Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Rebess the open pit is the best place to have low grades because it is the cheapest place to actually move a tonne of material. Just a quick and dirty calculation.
Capital move waste for about $2 per tonne if that tonne carries 0.67 grams and a truck carries 150 tonnes then it is carrying about 3.5 ounces so approximately $6,800 per truck at a cost of $300 per truck load.
This is an average brought down by the very low grade leach dump ore.
The dump leach at say 0.3 will still show a profit and far better than throwing on the waste dump at a cost of $300 per truck load and zero return.
Leach pads save the extra costs of the expensive processing through the plant, nowhere near as efficient but cheap way of processing very low grade ore. If the gold price was down where it was back in the late 90's it wouldn't be worth mining such low grade ore and leach dump pads were very much the way to go even with grades at 1.5 grams per tonne.
Something always better than nothing.
So what is going on we see positive news strong positive data and the SP isn't moving even with gold price over $2000 sorry I don't get it? Horgan must feel this is like a kick in the teeth what more does his team need to do?
That's more like it as we see a greater contribution from underground and a more flexible open pit and making use of the lowest grades on a dump leach. Would love to know the ounces carried over from quarter 3 to provide us with a more realistic performance but guess can be done by looking at the average of the second half of the year.
If we take the performance of second half we are looking at average by quarter of close to 119,000 per quarter so multiply by 4 and we get 476,000 ounces for 2024 so low end projection, not rocket science but looks like we are back to mining at long last.
Capex is still high but if this continues to improve efficiencies therefore reducing costs in the longer term then job well done.
mhendersen I am envious of your close to the face knowledge glad you are on this forum, Horgan and his team are gradually benefiting from the hard decisions that have been taken so credit to the newish team.
We now need the gold price to recover from the very recent nonsense.
Tibbs the maiden drill results are very good given it is what it says the maiden drill, to be honest I was very surprised how good the results were.
Blockbusters are few and far between like winning the lottery.
The Egyptian stakeholders I am sure would be impressed that Centamin have something positive so quickly to be honest as I say I was amazed to see anything as good this early in proceedings.
Don't get me wrong it isn't going to be anytime soon that they are extracting gold from these areas but small steps in the right direction.
I am not sure guessing tomorrow's numbers does us any good. As Steve says results are all that counts and tomorrow we will find out whether Centamin can meet the low end targets which I feel will be a disappointing year. To achieve the low end numbers they will need a close to record performance. Is this achievable yes it is as they have the equipment to move the tonnage, a number of benches to work from and they had some ounces sitting on the ROM after shortfall 3rd Qtr but it will depend on ore grades.
Tibbs I am not saying it is commercially viable and certainly not what Horgan and his team are saying but if you are a miner you have to start somewhere and finding resources is what the job is all about, because without additional opportunities the business has limited scope.
Steve mentioned to me that Centamin's recent RNS didn't include results hence no impact on the SP.
Results as far as I am concerned are history and the strength of an investment as far as I am concerned is the future potential. I didn't initially invest in Centamin based on results because at that time there wasn't any but the then potential was considerable.
As I say credit where credit is due as it is a step in the right direction.
3bear I am not saying it is the answer to all of our prayers because it is very early days and I emphasise very early but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
If I was still in the game this sort of information would prompt me to get one of my team to ask questions of the guys on the ground.
Tibbs you need to look at the RNS in more detail as there are maps and cross sections and open at depth means they haven't drilled down to underground levels it means it is the first pass drill results that tells them they need to do a lot more work to understand what it is that they have.
Hell in mining parlance they have only been on the ground for minutes and they already have promising results.
You aren't going to get any more detail as I say there needs to be a lot more work done and to me the grades look bloody good for a first pass through a prospective area.
Credit where credit is due thousands of square kilometres and they have already thrown darts in the right direction, I am sure Barrick are jealous because as far as I know please correct me if I am wrong they haven't published any findings from their areas of the Eastern Desert.
Tibbs, Cautious is the correct word because as I say very promising for a first pass albeit I am sure there was some previous knowledge coming from within. Hopefully "Little Sukari" grows to a larger Sukari.
I am sure you will remember back in the day we had a good deal of input from a "driller" who was waxing lyrical about an area that he was working. Was his name Dan? If so would be great to know the area that he was involved in.
Steve many thanks and good luck to you also. Thoroughly agree about inflation it is the bane of all long term investments thankfully my buy in price was extremely low and I haven't fortunately been overly tempted to increase my investment at the high price levels.
Steve OK I understand the logic but glad that I have made decisions on what I think company strengths will contribute or otherwise in the longer term because I don't have the expertise to trade.
Not sure as I say my investment knowledge would work in the short term because based on actual results will be too late to get in or out especially with time differences world wide.
Example of this was when it was decided to issue a RNS saying they weren't going to meet production ounce target due to operational difficulties. No actual results but SP plummeted yet they made good dollar profits at the year end because they sold gold at a higher than predicted price.
Thanks Tony I have read through the RNS in more detail and there is some excellent information regarding the drill results and looks very promising because as I say "they have found gold".
From what I have read today regarding the drilling results in the Eastern Desert and year end interview in Egypt I would say this together with a gold price that is holding it's own over $2,000 an ounce and China increasing it's gold reserves we have some positive data but SP is stagnant.
