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Tornadotony, Grateful if you can tell me how you arrive at $3.55 to $3.75 per tonne for waste as based on my experience I feel this is high for a truck and shovel operation. Thanks
Members may find this link of use as part of their mining company research
https://www.cruxinvestor.com/about
Centamin
While the future looks brighter for Centamin, investors may want to take a "trust but verify" approach, looking for an extended track record of outperformance and flawless execution before viewing the operational turnaround as fully secured.
There is still work ahead for management to translate potential into consistent value creation.
https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/centamin-plc-q4-2022-investor-presentation-summary
Daz,
Far too many investors treat the postings on internet forums such as this as personal investment advice, remember, it isn't , investment advice should only be obtained from suitably qualified financial advisors. Forums like this should be regarded as just another reference source of information, along with TV/Radio, financial and social media, but it would be a folly to base any investment decision on one source alone!
Even the returns success isn't guaranteed , because they are generally dependant upon trusting whatever information the company releases into the public domain!
For instance in 2015 & again in 2018 and even after visits to Sukari by corporate analysts and brokers were still advising clients to buy in to Centamin because they had assumed they could trust what the company had told them, unfortunately none of them realised that Andrew Pardey and the previous management were on borrowed time by continuing to dig the company into a very dangerous, very deep and very steep sided pit and the deeper they went their position became even more precarious because they really didn't know for whatever reason how too get out of it again without admitting their irresponsible behaviour for several previous years, possibly more but then the inevitable crack in the pit wall appeared and they where forced to own up!
Anyone who claims that this isn't the case is deluding themselves and others because the facts speak for themselves !
Notice that those that try to claim that there are better ways then those being employed by Martin Horgan and his team now to put Sukari right never actually come up with any credible, less expensive, even remotely workable alternative of achieving a safer and more efficient Sukari operation.
I agree Spoonington. Some here aim to influence sentiment and inexperienced investors can suffer for it. Their intentions are clear from the amount and type of posts. If you’re new here, beware snakes in the grass.
I note that you have failed to address the questions I posed to you yet continue on with your baseless rambles - why is it so ?
You are clearly a bitter & twisted individual who missed out on profits other investors realised that leaves you feeling left out - avoid using this sentiment to try to influence others - such behaviour is poor at best!
What utter baseless piffle - defend your statements in light of actual results - trying to o do so highlights your bias & sheer stupidity!
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday 26 July, 2023. Photo courtesy of Egyptian Presidential Spokesman.
On his side, President El-Sisi thanked Putin for his warm welcome, stressing Egypt’s keenness to cooperate with Russia on both the continental level as well as on the level of bilateral relations.
The Egyptian president also expressed thanks to Putin for establishing the Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant as well as the Russian Industrial Zone in Egypt.
He also congratulated his Russian counterpart on the 80th anniversary of Egyptian-Russian relations.
In 2022, Egypt’s exports to Russia surged to $595.1 million, up 21.6 percent from 2021, according to data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).
Meanwhile, Egypt’s imports from Russia increased to $4.1 billion in 2022, up 15.5 percent
https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/505523.aspx
-------------------------->>>
Don't know how any Egyptian could view Sisi's warm relationship with Putin as anything but vile and morally perverse. First he destroys Egypt's economy then cozies up to the most murderous and deranged dictator in modern times - God help Egypt.
Hi Cowichan,
Thank you for giving us this insight into this ongoing illegal artisanal mining in Eygpt which the government really ought to be making more efforts to stop and then enable legalised and properly regulated mining in its place.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-023-25895-9
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/gold-africa-smuggling/
https://www.oecd.org/development/illicit-financial-flows-5f2e9dd9-en.htm
https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/illegal-mining-drives-nigerias-rural-banditry-and-local-conflicts
Ahram Online , Saturday 26 Aug 2023
The headquarters of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was lit up in the early hours of Saturday with the slogan: “Egypt 80 Russia” in Arabic to celebrate the occasion.
Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov exchanged letters of congratulations, affirming the special and deep historical relations between the two countries, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Russia is also one of the most important tourism markets to Egypt with up to 30,000 Russian tourists visiting Egypt every week.
Hi Tornado,
Thank you for your taking the tine to provide us with your cost analysis which seems to confirm that the benefits of Horgan's teams new strategy may at long last be starting to have some very positive effects on cost reductions and increased sustainable production which if they continue should make for better profits and a considerable increase in share price, lets hope that is the case.
If so I think we shall all feel a lot better!
