Member Info for Cowichan

"Management has put a gloss over this in their latest 5-year production plan, artificially holding down the strip ratio and assuming continuation of underground mining at a very high level,"

1) there is no 'assumption' necessary regarding the underground mining at a very high level - in fact, the underground is set to increase substantially (at least in regards to volume) with grade varying quite widely - no secrets here

'artificially holding down strip ratio'

2) again, the alarmist choice of words is unfortunate as it is managements job to tweak where and when appropriate, with the idea of being most efficient in the process. I mean it's not like a child eating a bowl of ice cream, sticking their spoon in where they find a piece of chocolate. The layers will all be stripped back eventually - the trick is to keep the head grade consistent - balancing underground with open pit - for the sake of the processing equipment and ratios of chemicals, etc.

Still I think we are well advised to be as informed as possible and I thank Tibbs for bringing these issues into the light where we can all debate and learn and spur management on to better results in the future

First - thank you Tibbs for relaying many of our unspoken concerns to management. Your efforts have no doubt resulted in the untimely production update from management.

While we can all debate the seriousness (& blame!) for this shortfall, I think it's good for shareholders to keep pestering their board for full disclosure — it really is our responsibility.

Personally I'm not the least bit concerned about the long term profitability of Centamin.

Overall the underground is simply too well endowed to be pessimistic. Certainly the high grade mineralized zones will present a constant challenge — we'll have ups and downs — no ore body is evenly distributed and no method of appraisal can fix that uncertainty.

Some of us are getting to our rope's end with waiting for positive momentum with this company BUT just like the unexpected takeover of Randgold it's certain change will come when least expected.

Burkina Faso may be poo pooed by naysayers but the multiple ore bodies are substantial. Batie West will be a generational type development - not a hit-and-run like so many others in West Africa.

And then Cote D'Ivoire - plenty of growth is coming for those willing to hang on.

A Prosperous & Happy New Year To All!

'Last year, Barrick paid Thornton $7.7 million in salary and incentives; Randgold paid Bristow $9.6 million. That’s about double the compensation of the CEOs of some of the world’s biggest mining companies, including Rio Tinto Group.'

'At the decade’s start, many companies bet on costly takeovers and mine developments that racked up debt but didn’t pay off. At least, not for shareholders. Industry executives reaped handsome rewards.'

https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/12/18/this-odd-couple-plots-to-save-100b-gold-mining-business.html

Thanks Rebess.
I suppose the only difference being the Huawei executive is now out on bail, free to continue her billionaire lifestyle while the Canadians are jailed in an undisclosed location without justifiable cause or specified charges.

IMO the Canadian government is being far too polite about the situation. As China is known to employ questionable interrogation practices I do hope the international media pursues the story with a little more zeal.

Rebess - I agree that the USA has the biggest stick and the biggest ego.

That said the USA also has a great many decent people who don't like the way their country is being led.

On a side note I was wondering how the British media is treating the situation with two Canadians being detained in China with suspicions of endangering 'national security.'

As much as I disdain the strong arm tactics of the USA it may be China that we all should be worried about long term

As an outsider I've been watching Brexit with no particular desire for either outcome but not without a sympathetic ear for both sides.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the heart of the matter seems to be some Brits don't appreciate giving up a portion of their autonomy to a so called foreign entity in exchange for access into the club. Well, that my friend is not something unique or unusual in this world.
My country might well be called the 'The Canadian Union' for the situation is not that unlike the EU. Originally it took many leaders and many years of negotiations for the various provinces and dominions to eventually unite, none wanting to give up too much autonomy in the process.
Each province & territory is still like a separate country, each is unique culturally, economically, etc. And even after a century of unity there exists much disagreement, bickering, resentment, and demands for special treatment amongst us.
Would the world be better off with a splintered Canada? Would I be better off? Or how about a splintered USA (California really wants out) I don't think so.
PS About wishing to vote out leaders you had not elected and yet have a big impact on 'your' country. Lord knows, I wish I could vote out the leaders of several provinces who place questionable barriers to trade and financial demands on the rest.
The bottom line; no agreement will satisfy everyone but tearing up one only to rewrite two dozen more is unlikely to prove more agreeable. Cheers.

