George Frangeskides, Chairman at ALBA, explains why the Pilbara Lithium option ‘was too good to miss’. Watch the video here.
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HH, you have lead a very rich life indeed.
It shows in your maturity in your posts here.
Your very right Max111 , this share does test ones patience to the max especially when your 30pc down on a big chunk of your lifes savings... but I am comfortable here just waiting for the inevitable is painful at times when weeks blend into months blend into quarters... very firm in my belief November will be the month we have been waiting for. Here and at ggp
Whilst I know people are always curious, and at times amused to read about my varied history I'm not sure I could add much of value to a discussion about GGP specifically... in a looser sense I could possibly add a little to a general discussion based upon the varied things I've done in scientific areas on the periphery of this field but nothing of any great detail that others don't already know. As I've said before my main interest here is trying to learn more about investor's psychology after things went crazy with UFO last October, though at the moment so few people post on UFO there's not much to observe happening.
Anyway...
My undergraduate degree was mainly in theoretical science, whilst all my postgraduate qualifications entailed more practical lab. work.
Aside from ten years at Uni as a student I have also been on the payroll of universities and government laboratories. In addition I also helped to set up a research facility for a national museum.
I have spent time in an XRF laboratory analysing the elemental composition of mineral samples to establish their geological provenance.
I have spent time in a laboratory processing ores to extract and measure their metal content.
I have felt the raw heat of tons of molten iron in a steel works as well as having been hundreds of feet underground to feel the claustrophobia of a deep mine.
I have been employed to teach/lecture about such subjects as the workings of a blast furnace or the cupellation process, as well as produce simple educational materials to help others teach about basic geophysical survey methods.
I have had articles printed in international journals and as a result of publishing a privately funded research project I still receive modest royalties from a very obscure reference book I wrote. This explored legislation imposed on the tin working industry of Tudor/Stuart England, along with metallographic studies of period artefacts establishing the extent to which this was actually followed and/or enforced.
In my own studio I still maintain the various kilns, tumblers, centrifuges, and other metal processing equipment and chemicals to allow me to "play around" with modern experimental research that takes my fancy, and I am certainly no stranger to primitive experimental archaeological work casting molten metals and blending alloys having a life time interest in the evolution of various metals working practices.
I am not saying all of the above was a dominant or recent part of my life, or that it makes me an expert in running a minerals exploration company and how to finance one. It would be arrogant, and likely inaccurate, to suggest I know more than others on this board. Nevertheless I think my background helps me better understand some of the work junior explorers are engaged in, which does lead me to advocate a cautious approach that questions some of the highly polarised posts I read here.
All the best HH
Deffo agree - very interesting learning more about your life HH :-)
One of the admins on GGP's telegram group Liam (BottleRocket on LSE) is interviewing interesting investors about both their thoughts on GGP and their lives - I know you're not heavily invested there but nonetheless, perhaps of interest?
He's interviewed Bamps twice and the first one was interesting learning about his life. He is releasing a new one tomorrow with a telegram poster who seems to work in a scientific field ........I'd love for him to interview you:-))
Happy haddock.
Interesting stuff especially whilst its quiet
@Dip666 I've always been envious of those who had a passion for one thing above all others... many say I don't know what I want to do with my life, which in part is true, but really what I love above all others is learning something new, not just a little bit different but entirely radically different as the less I know about a subject the more interesting it becomes... with time it's harder to find such subjects as you start to relate knowledge/skills from old projects to those needed for new projects.
As for art teachers at school, I told mine art was about individual expression which meant leaving me to do what I wanted (I really was a precocious little oik). I annoyed the hell out of them by spending years ignoring them and still getting the best grades the school had ever got from an art student and then ditching the subject to go to Uni to study quantum mechanics and other theoretical sciences. That said I used to annoy my science/maths teachers at school as well. I remember sitting one external maths exam at the age of sixteen and asking the teacher if it was appropriate for me to do so as I's written the test paper when I was aged twelve (another story for another time.) Then when I got to Uni. I told everybody I was an artist and spent more time sculpting and painting than on theoretical science. I left Uni after my first degree and ended up with a job briefly running a Uni IT dept. before retreating back to Uni as somewhat of a perpetual student for several years.