Tibbs
“Who is backing you and the reputation of your tribe determines your standing on the mountain,” he says. “Whatever your connections are, you must have backing and weapons. There are people without backing, or who are Christian. Their cars are stolen or militias take their sites by force.”
The state, and in particular security institutions, has tried to take control of mining areas and expel militias and miners. But as the state dealt with the crisis, the security strategy turned into an armed confrontation, which has taken a dangerous turn since the last quarter of 2022.
One of the incidents included the death of First Lieutenant Mohamed Kilani in an attack carried out by the Ahmed Abul Abbas militia on a police car near the Barramiya area on the Marsa Alam-Edfu road, in response to one of Abbas’ men being taken in by security forces in Red Sea Governorate in mid-January. He had been carrying large quantities of raw gold, weapons, and half a million Egyptian pounds, according to miners and engineers in government mining companies affiliated with the Armed Forces who spoke to Mada Masr.
Military and police forces responded by tightening their control, with the participation of the Ababda in the area of Baramiya, close to where Kilani was murdered, according to the site owner. Therefore, site owners in the cities lost touch with workers on the mountain, from the end of January until mid-February, due to a lack of signal and a siege on the roads leading to the mountain. People could descend from the mountain, but not the other way around.
By mid-July, security forces launched the largest security campaign in the region since 2020, targeting the Salah mine, located near the Wadi al-Gamal reserve, and the informal Abkar mine.
Three days before the raid, drones were seen flying overhead, according to a miner working at Salah. “They burned the loaders and the excavators, confiscated vehicles and expelled miners.” Those who stayed on were threatened with a military trial.
Dozens of miners were arrested and others have gone missing as the military drones hunted for them in the desert, the previous miner and a second miner tell Mada Masr.
Nonetheless, these campaigns, with the different institutional and legislative attempts undertaken by the state, have not succeeded in controlling those fishing for gold in the Eastern Desert. So far, the war rages on.
Https://www.madamasr.com/en/2023/08/16/feature/politics/the-gold-war/
In order to extract the gold, the quartz stones are crushed in mills located mostly in Edfu, hidden in homes and large warehouses. The process of crushing takes about 12 hours and costs around LE1,000. The percentage of raw gold extracted is between 3 and 15 grams per ton. The percentage and purity of the gold vary depending on the mining site.
Just as it is extracted informally, the gold is also sold informally in the city of Aswan, especially in the neighborhood of Sadaqa. The sale is “all illegal and shady,” according to the gold mill owner, who adds that it is monopolized by merchants known to the government and the locals, most of whom own big gold stores in Cairo, and “they gather up all the gold coming from the mountain.”
The owner of the mining site distributes the profits from extracted gold as follows: the workers get LE400 a day or a monetary percentage of the gold as agreed upon, while the provider of the car gets LE7,000 per trip, which takes three to four days. The owner of the equipment gets a third of the profits.
Miners are either locals or migrants. Workers live on the mountain, or “up there,” as the locals in Aswan say. “On the mountain, there are all sorts of people: the thugs, the religiously inclined and the addicts. We do everything on the mountain. We cook. We slaughter. And we bake bread,” says one of the gold workers.
The period each worker spends on the mountain is up to them. But according to the worker who spoke to Mada Masr, “there are always four workers in a mine” in case of theft. And the mountain cannot be separated from the city because all supplies are brought from there in trips lasting about six hours to replenish critical items.
The migrants are divided into two groups: Arabs from Sudan and other migrants from Chad and Eritrea, who are estimated to number in the thousands in the desert.
The migrants have to put up with very harsh working conditions. One of the chemical sluicing tank owners who spoke to Mada Masr says that the migrants’ ability to withstand difficult work in the mines and desert, in addition to their expertise, make them the preferred workers.
“They’re like camels. They can live a long time without water and can withstand what we Egyptians cannot. They can even go down a 200-meter well to get the gold,” he says. “An Egyptian would refuse to go down a well if it is deeper than 20 meters, but a Sudanese wouldn’t care. That’s why many of them die of suffocation in the wells.” He adds that this is another reason employers prefer them: if they die, they can be buried anywhere, as they are not officially in the country.
“The desert is vast. If the loader puts some dirt on top of a body, no one will find it,” says the gold mill owner. “I’ve lost four Sudanese workers so far.”
It can' be denied that who bought shares in the early days of Centamin and the directors who amassed huge amounts of free or bonus share have all done exceptionally well , unfortunately though the way this wealth was achieved was by cutting corners and using inappropriate mining methods which consisted of high grading with insufficient waste clearance which created pit walls of too steep inclination and ultimately unsafe!
