whatever the final oncome in my opinion CEY current SP will be some way forward of where it is at present.
With acknowledgements to Cowichan and have done as he asked.
Bob
Cowichan, guys Bristow is the CEO of a very large company the largest gold mining company in the world and I very much doubt he even knows the names of the people involved in the job swaps, let alone organised a "sting" that would be so obvious. Would Barrick be interested in buying Centamin of course they would, is it a priority given the profit share structure I am not sure?
The time in my view to buy into Centamin or Centamin personnel would have been prior to venturing into Egypt to gain a structure and people with knowledge but as I have mentioned previously Barrick have considerable experience globally with personnel that have been there and done it and a tried and tested structure of developing new markets.
It wouldn't surprise me if Barrick take a run at Centamin but I would also look at other majors such as Newmont and Anglogold Ashanti both looking to grow their portfolios and Centamin's properties would fit nicely into their core profile ( I also know of several people who have joined Centamin over the years particularly from the latter company).
Do we know if Bristow visited Sukari when he visited Saudi as my contacts say nothing about such an event ever happening?
In my opinion Bristow will know everything he needs to know about Centamin and will have detailed dossiers on a number of acquisition opportunities. If I was Bristow I would be using my office talking to senior political/civil servant types to be sure of the political risks in the regions and gaining valuable contacts at high political levels rather than a visit to Sukari .
There has also been mention made of phase 4 west wall waste area and the lack of information it is worth listening to the Q&A after the 4th quarter presentation as Horgan explained that they have been mining the area from memory as early as third quarter last year.
Bristow is a narcissist who from his past record cares little about environmental issues and I certainly wouldn't want to invest in any company he was involve with irrelevant of how much profit it made
https://www.ft.com/content/11058120-72a4-3ae3-9cf6-d5c310c05200
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/10/01/randgold-boss-criticised-african-big-game-hunting/
Mark Bristow, CEO of Randgold (GOLD) and soon-to-be head honcho of Randick (ABX), and his penchant for shooting large African animals until they are dead. Then proudly posing for the cameras with the dead animal afterwards (normally behind the carcass,
https://iknnews.com/on-how-the-real-media-picks-up-on-mark-bristows-dirty-hunting-habits/
The problems that Sukari is now suffering is entirely the fault of the failure to adopt sound mining practice by the previous management CEO Andrew Pardey also complicit in spoofing the market about high grading which appears to have been condoned by Josef El Raghy , Youseff El Raghy who were also active in spoofing the market that Sukari was capable of 560,000 -6000,000 ozs per annum.
Spoonington you clearly don't understand Martin Horgan and his attitude towards takeovers the task in hand in turning around the company, or what is going taking place at Sukari which will become apparent as time progresses
Good work Cowichan, keep on at them.
I share your concerns regarding the pit wall problems, this is simply part of mining & should not take so long to resolve or at least see significant positive movements towards resolution. I keep seeing management & contractors saying they are ahead of schedule but this is not reflected in actual results unless their schedule is ludicrously pedestrian!
Either the current management is not up to the job or they are withholding significant information regarding the full nature of the problem (as you point out the information regarding the wall problems has been scant) or your Barrick theories have substance - no matter which choice we are not receiving the full truth.
Bristow is a top flight CEO, if he can pick up CEY cheap he will likely do so as, rightly so, he thinks of his shareholders benefit not CEY’s. I wish our CEO/BOD would do similar & hope your postings will encourage them to do so.
As another fellow minnow I thank you for your dogged representation of our interests :)
Spoon
Hi Cowichan,
As a share holder you are entitled to question the company and entitled to an appropriate response and I certainly agree that Mr Bristow has certainly not got to be where he is by playing fair with the share holders of any companies his parasitic Barrik decides to asset strip and suck the goodness out of.
I appreciate that any lack of response or brush off is frustrating, but never the less even if questions are being asked via social media and Linkedin it is still important to always use the official IR channels in communications to get everything officially acknowledged and recorded.
Its almost certain certain that some other share holders will have already made Alex and Buchanan aware of your Lnkedin posts
Tibbs
Fellow minnow
As I thought.
Keep it up.
MrBond I don't mind you asking - but I just think if you put half the effort in questioning the actions of Centamin's management & BOD as you do my (in your eyes) inconsequential posts we all might get the answers we seek.
And I think I explained myself already regarding why I don't bother emailing IR anymore - in years past it's taken forever to get a response and if/when I do get a response I don't get an applicable answer - just a very polite brush off. I realize it's partly because I/we are (as you say) minnows among sharks.
In regards to notifying large institutional investors like VanEck, etc - that I do thru emails & social media - sometimes I get plain vanilla responses, sometimes I get nothing and sometimes I begin dialogs that form new connections. I'll keep it up (and this chat board apprised) of anything noteworthy.
Finally the reason I suggest others send IR my LinkedIn post should be obvious - the more shareholders who engage and ask questions - the more pressure it puts on Centamin to respond.
Why others pass your linkin to Alex.
Why not you direct .
Or is it they are ignoring you. If so why not ask major investors to ask the same ,those sharks are far from stupid
Just curious. Fellow minnow.
Hope you dont mind me asking. ;-}
Tibbs,
As always very good advice re: getting clarification from Centamin directly so as to have an official record. That said I have no trust in the official methods as they've done little to address past concerns - perhaps somebody among our chat group will send Alex a link to the LinkedIn post I made yesterday outlining my concerns regarding so many Barrick/Centamin employee swaps in the last year?
If not I did tag all the Centamin executives on the LinkedIn post itself here:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/don-lawson-98619370_centamin-plc-announces-sukari-operational-activity-6890419280710631424-14cq
And so far a good number of executives from Barrick & Centamin (among other companies) have read the post - Alex no doubt included.
As far as our latest swapped employee - Chris Le Cornu - being a young geologist and downplaying his departure - I do not understand why any Centamin shareholder who wants to protect his investment would fabricate excuses on behalf of the BOD/management. The now obvious pattern of employee swaps in such a short amount of time deserves to be addressed if only to reassure shareholders all is well.
One thing that could assuage some of my concerns is if Centamin released the original report(s) outlining the pit wall movement incident. All the specific details, the individual employee/contractors involved, the official geological engineering report and study outlining what steps were deemed necessary to rectify the issue - indeed if any action was deemed necessary. As we know small movements are detected in open pits regularly - not all of which result in remedial action. Not all of which result in changes to the steepness/angle of the pit walls. (As I remember reading subsequent to the Capital contract being issued - no changes were actually called for or implemented in the pitch of the walls of the area of concern, which is also curious)
Bottom line for me - once a Barrick offer is announced it's too late to raise concerns of orchestrated sabotage to Centamin's gold output & thus share price. That is why I am pointing these things out now - as they happen. I have held my shares for over twelve years and have no intention of letting the likes of Mr Bristow orchestrate yet another value destroying deal as he did for previous shareholders of Randgold.