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The drop in sp has to be for II opportunities. Theyhave had years to sort out their cost on energy......They are jokers
This is solid news... If it all goes to plan.....this will become very profitable.
also, i am not saying the sp will be over 100p.....but ...i am saying that if the next operational update delivers a much stronger report, and is on its way to 65,000, then this sp will be 250p by next Christmas This is my impression of the company, but i have said if it fails to deliver , then i pull out at a great loss. Not long before the news GL
mate, production will have increased considerably since last RNS. High grade found and being quantified to realise its potential. The company should recover from here onwards.
i am expecting good news in Feb for VGM.
very quiet here these days. but i suspect there will be more interest around June.......till then,,,,,,its pretty boring
Even so, costs will stay high at Vatukoula, and will likely remain so as long as the operation continues to be so dependent on diesel. Power, says Dave, accounts for 40 per cent of the company’s costs. But there is a plan. “We believe we can put in a biomass power station that will cut costs by half”, he says. “We are looking to begin construction at the beginning of next year and for it to take 18 months to build.” That would have a seismic impact on margins, and ought to take costs down to below US$900 an ounce. It remains to be seen what will happen to the gold price over that time, of course. But Dave, as a long-standing industry participant, one-time engineer, former analyst with a 24-year stint at Goldfields behind him, is as well placed as anyone to have an opinion on that score. “The big underground mines are all coming to an end”, he says. “China’s the biggest producer at the moment. I can see a lot of gold supply coming off the market.” And in gold, he says, there’s the curious dynamic that the higher it goes, the more valuable it becomes. But how about gold equities? Why are gold shares going down when the gold price is going up? “It’s really because costs have come up”, says Dave, drawing no doubt from Vatukoula’s own recent experience. Vatukoula’s share price has tracked the movements of the wider gold sector over the past year, but in recent weeks there’s been some upward pressure that’s all the company’s own. For one thing, says Dave, “the ratio of development tonnes to stope tonnes is coming down. Since the year end we’ve had a really nice lift in grade”. And for another, the company’s ongoing exploration programme has just paid off, big time. The Vatukoula ground has just yielded up its first new ore zone in nigh on thirty years, dubbed the Baron d’Este zone. Drilling returned significant gold grades, including 124.7 grams per tonne over 0.46 metres and 33.6 grams per tonne over 2.86 metres. The intersections came at depths of between 300 metres and 700 metres, and were located within the mining lease, approximately 300 metres north of the current mine workings. Last time a new ore zone was discovered, back in the 1980s, reports Collins Stewart, the shaft paid for itself out of the ore that was extracted when it was sunk. The hope is that exploration work will eventually help Vatukoula to increase its production rate, and sustain output at beyond that 100,000 ounce aspiration. The new discovery goes to underline just how much this project still has to give, even if it does appear to be a complicated proposition from time to time
October 25, 2011 Vatukoula Gold Mines Looks Forward To Improved Grades In The Short Term, And Significantly Reduced Costs Further Ahead By Alastair Ford http://minesite.com/news/vatukoula-gold-mines-looks-forward-to-improved-grades-in-the-short-term-and-significantly-reduced-costs-further-ahead “It’s an old mine”, says Dave Paxton, chief executive of Vatukoula Gold, when it’s put to him that mining at his company’s flagship Vatukoula mine is a complicated proposition. “It’s very diverse. We’ve got four sections which are very far apart.” But there’s a flipside to that, too. One of the benefits of age is that the workforce knows it very well, and that, says Dave, “is the biggest advantage we have. The labour is very good, very experienced, and very inexpensive”. Even so, costs at Vatukoula remain a concern. The company has recently delivered an operational update for the full year to 31st August 2011, and this showed costs running at over US$1,400 an ounce for the final quarter, and at an average of just over US$1,300 for the full year. While not exactly welcome, it wasn’t entirely surprising either. The company has spent much of the previous 12 months focused on development work, and this over-ran. In light of this, the company has also adjusted its production forecast for 2012 to 65,000 ounces, as Dave explains. “Last year we did believe we could get to 85,000 ounces”, he says. “But development took longer than we expected. It wasn’t possible to blast three times a day underground, and the forecast we’ve now got has been given to us by the underground managers. We still believe we’ll get up to 100,000 ounces. We believe we’ll be able to produce at 25,000 ounces a quarter at below US$1,000 an ounce. But we came out with a forecast of 65,000 ounces for this year – it’s a conservative forecast we can get to.” The aspiration to get to 100,000 ounces has been around for some time, but parking it as far as the official forecasts are concerned is all to the good, according to some commentators. It is, says broker Collins Stewart, a “sensible approach to forecasting”. The broker notes in recent commentary on the company that production dropped seven per cent over the past 12 months to 52,200 ounces, and that the mine lost £500,000 as opposed to the near £10 million profit it made in the year to August 2010. What’s more, says the broker, previous production targets were set “far too aggressively”. That’s the bad news. But there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful too. For one thing, all that development work will start to pay off soon, even if it did take longer than anticipated. It should, says Collins Stewart, lead to a decrease in tonne per unit costs. And that, coupled with the high gold price, should result in a nice increase in margins. Even s
They got that stupid pirate pic on the iii borad again. It really really really annoys me
Nice RNS. I like the high grade numbers So now, its a matter of using the equipment and getting it out the ground. No need to buy more machines. No debt. Exploration positive. Continued development of existing mines. Lowering costs of extraction The sp will only shoot up high when they actually and physically take the gold out the ground, sell it and show massive profits in an RNS Hope nothing else pops up to disrupt the development
i still believe Sitting on a heavy loss. I'm sure people have had enough of this company and moved on. The ones still here are either locked in like me, or know htis will be significantly higher this time next year. But in an impatient world, companies like this will bear the full force of negative comments And VGM PR communications severely need to be worked on, as well as their integrity, as both have failed I really hope for good news in the coming months, or i fear this company will be ruined by reputation alone.