See I promised to shut up and failed miserably within the space of less than an hour.... somebody change the subject this bulletin board isn't about me.
Definitely sounds like your life would be worthy of a biography HH - very intrigued my friend :-)
I'm a couple of decades or so younger than yourself probably - but I do agree with not being defined by the standard template of life and certainly decided to try and live mine as free of depending on a wage from around 30 years of age too after realising how unhappy older people around me looked in the drudgery of decades of corporate life lol
I don't think you are eccentric as I totally agree on the life long learning in all kinds of things from DIY to martial arts to continually learning in various fields that interest me, indeed I am pretty good at web and graphic design for a non professional and as for IT I never needed any help in that regard. But it is fun to collaborate too with others, exchange ideas and so forth :-)
It isn't always fear, some people actually just love one thing above all others - writing and playing music above all else as an example for one person or perhaps a writer that does little else - we all differ. For instance, there are millions of 5 year olds who can draw better than me, even at middle school the art teachers were almost insulted by my attempts lol
There is never an ultimate correct answer to anything, but when I look at this sector there seems to be a very well proven route to monetising a viable discovery along the routes of JV and how successful explorers operate - but as you say - you are invested in other explorers that do well from it so not questioning your experience, just playing devils advocate!
Might be worth submitting a question to Bill in a future Q&A and we've both debated this to death - but guess it beats reading arguments :-)
p.s if you ever tire of those replica notes, I'd be happy to give them a new home!
@944 Turbo - be careful what you wish for getting me to talk about all I've done is easy... getting me to shut up... well that's the challenge.
Almost all of my clients start an enquiry with " I know this sounds weird but..." (it is why they contact me) to which I normally respond that little can surprise me anymore... Case in point was when one day the phone rang and it was Sky TV wanting to know if I could make them small 3D spectacles for the meerkats at London zoo for a promotional campaign... the very job I put down to answer the phone was making miniature eights lens spectacles for tarantulas... so however "odd" that wasn't even a deviation from what I was doing that day. It's not even as if I specialise in spectacles, though I have made specs for my local optician when he couldn't do what he wanted for himself.
I'll shut up now... I promise!
I love reading your post HH you are one of those people I would like to invite to dinner just to listen to. You really have had and do still have a really interesting life great post giving the alternative perspective as usual.
944T
@Dip666 - I know I am an eccentric that could easily be dismissed as a delusional fantasists where the truth may be stranger than fiction, which is why I suppose so many journalists wish to interview me about my work/lifestyle... most of which focuses on the diversity of things I've done where I'm often labelled as some sort of crazy "renaissance man".
However I don't believe in having or sticking to "core activities", nor do I believe in having natural strengths and weaknesses or the concept of limited capabilities. There are simply things you have already learned to do, and things you haven't yet learned to do. Once you have "learned how to learn" there's not much you can't teach yourself.
By training I am a scientist, yet for the last twenty or so years I've run my own business and call myself an artist for the simple reason it's easier than trying to explain exactly what a freelance polymath does. I've an international client base having worked for various Oscar/BAFTA winners in the entertainment sector, I've done educational work for numerous national museums, I've been involved with PR/promotional work for various international brands and sporting bodies, engineering work for big business, my art and sculpture is commissioned/collected by wealthy individuals around the world including royalty and I've done so much more. Yet I insist on remaining a one man band and still do all the day to day stuff in-house from tax returns and finances to designing and printing my own stationary. I've built my reputation on being the crazy guy people go to when they don't know who else to go to for something nobody would specialise in. Regardless of whether this makes me a decent profit or not I strive to have a different job for every week of my life (and aside from a few big projects I'm slowly getting closer to achieving this). Today I've been doing CAD work on the computer for a heritage architectural project.