Michael Brown, currently President, Barrick U.S.A., will be retiring from the Company on December 31, 2018. Mr. Brown has been with Barrick since 1994, and has played a key role in the growth and development of the Company’s U.S. operations over two-and-a-half decades.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-brown-3a516414b/

Despite what might seem an endlessly regressive society (in terms of its economic progress) Egypt can teach the world some very valuable lessons. To wit:

Egypt’s first presenter with Down syndrome is front and center on TV screens around the country:

22-year-old Rahma Khaled made her TV debut (watch, runtime 3:41) on Tuesday, becoming the nation’s first TV presenter with Down syndrome, according to Ahram Online. Khaled, who is also a professional athlete, will be co-hosting DMC’s 8:00am morning show each Tuesday.

“This can open the door to people with special abilities, to prove we can work,” Khaled told the newspaper. In Egypt, there are an estimated 100,000 people with Down syndrome

https://twitter.com/donaldplawson/status/1073300243201040385

Yes, just imagine the treasure troves (quite literally) awaiting rediscovery all across Egypt's back country with the right technology.

And exploiting these materials is so much preferential to those in ecologically sensitive areas (like the Amazon!) that I'm convinced there will be an international gold rush into Egypt should the politicians sort things out.

Fingers crossed.

A video & article about Aton's ‘lost mountain of gold’ in Egypt

Before Aton picked it up, Centamin (TSX: CEE; US-OTC: CELTF) owned Abu Marawat. It dropped the concession in the early 2000s after discovering its Sukari deposit.

“We started off at Abu Marawat and followed up on what had gone before and then shifted our focus to an area called Hamama,” company president and CEO Mark Campbell explains in a telephone interview with The Northern Miner from Cairo. “The conventional wisdom was there was a classic VMS at Hamama, but that we’ve demonstrated is not the case. It’s a sort of VMS epithermal hybrid.”

“The Bedouin had always talked about this lost mountain of gold, this legendary mountain of gold, but nobody knew where it was,” Campbell says. “We did some satellite imagery and found these old ancient trails. Because its desert, because it’s barren rock and its very dry nothing really erodes.”

The company followed the trails to a mountain 3 km south of Eradiya and 18 km west of Hamama West.
Campbell continues, “We went up there and that’s when everybody went ‘wow.’ The place is honeycombed with ancient workings, some that go down 80 metres below ground. We found old clay lamps with wicks still in them, old ropes, stone tools and it was obvious that we were the first people up there in 1600 years.”

The company called the area Rodruin. It built a 4.5 km road up the side of the mountain that in some places slopes up to 70 degrees. It also built several drill pads that it used for its first phase drill program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ1aYmnc4ns

https://www.northernminer.com/news/aton-drills-gold-mineralization-at-rodruin/1003802567/

1) They should be able to pay royalties on its use of the land regardless of the metals and minerals discovered.

2) They should also pay taxes on the quantity of metals or minerals produced regardless of the prices at which their produce is sold.

3) The royalties and taxes should be spelled out in the executive regulations of the law and not in the law itself so they could be adjusted easily, Kamal said. As changes in the law would take time, whereas executive regulations can be modified more easily by the cabinet.

4) Mohamed Hanafi, head of the Metallurgical Industries Chamber at the Egyptian Federation of Industries, said that the Mineral Resources Authority should be a technical authority and not one that shares the ownership of companies and profits with investors

5) He said that the fact that the state enters into joint ventures with companies in projects allows for the Central Auditing Agency to interfere in the activities of the mine, affecting management efficiency.

6) Another solution was that investors should pay 30 per cent of their profits to the Ministry of Finance, as other mines do around the globe.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/319795/Business/Economy/Egypt-Meeting-the-demands-of-the-mining-sector.aspx

The new amendments should fix the 2014 law's disadvantages that made it 'unattractive for investors,' he added.
Former Egyptian Oil Minister, Osama Kamal, told Daily News Egypt that 'Alsukari concession's contract was not the best of its kind. The main problem was that EMRA has a lot of bureaucratic procedures in order to take its share of the revenues, because it is not involved in the management process

In a recent interview with Rosa El-Youssef, Ayman El-Saie, the head of the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority (EMRA), said that 'Centamin has made $4.5bn in revenue, of which EMRA got only $200m, which is quite little compared with tax and customs exemptions the company gets.'
Centamin is the operator of the country's only commercial gold mine, Alsukari, whose production reached 108.8 tonnes of gold from the start of production in 2010 until June 2018. The company signed an agreement with the government in 1994 to operate the gold mine. The deal was criticised by many politicians who considered it a severe failure on the government's side in the negotiations.

