Member Info for Bamps21

That chap mentioned the gold mine in South Africa. Wow
The Witwatersrand Basin is a largely underground geological formation which surfaces in the Witwatersrand. It holds the world's largest known gold reserves and has produced over 1.5 billion ounces (over 40,000 metric tons), which represents about 22% of all the gold accounted for above the surface.

He said all the known global production today is nowhere near the peak production levels of this mine in the 1950's.

Remember what Hydrogen keeps saying a 'District wide discovery '
or is it 2 District wide discoveries
Blackhills to Havieron
and Paterson Range East

I watched that video on gold cycles yesterday that napthman put up.
Quite an eye opener.

Historically since 1850 gold has gone in 30 year cycles
10 years of declines and then 20 years of growth
2011 saw the end of a 20 year growth phase, Capex on exploration fell off a cliff as the price of gold fell
He says 3 years between 2016 & 2019 didn't see one new mine start with over 2m oz.
2020 has seen the start of the next 20 year cycle but this is different from the last one of 1990 when a lot of Tier 1 mines were found.
The Capex funding has still not increased sufficiently to arrest the fall in gold production and forecasts for peak production in 2025 will start to fall thereafter and by 2035 be down to 10m oz globally.
His recommendations were to invest in juniors with Tier 1 assets or Tier 2 in gold and silver they will be sought after.
He said district scale new discoveries are very rare and probably won't happen.

He might need to rethink that last remark fairly soon :)))))

Nobody will want to partner me there's always howls of laughter when I get going.
I think I'm quite good :))))

Hi TmT
I'm unsure of your argument here and if your being serious or not
ATB:))

All this talk about being taken over, we've had this discussion many times.
Looking at it from NCM point of view they are not a money tree , they have a lot of projects and new ventures globally which need cash and a lot of it.
They have an ageing plant/mine which is eating into their profits.

Spending $1,2 or 3bn on buying Ggp would put a huge strain on finances and just doesn't make sense.
At the moment they must have spent $100+m on gaining 70% of a Tier 1 asset, not many of these come on the market, why would they want to spend billions on buying Ggp when another couple of hundred million might give them another Tier 1 asset with someone else stumping up 30% of the costs.
A lot of these majors have joint ventures globally I can't see it changing

A take over just doesn't make sense from either NCM or Ggp point of view.

Geologists are looking for:-
Bullseye features
Coincidences of the gravity/ magnetic/IP surveys
Good MMI survey results
Position of major structures

Kraken/Blackbeard/london has these to some degree but it's on the hinge point of 2 major structural faults that make it really interesting.
Looking on the Regional maps showing the major structures I can't find anything anywhere in a similar position.

To my mind something happened around September time, I personally think there may have been a meeting with Newcrest about the formation of a committee for the Joint Venture of Havieron.
There's going to be 5 members on this committee 2 of which will be Ggp. These 2 will need to be mining people.
GH knew that he would out of his depth on this committee, he's already told us this.
The committee will need members who hold top decision making posts within Ggp and NCM.
Gervaise knew it was time to step down and Shaun Day became available.
They certainly wouldn't have ousted him he's been too good for that and deserves better from the likes of us

Hi Hydrogen
Why else would they stop the road before the 3 targets.
GH to SB ' I don't suppose you would delay the road plan a bit, you might have to divert it big time' :))

There must be about 66% on this board in favour of a joint venture, the rest preferring Ggp to mine it themselves.
I don't know how this will effect people's opinions.
From the Mining Application for Havieron
M45/.... the access road through Scallywag along the straight but not the bend has now been designated L45/....

This has been put in Newcrest name presumably for the Havieron jv.
It's 30m wide right upto Blackbeard/ London/Kraken.
There are numerous turning spaces, lay down areas, burrow pits and evaporation ponds.

Hi Tmt, dealts
Nige a gentleman, a true friend.
Been a sad day for me

Been looking at the documents Paddy put up earlier.
The Box cut Design shape is slightly different to the earlier version probably down to the softer rock type.
There are 35 contractors planned for 3 months of earthworks .
The Raw cell 1 is planned first to accept ground water from the Box cut.
11.5m will be excavated first with 35 degree sloping sides with drainage holes drilled at 3m x3m spacing plus ground soil nails where required on 3 sides.
There will be a 5m flat area on 3 sides before the next central 11.5m is excavated
The ramp down to the portal entrance is 14 degrees
The Decline will be a 1 in 7
length 2,773m in length.
Plus 921m for stockpiles,passing bays,sumps and ventilation drives
Plus 506m vertical development.

The 3 sides of the Box cut will be jet washed and then blown dry with compressed air before being covered in a sulphate resisting grout 'Shotcrete.
A layer of geomembrane will be laid on the surface to prevent water ingression.
Similar surface treatments to be carried out on the ramp with shotcrete .
Testing of the ramp looks from the timeline about 28 days which is a normal testing time when concrete reaches it's strength.