I could highlight several "weird" things I've done but in the context of this conversation and things that might entertain others reading this I've never had a great interest in "making money" in the sense of generating profits to pay others to do stuff for me. However I have minted coins for clients, once did some work for a holographic project for a high security printing firm that manufactured credit cards, and as much for the "fits and giggles" just to see if it was possible, I once obtained a 12month license to print money from the Bank of England. (needless to say it came with all manner of clauses and restrictions but I needed it for a project where I needed to manufacture a lot of replica bank notes without actually being arrested for forging currency.)
HH I can understand your argument with regards to inhouse and i can also see Dips points. I think if we were cash rich then it would probably be a good idea but for now we are far from it.
For other buy the way £4m in the bank is not cash rich in UFOs case we have lots of out goings and no incomings.
In 12 months time things may be very different with the DSO, Covid hopefully under control ( I say hopefully) gold and silver on the up.
We are certainly not in the situation where now would be a good time to buy one.
Hopefully we will get some DSO news soon and something back from EH, Has you know I greatly reduced my holding but still hold 5m so still a very keen watcher. I don't post so much because of work and also cannot be doing with the *****ing that goes on.
944T
I get what you are saying and I'm actually a business and marketing consultant so will try not to be offended lol
There is another side to any argument HH , in that a business is best focusing on it's core activities. I worked for one of the largest tech companies in the world and they still outsourced various functions, in fact in one of the roles I worked in a role similar to an account manager in an internal marketing agency set-up, whilst they also outsourced much of their advertising too so we parked in parallel and sometimes in competition with them as we criss crossed many areas. Eventually they went the route of outsourcing everything related to this as oppose to keeping their own staff.
For instance, in terms of marketing, say you have a UK company generating £5m revenue operating in the UK and a few overseas European locations, they might have a small core team for marketing - however, there is no way that core team will within the team have capable copywriting, web/graphic design, translation, animation capabilities alongside business and market intelligence too. I don't have an engineering or mining background so hard for me to translate in those terms :-)
There is a limit to one's capabilities along your natural strengths and weaknesses and the same applies to the running of a business. I've set up and run a business and helped countless others set up and run theirs - you should absolutely not try and do everything yourself, it is inefficient in it's own way :-)
@Dip666 - you could say the same about many industries - why do local councils sub contract out road repairs rather than employ in house teams, why do huge corporations employ advertising agencies rather than employ in house teams, why do major manufacturers hire separate logistics companies to deliver their goods? All are generating enough permanent work to justify and save money with their own full time specialist staff.
The top brass need to know enough to buy the right equipment and recruit/train/manage/direct the right staff, yet that knowledge is with the specialist contractors who tell everybody that it isn't economic to do it yourself because if they didn't they'd talk themselves out of work...
Somewhat circularly we return to a pet subject of mine as to why anybody works; - the vicious circle that is earning money to pay others to provide you with goods and services because you are too busy working to learn to do anything new for your own benefit.... Most people are psychologically driven to play it safe and stick only with what they know.. presumably the same is true of exploration companies... the few who run their own drill teams are those with prior experience of having already run their own drill teams.
I guess a junior explorer would need to poach/headhunt somebody from a successful drilling company to set up a new in house drilling team, and if these people are already successfully running their own drilling business it would need to be a very good offer for them to go somewhere new.... I'm merely guessing as in truth I don't know why more explorers don't run their own drills teams as the few that do seem to benefit from it.
Sounds interesting HH and certainly I have heard the saying and again it reflects how rare it is for an explorer to find economically viable discoveries.
I guess in basic terms, one could look at the cost of acquiring, operating and maintaining a drill rig VS estimated costs via a contractor to help calculate ROI across planned exploration campaigns.
Other factors in play such as whether there would be more or less likelihood of effective use of drilling through running your own team or through hiring a contractor with decades of experience and the ability to replace a faulty rig, ill staff etc.