I do believe this company has now started to turn it around. They have addressed and are dealing with all issues. I reckon 1 year, will see the sp up to a reasonable level, however, if it hasnt moved, i will take my losses and say farewell to VGM. Todays fall must be a combination of no news, collapsing market and investor confidence in this company. Man....wish Dave would sort it out.........
Looks like another year to wait....... someone should bring Dave to justice Whos off to Fiji soon?
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2b2af9de-e43d-11e0-b4e9-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1Ylu13aT7 Vatukoula Gold Mines, the Fiji-based producer of the yellow metal, eased 1.6 per cent to 94½p after an operational update failed to meet expectations. “The failure to meet this year’s production target, and the downgrade to next year’s target, are undoubtedly disappointing,” said broker Killik & Co. “We are encouraged, however, by the improvement in production in the last quarter, which pushed the mine into a net profit of £0.2m, indicating that Vatukoula may at last be turning the corner.”
I am with mixed emotions right now On the negative, the news is still stagnant and not exciting On the positive, i see there is good development progress and it can only get better now, and i reckon the next RNS will be higher drilled amounts and profits. So nothing unexpected, but was hoping for more All the best to all that hold.
So.....VGM goes up with no news, makes me feel a lot more confident. I reckon market is correcting itself for this sp.....the true value of this company still needs to be reflected in the coming RNS..........I hope its what we all want to hear. I will cry if it isnt..... Good luck to all invested
Cmon VGM.....lets see something ..ANYTHING !!
08 August 2011 AIM: VGM Vatukoula Gold Mines plc ("Vatukoula" or "the Company") Directors Dealing Vatukoula Gold Mines plc today announces that Ian Colin Orr-Ewing, Executive Chairman, on 5 August 2011 acquired 30,000 ordinary shares in Vatukoula ("Ordinary Shares") at £0.79 each. Following this transaction, Ian Colin Orr-Ewing holds 522,683 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 0.59% of the issued share capital of the Company and holds options over 300,000 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 0.93% of the issued share capital of the Company in aggregate. In addition, Kiran Caldas Morzaria, Finance Director, on the 5 August 2011 acquired 5,000 ordinary shares in Vatukoula ("Ordinary Shares") at £0.90 each. Following this transaction, Kiran Caldas Morzaria holds 40,940 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 0.15% of the issued share capital of the Company and holds options over 700,000 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 0.84% of the issued share capital of the Company in aggregate.
http://sharecrazy.com/beta/daily/5541/buy-vatukoula-at-91125p Buy Vatukoula at 91.125p Says Ross Jones of t1psim.com We own a shed load of these shares in our fund – I declare this at the start. We are damn glad we hold them as they are dirt cheap. Let me also declare that! However, the share price of Fiji focused miner Vatukoula Gold Mines has been in the doldrums as of late. The last six months have seen the miner come off a high of circa 225p to where the shares currently trade at 91.125p, valuing the company at just £85.4 million. A trend of disappointing short term production downgrades and swollen costs associated with longer term focused mine developments coupled with a surprise ( if relatively small) placing at 125p, has seen solid downward pressure on the share price which simply does not reflect the fundamentals of the outstandingly strong long term bull case. Our view is that the price weakness is a great opportunity for the long term investor and hence we have bought more at these depressed levels – and here is why. Forecasts for full year Gold production has been consecutively revised down over the last two quarters and for the current year to August 31st the management has now provided guidance of 55,000 ounces having produced 41,487 ounces up to the end of Q3. The company is paying the price of over promising and under delivering but has focused itself upon accelerating its long term mine development aimed at enhancing production capacity. In the short term this has seen lower than forecast grades processed and costs become swollen, but in the long run should position the company well to hit its target 100,000 oz output level. We reckon it will be shooting at that level by early 2012. The stock market does not treat short term disappointment well and in this transitory period leading up to full output there is scope for continued share price weakness here. But once target output is reached, at 100,000 ounces ($1,500 Gold) and forecast costs per ounce of circa $880 Vatukoula will be generating free cash of £39.1 million. With insiders recently buying reasonable amounts of stock at 110p (CEO & Chairman) and Vatukoula currently trading on a projected multiple of just 2.2 the bad news, and disappointment are more than discounted here. The long mine life and potentially economically attractive exploration upside provide further justification for investment here. The current share price weakness should be seen as a buying opportunity. I would add as a potential bonus that there is no reason why output could not be hitting 130,000 oz by the end of 2012 as some higher grade open pit deposits near the main mine are exploited. That would alter the maths materially both by increasing output but also by reducing unit costs by (perhaps) $100 oz. Moreover the company is also working on a biomass fuel provision system which could be onstream within a year and would cut cash costs by $140 oz. And fina
cannot believe this company. MAjor interest declared and it drops like a stone again..........