The previous management were aware of the inherent grade problems at Sukari, but from 2015 denied the problem and instead of investing funds to improve the flexibility of the Sukari operation glossed over the investable potential pit wall collapse it by continued high grading!
Even though I am critical of the communications between the new management and the shareholders and don't agree with the decisions to hedge future gold production, I do agree that Martin Horgan had no choice but to almost start again by re sculpting the Sukari open pit operations and improve access and egress to the essential underground operations , something that Pardey and co should have done over eight years ago!
The annoying thing for the majority of newer share holders from 2014 on s that they were persuaded to investinto a known flawed mine plan and it is they who are now paying a heavy price, one might argue almost a subsidy of the the profits and good fortune of the very early investors!
Tibbs
Once again you seek to avoid answering direct questions regarding your opinions and deflect attention to others.
Kees Dekker is an analyst whose motivations are not necessarily aligned with those of shareholders, to try and hold out any opinion he may express as irrefutable fact is both foolish and disingenuous.
Explain your opinions in light of the factual circumstances I have drawn your attention to or withdraw your clearly incorrect statements!
I suggest anyone who wishes to contacts Kees Dekker I am sure he will be delighted to answer any doubts about his professional integrity
Most of you will be aware of my posting the articles by Kees Dekker pf 2015 and agin in 2018 which flagged up serious concerns about the way Sukari was being operated by the previous management, although in 2015 Andrew Pardey claimed Kees had used incorrect data , however when asked for the correct data by Kees all dialogue ceased and then Andrew Pardey tried get the article pulled, the article was published and even then previous management carried on in the same foolhardy manner, in 2018 a further article flagged up similar concerns, this was also ignored by Pardey and co, however inevitably their deliberate failings for short term gain where exposed https://www.sharesmagazine.co.uk/news/shares/centamin-plunges-as-production-hit-by-mine-trouble
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4229201-kees-dekker-reviews-centamin-plc-analysis
https://seekingalpha.com/author/kees-dekker
Interview With: Kees Dekker, Freelance Mining Analyst
https://tinyurl.com/2jc4n53n
Last line is can not.
Thinking faster than typing.
This year has to be audited still, but it was running at $210M. Last year it was $170M at H1 and the year before just over $150M Back in 2021 it was 5.35 cents H1 last year it was 7.35 cents. Whatever happens the cash depletion at Centamin has stopped and cash is now be added back to the enterprise value end of H2 despite a lower possible gold price.
If gold does pull back to the 200 SMA and it could well happen we could be 1800-1830 range for 8 weeks and it might get lower. 40,000 protected $85 by the put is $3.4M. If gold rallies and then falls back next spring another 40,000 ounces may cover again. It may not improve that much over the $6M spend which expires July 2024 but gives predictability on earnings. Of course any spell of month on 1700 gold and the put spend is recovered in one shot and any further or future pull backs offer cost recovered protection.
Regarding the waste removal it works out between $3.55 to $3.75 per tonne. Any shovel and truck operation to move overburden to another site starts at $2.50 a tonne when contracted out. There is additional cost on working in a functional mine that is necessary to ensure staff safety especially if any dynamite was being used. Finally if a wall is moving additional care had to be taken early on and this would have resulted in the costing being more front loaded. If Centamin overpaid per tonne it would not have been as much as some make out. The overburden could not be removed by a conveyor belt system and can be compared to their low costs as it is not relevant.
The link below is to information released by the World Gold Council.
Read the discussion of non-sustaining capex at point 5.
Then consider whether the explanations you have provided with such certainty, essentially presenting them as statements of fact, can indeed carry any validity.
www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply/responsible-gold/all-in-costs
If your analysis of the situation were correct Tibbs, the current waste stripping program would largely be moving material which should have already been moved as part of mining ore already processed.
If the above were correct the directors would not be able to classify the expenditures as non-sustaining capex and the auditors would not allow it.
Unless you are suggesting that the directors and auditors are colluding to commit accounting fraud, the explanation that you & supposedly Kees Dekker provide is clearly & demonstrably false!
I have posted my views before. I've been here about 11 or 12 years, first buying in a few at around 35p and buying other as high as 220 or 230, when Sotolo was saying that they were on their way to £3. I've also bought on the way down at 160, 130 and as low as low 80's. My average is around 107 now.
The previous high share price, when the £3 was forecast, was based on the amount of gold coming out of the ground and some of the dividends payed. I'm sure the high dividends brought people in and boosted the share price. The previous management benefited by the dividends and then the high price when they sold out because they knew what was coming. Pardon the pun, but was it a pyramid scheme?
