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"I am curious as to why..." The fate of Solgold was, and still is, largely controlled by the chief exec Nick Mather who directly and indirectly holds a very large shareholding. He not only holds shares directly in his own name, but also through a family trust and another company. However, since the recent fundraising I am not sure whether he still controls enough shares to block a takeover. He refused to enter into a JV and would only let Newcrest and BHP take minority stakes. He is very shrewd and has stated publicly he does not like JV's as he feared giving away too much too early. I think he probably would be amenable to a takeover, but at the right price!
"I am curious as to why they did this route."
Newcrest wants guaranteed control. Telfer is only 45km away.
Alpala will require USD3bn+ of CAPEX. NCM may be happy to end up with a 50:50 JV with BHP.
It's interesting to compare and contrast the way Newcrest has got involved with GGP, compared with SolGold back in 2016, as that drilling program was declared to be a Tier 1 top class Gold/Copper deposit in Ecuador.
In that earlier episode, they opted to buy shares in SOLG in exchange for fresh cash so that SOLG could further prove up its enormously valuable deposit. Then BHP came along and did the same. So SOLG to this day still owns 85% of the Cascabel property. The shares of SOLG went from 3p on the initial drilling RNS, and later corporate share investments, o around 45p before correcting back sharply subsequently.
With GGP, Newcrest opted to negotiate a farm in for up to 70% of HAV. No direct share investment that would allow GGP to operate and carry out all drilling work, and retain full ownership of HAV. Nevertheless the shares did respond on the initial drilling results and farm in deal, but have tread water ever since.
I am curious as to why they did this route.
Maybe he means It's higher grade than the ore they are processing at present which Biswas finds 'exciting' (his word not mine). It's all in the margin. Higher grade, ceteris paribus, equals superior margins
I'm intrigued by the raising of expectations by Biswas with regards to Havieron. Not only has Biswas raised these expectations but he's raised them explicitly and publicly. It's almost as if he's officially declared that the long term future of the Telfer processing facility is reliant on the development of the Havieron discovery
Enough from me. I've traded in and out of here for months and made a small profit but I'm sticking with my holding now as it feels we could be on the cusp of developments as we enter 2020
gla and apologies for a surfeit of postings. I get excited and tend to overcompensate
"I wonder what Biswas means by this statement?"
The likelihood is that Havieron is giving NCM geos a different exploration model at Telfer.
Despite what we keep reading the chances are that Telfer does NOT run out of ore in 2023.
The prospect of high grade zones at Havieron excites SB. Is high grade 2g/t Au? That is rock valued at $100/t which has to be mined from down deep and then trucked 45 km. Is that exciting? Not to me. It's good but "exciting". But 4g/t Au material gets into that category.
Let's see if the January qrtly gives us any hints as to what NCM thinks is high grade. After all its current drilling campaign is focussed on exploring/delineating a series of HGZs.
30p just for Havieron. And then we can drill the others !
'I mean initial indications, which is quite exciting is the Havieron deposit is structurally different to the domes you find at Telfer and the question is, does that make us think differently about some of the ground at Telfer'
I wonder what Biswas means by this statement? He uses the term 'exciting' which may suggest they have found something very different or substantial. And the term 'structurally different' which incites his excitable state
yes drilling certainly ramped up lately
massive resource
once this rerates it will like a runaway train
I was hoping for 3p now I'm expecting 30p
Yes Volvic, forgot to mention the camp is at 3.0... 4.0 on the way according to some LinkedIn comments.
Add it all together (and read in conjunction with sandeep comments) it really is hard to see how they have not made the decision to mine this.
And yet we’re at c.70m market cap sitting on a literal gold mine.
Should be 4p+ on this alone
Don't forget how big the village is now for all the hard working staff drilling in 40 degrees
Wow Newcrest are really going for this
Great to see the text again. Thanks.