El-Raghy said 'until now we have made $4.2bn in revenue, EMRA has got $350m of them, the government can audit our financial statements anytime, as we are completely committed to them.'

https://menafn.com/1097788416/State-investors-in-tugofwar-over-resurrecting-Egypts-gold-mines

Rebess,

IF I remember right at least two of these concessions appeared to be in a desirous location ie there was previous workings and geological data that sounded promising

The terms & conditions switch-a-roo does seem to create problems BUT prior to this latest 'leak' I remember the EMRA boss saying the 2017 concessions had 'expired' as the companies did not submit their paperwork on time, etc

I believe Siko warned us of not believing everything we read in the Egyptian media as there are forces at work contrary to the government's plan of action

All we can do is speculate until the revisions are passed - the earliest I think would be this Sunday as the house is on a week long break

Cheers

Yes, the sky is blue...
And you've posted about 35 times today...
And I'm tired of reading your posts...
And I'll shut up now as somebody with more patience than I once told me 'to let a thousand flowers bloom.'
Thinking happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts...

EMRA to hand over concessions from 2017 gold tender after Mineral Resources Act is amended: The Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority is holding off on handing over the five concessions awarded in its 2017 gold exploration tender until after the amendments to the Mineral Resources Act are finalized and passed, an EMRA source tells Amwal Al Ghad.

The winners of the tender were UK’s Veritas Mining Limited, Ghassan Spain Investment, Egypt’s East Gas Company, and Resolute Egypt, who will collectively invest USD 41.3 mn.

Background:

The government has sent the amendments to the act to the House of Representatives for review, Oil Minister Tarek El Molla said last month. El Molla reiterated that the amendments — the details of which remain unclear — were made primarily to draw investments in the flagging mining sector, which has been hobbled by an outdated economic framework better suited to the oil and gas industry.

Wood Mackenzie has been contracted by an affiliate of the Oil Ministry to lay out an appropriate development strategy for the sector.

The firm identified four key challenges facing Egypt’s mining sector, and its suggestions have largely been incorporated in the proposed amendments to the Mineral Resources Act

https://enterprise.press/#tldr-story-09

http://en.amwalalghad.com/

I think it's just we're an unloved, unknown, anomaly in a world of ill informed investors infatuated by hyperbole.

Our glory days are coming.

Bitcoin went to zero?

'While there are many estimates of bitcoin’s cost of mining, most suggest it is close to $5,000 per coin...'

https://www.marke****ch.com/story/bitcoin-is-close-to-becoming-worthless-2018-12-03

of gold are being illegally mined each year... At least that's what I think this article is stating... other views welcome!

CAIRO, Nov 27 (MENA) - The Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority (EMRA) is studying to establish industrial complexes for gold explorers in a bid to include them in the formal economy.

About 40 tons of gold are unearthed every year, said EMRA chairman Ayman Saie in statements to MENA on Tuesday.

The complexes should be established in Marsa Allam, Aswan and Shalateen, Saie said on the fringe of the 15th International Arab Mineral Resources Conference, now in session here.

He added that the Petroleum Ministry is acting to enhance the value added of ores in Egypt, noting that the country has huge geological reserves and logistics potentials.

Egypt has 120 sites that can very well be used in the exploration for gold, Saie said. He put the total amount of gold produced from the Sukari mine since it went operational at about 115 tons.

With the help of national investments and foreign expertise, the mining sector in Egypt would be given a real shot in the arm, Saie believes.

http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/61069/EMRA-head-reveals-study-to-establish-complexes-for-gold-explorers

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has outlined plans to build a new African-focused gold company and said he is keen to buy any gold mines on the continent put up for sale by Canada’s Barrick Gold following its merger with Randgold Resources.

Speaking at the Mines and Money conference in London, Mr Sawiris said he wanted to use Ghana-based gold miner Golden Star, in which he bought a 30 per cent stake in August, as a vehicle to acquire underground gold mines, mainly in east Africa.

Mr Sawiris said he was looking for deposits that could produce between 150,000 to 250,000 ounces of gold a year for a minimum of ten years mine.

He also told reporters he had met Barrick Gold’s executive chairman John Thornton recently in a lift in New York, and had expressed his interest in buying some of the company’s African mines.

“It makes sense for us,” he said, about acquiring any unwanted assets from Barrick,” said Mr Sawiris. “We can extend the mine life.”

https://www.ft.com/content/af2c8ff8-f246-11e8-ae55-df4bf40f9d0d