The planned Decline works is not planned to commence till 5 months after construction start.
Vertical ventilation shafts due to commence 12 months after construction start.
The lower rock formation is the lower Tillite and below that the orebody.
They need this Tillite rock as a binding layer in the waste rock dump to prevent dispersion.

The missing drills are shown on the water extraction plan, numbers HAGT003-14, these were needed for water table evaluation and later extraction

Thought I would change the header especially with the copper price surging $8146 per ton
or £3.70 per pound

Cobalt prices $36,500 up 14% on the week to 10 year high due to supply shortages.
Forecasters are saying $100,000 by 2025

Hi RW126
I am devastated on that news, I felt there was something wrong when Nige hadn't posted for sometime . Although I'd never met him I considered him a good friend and so glad I persuaded to join myself,TomE and TmT on to the Ggp board.
If you can please give him my good wishes I shall miss him.
Thanks for letting me know
Regards
Bamps

Hi RW126
I am devastated on that news, I felt there was something wrong when Nige hadn't posted for sometime . Although I'd never met him I considered him a good friend and so glad I persuaded to join myself,TomE and TmT on to the Ggp board.
If you can please give him my good wishes I shall miss him.
Thanks for letting me know
Regards
Bamps

Hi Paddy
I had a feeling they wouldn't drill and blast all of the Design, that roadheader can cut 20m per day so 3km is 150days.
Cutting in softer materials is much better with a roadheader and the Decline is starting in the mud rock layer on the top of the Upper Tillotson (an aquifer rock) and following this gradient for a while.
Quite surprised their suggesting an electronic theodolite guided system.
That's what I've done in the past as a land surveyor, it's not easy especially wearing glasses with all the lights, I decided it wasn't for me.
At the end of that page it does say it can guided automatically if required.
I would say it would be much more accurate guided automatically and quicker, the machine wouldn't have to wait while the surveyor was doing his readings.
Also interesting they're using shotcrete to stabilise the cracks. That's blasting liquid cement slurry on to the sides of the tunnel, it can have fibre glass strands as reinforcement.
ATB:))

Havieron was once described as a gold, copper and cobalt discovery.
The cobalt of late seems to have been dropped but listening to GH interview in the summer he seemed very optimistic about the cobalt content.
Reading JLPs RNS in Nov their ratio of copper to cobalt from tailings is 0.3%copper and 0.05%cobalt that's a 6:1 ratio.

Putting that in context at Havieron
484m tons at 0.4% copper is about 1.9m tons
Cobalt about 350,000 tons

copper price $8,000 =$15,200,000,000
Cobalt price $36,500=$12,775,000,000

I'm not saying those prices will be received but the proportion of the revenues is very high for cobalt compared to copper and can't be dismissed.

Hi Ggpt
I've listened to Gervaise mentioning the cover at Scallywag is between 50-200m.
Well I personally haven't seen anything below 100m that's been published and 200m seems to be the norm.
GH talks about the copper MMI results being higher than the gold but says don't dismiss the arsenic as it's a pathfinder to finding gold.
Also Telfer were producing copper concentrate from 0.1% grades

ATB:))

Hi Ggpt
I believe the only place that could happen is at Saddlereef an open pit at the top end.
You have to back to Havieron and look at the process for approvals to gain a mining lease.
Blackhills is an exploration lease it needs to be turned into a mining lease. It's a lot smaller than Scallywag and the whole lease will go to a mining lease. Scallywag though maybe split in half again.

To gain a mining lease Ggp will have to jump through hoops to gain approvals, one of these is a Jorc compliant inferred mineral resource.
Exploration drilling for this needs to find the commercial resources and also the relevant sizes to formulate a mining plan layout and water resources layout.
I doubt if it would turn out viable to do just a part of a target, what would happen if the Decline was in the wrong place, big costs.
Enough of the target has to be defined before a mining plan can be developed.
I hope that makes sense

ATB:))

Hi Ipad
My personal view is if Kraken or another hits big time then Newcrest will be all over it and we will have 25% of big drilling costs depending on deal, so Ggp need to hold back if results are good.
A lot of posters have been going on about £50m equity to drill but I think we may need that option later

ATB:))

I keep repeating myself but £50m to explore Scallywag will not achieve the objectives of giving enough information to formulate a pre feasibility plan to apply for a mining lease.
I can't see a target small enough for £50m to cover the drilling costs let alone the costs to issue a Full feasibility study.
The 5 assets named are all far larger than Havieron and as deep.
Havieron by the time FFS comes out may have cost $200m
£50m is not going to go very far.
Newcrest have stated that they still have Right of First Refusal, that to me says they are still interested.
I still believe Ggp have used it as a bargaining chip.
It's far too big for Ggp to mine on their own.