Pity we don't know how close together these drill samples are but certainly very promising first pass.
OK these are maiden drilling results but they have "found gold" and it is relatively close to their existing mine so Steve help me out here what data is holding us back?
Tibbs next qtr is a long way off and what I am hoping is that back end of next week when Horgan attends Saudi Mining Forum we hear something positive about last qtr results.
Steve as a trader I fully understand your response to data being important as all businesses rely on market data and having the ability to respond, some do some don't difference between success and failure.
An investor or a business owner looking long term there must be an understanding of the company fundamentals so what impact on your decisions as a trader does company data have?
The reason I ask is that Centamin as an example has given in my experience and understanding of mining provided some strong positive data during the year but there has been very little positive reaction from the market, even when this is coupled with an improving gold price.
Also the data surrounding Centamin is much the same as that surrounding other mining companies example yesterday Barrick up and Centamin down.
Sorry if I sound naive but I am not a trader albeit my investments haven't done bad but can always do better.
Tony Shanta is a good junior that needs considerable funds to bring West Kenya to fruition and not sure I can see it being a large enough carrot for any of the larger mining houses. Barrick has been mentioned but they once owned it if memory serves me correctly.
I am not sure what it is about Kenyan mining properties because back in the day I did extensive trips through Uganda in particular the Karamoja region (didn't stay long too dangerous) but an area the geologists tell me is mineral rich, through Kenya and called in at several prospective camps one of which is now called West Kenya, on down to North Mara, staying in Mwanza and looking at many prospects including Geita which at that time was being worked by a husband and wife team of geologists and they were absolutely brilliant hosts and so knowledgeable about the concession areas that were looking to develop. Geita as far as they were concerned would be the jewel in the crown for Tanzania with all other areas relatively small in comparison. They were proven to be right and at that time Barrick had a team of people working out of Dar Es Salaam with about 5 different concession areas in their portfolio. From memory I think 4 of them came to fruition and two are still going Bulyanhulu and North Mara.
Another fascinating visit back then was to the old colonial Williamson Diamond Mine if you get a chance I think might be worth a google because old man Williamson was quite a character. I might google it myself to see if there is much on the net about it and him because fascinating story of how he had a gut feeling that paid off.
Sorry I digress.
I think Shanta needs someone with deep pockets to come on board if they are to get West Kenya up and running and I hope it happens because the juniors are the life blood of the mining sector and Kenya could do with a productive gold mine at long last.
Happy Christmas and prosperous healthy 2024 to you all
I find it interesting that expectations are for Sukari to produce over 500,000 ounces per annum. As far as I am aware the early LOM plan was always 450 to 500,000 ounces pa.
I do appreciate over 500 thousand has been achieved but this came at a cost and by creating short cuts and the need to throw money at correcting errors.
OK I appreciate the proof is still to be delivered and as I have already said this quarter is crucial but it does now look as though we are back to a structured mine with a number of faces open to ore.
GLA
Tibbs why so negative it is an extra years gold doesn't mean they have to mine it at the end of the life of mine, it is called adding to the flexibility.
Paul sorry I can't answer your question because I haven't been directly involved for many years but if my old firm is doing their job then yes they will be badgering the production guys on a regular basis advising them on equipment needs to achieve the required production. I would hope the Centamin production guys are using the Cat dealers combined with Cat skills because the software that they run with is very powerful.
What gives me some pride is that they are running in the open pit with the same equipment size match and type that we originally recommended for the Life of mine.
It does look as though the relationship between Mantrac (Cat dealer) and Centamin is very good as they have added Cat to the new owner miner underground fleet.
What will be interesting is how they configure the 5 new Trucks as for some unknown reason they went with non Cat light weight bodies which is a big gamble and I hope this time around they go with Cat design Mine specific bodies. There is a lot more to the engineering than is first thought as very fine balance between taking weight out of the body and durability.
Something that could also be in their favour is a fleet of equipment coming to the end of it's contract namely Capital's fleet, already on site similar spec, still relatively young and operators already trained that know the mine layout (another flexibility plus).
Good grades are few and far between at Sukari open pit the icing on the cake is now the underground. The secret to 2024/5 will be more trucks mining the ore and less moving waste as ore is profit and waste is cost.
When I put sales forecasts together I liked to be conservative because my markets were so volatile and mining was one of my markets. I can fully understand Horgan and it is better to achieve and have the opportunity to over achieve than always be missing the target.
Very good news it isn't often that you will add another years production in a 2 month period of exploration. the market however aren't interested as the majority appear to be using algorithms that don't read the fine detail.
My thoughts are that they will scrape in with the low end forecast production numbers but with a small profit boost based marginally lower costs and some good gold sale prices. You have got to live in hope!
The mine works 24 hours a day and I believe for 365 days per year as not sure they even close for Christmas day given the very varied religious groups that are employed. Buster if you have visited the mine more recently than I you might be able to confirm or otherwise. By now I would suggest management will have a very good idea of 4th Qtr. production given only 13 or maybe 12 days to go.
Horgan taking time out to attend the talks in Saudi says to me that he is quite relaxed about the situation and maybe we will get an early taste of things to come when he speaks.