If it is so effective to own your own rig HH, I do wonder playing devils advocate - why don't more explorers do this? :-))
@Dip666 - as you say where a market opportunity opens up someone will seek to fill it so I do expect that the demand driven delays will be slowly reduced by existing contractors hiring/training more staff and buying more equipment (plus putting their prices up to curtail demand to levels they can meet) . Nevertheless the flexibility and economics of owning your own rig do tend to pay off for those with clear plans to do a lot of drilling.
As for paying for itself "in a while"... . No two holes are the same and technical staff/labour is a big part of the costs of drilling but I've encountered explorers paying over £50k to drill a single deep hole in challenging locations. So if you can save on labour with your own staff who knows over how many holes the brake even point is reached at where it becomes more economic rather than less to run your own rig/crew.
Many know I am invested in various junior explorers and I've seen what can come from owning your own rig(s). Plus as an aside, there is an old saying in this game that "the only sure way of making a profit from a gold rush is to be the guy selling the picks and shovels" To that end over a year ago I invest in a company that contracts out drilling rigs and lab service to the minerals exploration sector. It was never going to be an exciting investment with multi-bag potential like an explorer, but so far it's retuned roughly a 3% annual dividend and seen approx 10% capital growth... so nothing to grumble about.
I do think that wherever you get a market opportunity it soon gets filled HH, as with the labs now making investment in shoring up their capabilities due to the boom of exploration in the jurisdiction, companies operating in Oz in providing such services to support exploration and mining are probably doing the same, IMO we should start to see more equipment for hire too by 2022 regardless of demand outstripping supply at present.
Certainly a feasible route to buy our own rig but I'd be keener if we got a JV on Hammersley first so a partner picks up the costs and resource provision there, freeing up some cash demands at least for the short to mid tern until we need to co-fund various aspects of the project.
A great idea happy h.
With the added benefit of renting out locally, should it not be in use. I'm sure other explorers have done and it would pay for itself after a while
Thanks Chrisatbirdies. It was something that Commodities companies investor/trader https://twitter.com/graddhybpc mentioned regarding platinum on 21st July.
Just got to get the project to a point that it attracts a JV partner.
In terms of "just needing a drill rig" I'd be in favour of UFO committing our funds to buying our own rig(s) and having our own drill team on permanent salary.
At the minute contracting any drill crew is nigh on impossible, and costs a fortune as the demand is so high. Over the long term if you know you are going to be doing a lot of exploring then your own rig/crew works out cheaper, gives you more flexibility, reduces waiting times and your own crew aren't going to be drilling to get the job done and move on as quickly as possible but instead can aim to extract the most continuous/clean (hence informative) core they can. £150k would probably get us an acceptable drill rig, £500k something very capable. It may take several months to get built and delivered but then it may take several months waiting to hire one for just a few weeks before rejoining the end of the queue to re-hire it. The main advantage of contracting out drilling is that it is economic when you only want to do a little drilling, and then perhaps several months later do a little bit of very different drilling in a very different location.
If we could start 2022 with our own drill rig/team that would be a huge plus and selling point for us as an explorer and really show a commitment to "exploration"... however it merely remains a bit of pipe dream for this shareholder.
Max111
Great post as ever max. The link for the tweet didn't work for me though
Very much looking forward to putting twin drill holes into the ore body of the highest grade silver project in Australia Elizabeth Hill (already have permit in place for 4,000m of drilling).
Bill said in June Presentation:
“The funds are there, the core boxes are there, the core area is ready, we just need a drill rig. We are hoping as soon as possible to have a core rig. And we want to do core as well, very important to get that visibility/information from drill core.”
We will also be drilling the highest priority targets at our 100% owned 3.5km of PGE strike at Munni Munni.
Platinum is poised to be one of the true leaders in this commodities bull market (https://twitter.com/graddhybpc/status/1417918027299962881)
There have been a lot of delays in H1, but Alien Metals now => Going for growth
https://www.sharebuyers.co.uk/shares/going-for-growth-alien-metals/