Since this they have:
Increased rigs from 4 to 6
Committed to adding to the 6, with more rigs to add in the new year
Adding another access road at telfer
Agreed with Macquarie a future contract
If this isn’t screaming but to you, nothing will....
Matthew Hodge
Thanks for taking my call. I'm just curious about how I should be thinking about the potential upside from technology at Telfer? And then kind of a related question is, you see the key driver of value there being that kind of technology, unlocking efficiencies or is it exploration or some kind of combination of the two, like how do you think about that?
Sandeep Biswas
Well that’s a very good question. I mean there's a whole suite of stuff around exploration targeting and technology, and speaking about the Telfer region, I mean initial indications, which is quite exciting is the Havieron deposit is structurally different to the domes you find at Telfer and the question is, does that make us think differently about some of the ground at Telfer. So, there is always a learning and innovation technology piece there. As the grades at Telfer are quite low implementing some form of arrangement that sees a rejection of the waste ore before the high-cost milling process is something that I think that Telfer is quite amenable to. So, we're certainly pushing along our studies and test work in that area.
So essentially, you're treating you are treating the way you want to treat and rejecting the stuff you don’t want to treat before you start spending the high cost. So, that is one area. And the other one is the undercutless block cave trials that we were doing at Telfer. You will recall a couple of years ago we were looking at - or a year ago at block caving some of the material underground at Telfer when at the end of the sub-level curve. That didn’t prove economic in terms of delivering the rates of return we are looking for. But if suddenly you were to have – cut the cost by 30% of the installation of the cave and speed that up, that may make a difference. I’m not saying, it will – may make a difference on how we view the possibility of doing a cave at Telfer and would certainly flow over to any caves that we would do. The multiple panels at Cadia, at Golpu and at Red Chris. So, they are just three examples.
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https://seekingalpha.com/article/4286181-newcrest-mining-limited-ncmgf-ceo-sandeep-biswas-on-q4-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
Sophie Spartalis
Okay, that's great. And then just also on Telfer, you talked about currently working on optimizing the operation there. You've obviously got Havieron there. You continue to call out. Can you maybe just talk through sort of the more medium-term plan over the next sort of two to five years in regards to where you can see Telfer going? You've obviously taken down one of the two mills, you've taken off 60% of the time, does that ultimately go to one train? And then how Havieron sort of fits into that picture?
Sandeep Biswas
Well, I think what you're finding, because the changes that we've made now is – certainly optimizes the cash flow situation. So, there are lot of great stuff going to the dump leach and saving costs and lifting the grade in the current mill. But you're right. So, it's really to work on our current orebodies, and we continue to do existential exploration at Telfer as well, by the way. I mean, we're not necessarily looking for the next big dome, but there's lots of interesting smaller deposits, which we think may be able to add to the current operation of Telfer.
But the plan at Havieron is how do we really find out very quickly what the scope of what we have there. And we've got four drill rigs there at the moment, and we'll put as many as we need to find out what we have there. And then it'll be about how quick can we get in there, provided that there's a feasible mine there, and mine that stuff out and track at Telfer.
I mean, the beauty of having the Telfer infrastructure, there is subject to Havieron being feasible in us going to mine it, all you have to do is mine it and then you just track the order Telfer. The thing that's unusual about Havieron in relation to the Paterson is the grades that we're seeing. I mean, we're not used to seeing these sort of grades in the region. So, that's particularly interesting. And if it all holds up, it certainly gives us a much more economic – potential economic outcome by tracking, as you know, tracking high-grade stuff is a lot better than tracking low-grade stuff.
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Sophie Spartalis
Sure. And so just in terms of those drilling efforts in and around Telfer, would that also include potentially increasing your holdings on the Paterson range?
Sandeep Biswas
We're always on the lookout for exploration properties. But I think people are starting to tweak that Telfer’s infrastructure is very valuable from a viewpoint of early to market with mines, and we are having a lot of people knocking on our doors is, what I'll say at this point.
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