From Boosted share price to Busted share price in a couple of years. :-(
I don't know much about mining gold at all but it seems some do on here. The same with shares. Some people are lucky and some are unlucky. Having read this board for years, I've seen people who seem to be "Oracles" with their predictions until it all goes wrong. I would say that generally the strike rate was less than the chimp with the dartboard .
So while it is interesting at times to read the board, I would say that it doesn't matter whether you bang on about data points, charts, waves, stages of the moon or tea leaves in a cup, sometimes you will be right and sometimes you will be wrong---------And it is unlikely to have any effect on the share price.
Some people have access to the actual internal goings on and the MM do their bits of manipulation. I guess most of us just hope that Horgan is doing the right thing and that the gold is there at Sukari and can be got out at a price that will boost the share price in a genuine way and also give decent dividends.
So I'm crossing my fingers for Sotolo's £3 a share and hopefully Mr T's £5 .
I'm hoping in the shortish term this share price rises a decent amount so all the name calling, boasting, bullying and handbags at dawn that has crept in on this board recently, stops.
"Peace and long life".
sotolo,
i'm not disputing the profits made by the pervious management , unfortunately though it is their desire for as much profit with minimal investment that has brought about the huge increase ciapex now.
mr gnome offered his opinion in feb 2023
as a general rule, shallow mining has higher margins than deeper (esp. for open pits) mining, irrespective of the stupidity of the ceo or mine manager. simply the strip ratio increases, which means you move more waste to mine than ore, and travel distance you have to drive your trucks increases with vertical depth. so unless grade increases you will have to pay more to get the same return.
if you are not vigilant on pit walls, there is a problem as you go deeper, as you have more vertical meters of walls. the tendency for the greedy and incompetent mine managers and ceos is to try and increase the angle of the pit walls (move less dirt). problem is that when you have not done proper geotech, and looked for subvertical structures properly, [rather relied on sub vertical holes to define subvertical fault planes]...then you are exposed... and your profound greed and stupidity is about to be exposed...., and when the wall decides to fall in, it falls in and nothing will stop it. greed and stupidity exposed, as is suggested by recent history.
then when the ceo (andrew pardey )who managed this sukari fiasco has to be replaced (some survive !!!), the new ceo has not only to remove the excess that has fallen in from the last ceo, but has to cope with the high strip ratio, and has probably realised the incompetent idiot (before him just made everything too steep for stability and sustainability!
so rather than maintain the unsustainable pit angle, he has to "stand back", which means more dirt has again to be moved because of the greed of the last ceo, and hence margins further impacted.
just basic science and engineering, and a good spreadsheet to do the calcs!
i think martin horgan is doing a solid job, under promising (which always gets the wind bag analysts ****ed off, who get paid on % of selling/buying of shares) and delivering firm but good results!
horgan is positioning the mine in a good operational space, and has a lot of optionality being built into the operation, which is boring to the analysts, but very good management!
centamin doing well
comments from kees dekker mining analyst feb 2023
this is exactly correct and the issue identified by me in 2015. it was evident then that the strip ratio was far below planned ratio and the company was painting itself in a corner. hence the title of my report,
get out while the going is good!
Hi Don,
Thank you for the iink , and for asking the questions!
Tibbs
I still hold 50k of what I consider legacy shares.
Originally I held 400k and I put my mum & dad into 150k.
We bought these as options for A$0.03 & exercised at A$0.20 so a total cost of A$0.23, these purchases were made in the 2000 financial year so we held them for a long time.
In the 2020 financial year I sold 350k & mum & dad sold 150k at GBP 2 which net of fees got us about A$3.58 per share a profit of $3.35 per share or just shy of $1.7M which is the reason why I am defensive of previous management, they did a lot for me & my own.
I added 75k to my legacy holding at an average cost of US $1.25 (using CELTF) I dumped those at US $1.40 so got out at a small profit but nowhere near what I had anticipated due to the ineptitude of current management.
I will always maintain the 50k legacy holding as I figure they owe me nothing & also due to their age are certificated and accordingly hard to negotiate especially when I live in Australia & they have delisted here.
I still retain hope in the quality of the Sukari deposit which is why I will retain my 50k legacy holding, but I & my family have profited so handsomely from our investment in this company that I have a soft spot which I openly admit.
Accordingly do not follow my investment choices in this company as they are motivated by by previous profits taken rather than my usual beancounter based investment motives :)
Https://www.linkedin.com/posts/don-lawson-98619370_centamin-activity-7100966024270807041-aZjb