Member Info for DASUT

gnome what I meant was it isn't usual to go straight to the BIOX plant as whilst not new can be somewhat more complicated and what normally happens or I should say used to happen is work the ore body and build on experience. As you say the ore body has been known for over a decade and considerable experience gathered in West Africa with similar ore bodies, so why not go straight to the tried and tested bugs.
What I thought we would see before hearing about a process is the appointment of contractors to open up the mine infrastructure and maybe even get into the oxide ores and as I say start working the ore body.
All good however as we are long overdue some excitement in West Africa albeit currently supposition and like you fond memories of travelling around West Africa albeit most of my experiences Ghana , Sierra Leone and Nigeria (maybe not so fond in the latter years in Nigeria).

Interesting thought and quite an interesting development jumping straight to the bug plant but could well be the answer to what I recollect was mentioned a while back about complicated ore body and refractory ore.
Never know might be someone making a bold early decision but there are many mines in West Africa where a BIOX Plant could be necessary.

I think you might have hit the nail as Youssef is General Manager with emphasis on the General and doubt he has a great deal if any of hands on the muck shifting day to day at the gold face operations.
Nephew Josef as far as I am aware is now one of us albeit he has a few more shares than me and I am sure he decided to call it a day as he believed he had reached his limits. I know he is an Australian not an Egyptian and has a relatively young family and maybe has kids being educated somewhere other than Egypt and I know he is a family man.
Good luck to him as he took the reigns at an early stage after father moved aside and between them they set a strong foundation and I hope he has left us in safe hands.

MrBond I can't comment on which concession areas would be the most lucrative but if the reserves are there south of Sukari then it would make sense to expand and benefit from existing infrastructure.
The issue with Egypt is a number of concessions being awarded at the same time and similar start up time so multiple demands for limited resources, so suggest there will be some highly paid opportunities for some people.
I do however think it is great news that Egypt is opening up at long last as in the long term a larger mining sector will benefit all players.
As for Chile and Congo certainly glad we don't have their issues and good reason why I invest in Centamin.

Sorry Mr Bond I haven't looked at the board for a while, large volumes of water is a necessary property as we all know on a goldmine and the lack of fresh water from the mains or local rivers etc then becomes expensive and distance multiplies the expense and adding a salt water treatment plant adds even more expense, as does the lack of power from the grid but this is pretty normal for pretty much all mines around the world. People having to travel and be accommodated on site adds expense and logistical issues and most of the Egyptian people who have any knowledge of mining are already employed and these are not necessarily an issue because pretty much every mine around the world accommodate the experts and also pay these experts the big bucks. It is the paper pushers, drivers/machine operators, cleaners, electricians, plumbers and all of the other artisans and support networks that keep the operation running and currently not a major issue with Cey but the further away from the coast the more difficult and expensive it will be to accommodate, import and train people and services. The early days of Sukari was very difficult as the people in the coastal towns had experience of tourism, diving and fishing and very limited engineering resource. Centamin has a massive advantage because of their experience in developing a mine from scratch in a semi remote area of Egypt so they will know the cost per kilometre of installing a water treatment plant and the costs of importing people etc. They will also know the costs and issues related to operating in Egypt, what it takes for example to obtain a blasting licence and believe me there was a time when this was make or break time.
This is one of the reasons why Endeavour wanted Centamin but they didn't factor in enough money to cover the worth of "goodwill".
I only hope that too much knowledge doesn't become a disadvantage when bidding for a concession. Centamin will need to guard against poaching of their people but I am sure (I hope) they have extensive training programmes in place.
Sorry for the ramblings of an old codger.
GLA

All sounds good hike in SP when Cey are awarded a concession area? Problem is time making awards to me also means time to manipulate results, let's hope I am wrong and Cey get what they want. Too far inland lack of water will be an issue, too far away from people will be expensive.
Interesting times.

Rebess I wouldn't give up on West Africa and whilst I understand people being frustrated but when I was in the game the minimum gestation period from gaining knowledge of activity in a given area was about 5 years. So OK Centamin are a overdue BUT as I say a minimum of 5 years and those that were over 5 years in my experience pretty much turned out to be the most successful with far less early doors expensive mistakes.
I think we need to give the new team time to analyse what they have got and establish priorities and implement plans with specific timelines.

Rebess something we all need to be aware of is that if there is an area or areas of ground on the list to be bid for that is of interest then they will be bidding. They won't be letting anyone know what they will be bidding for because in Sami El Rahgy they have pretty much the leading expert on Egyptian Geology.
Will it be local to Sukari not necessarily as any property worth bidding for will likely necessitate the formation in the long term of a new mine. The good news is that they already have in house local expertise and artisans and this is a massive advantage.

I put a new sell order at 235 and wow came very very close do I stay or do I go?
I am looking to finally retiring from investments and enjoy some spending . GLA

Like you Gnome disappointed no news regarding bringing in the resources to extraction.
Grateful if someone who is calling in could ask the question. Unfortunately I can't as I am travelling at the moment and have an appointment from 12.30.
Not worried about knowing their specific intent at the upcoming bidding in Egypt as if I was them I would also be keeping quiet and holding my cards close.
Some more detailed plans regarding the West African resource is however long overdue.

I once had a chat with some brand new prospective politicians in a developing country who argued that it was difficult for them to get funding from the developing world without opening up their resources to International companies.
One of them said isn't it strange we need to take out our resource from under the ground so that banks can put it back under the ground. We only get a small percentage of it's worth and have to wait years before we can access even the small percentage whilst the International companies repay their loans with our resource.
Must admit to having some sympathy but together with the IMF and World Bank and AID from other countries the developing country has become far stronger albeit still has a long way to go and was one of my favourite countries to visit.

Some very interesting thoughts and comments as to what next. I am currently more than thankful to be where we are right now. Centamin are up because the rest of the markets are down and why are they down because of a pandemic that is causing health and economic havoc. There is a whole load of handbag swinging between USA and pretty much the rest of the world and China, with Russia back in the press because of it's messing about with false news and cyber manipulating.
So we are seeing a rush to the safer haven of gold.
Centamin aren't currently doing anything overly special if they bring in closer to the low end of original forecast given the exceptional first half year, but hope they are back to their old conservative ways otherwise I am a little worried as "maintenance" regardless of when it takes place in the year should have been taken into account when estimating the annual production.
OK they will still be above the 500,000 ounces but there are a lot of you guys who were extremely unhappy about similar figures a few years back when there was some weird forecasting coming from the senior managers.
So my niggling worries are about ore grades as we near the bottom of the open pit and strip ratios as we go through the next 6 months as they open up the next phase.
I feel sure we will hear encouraging news on 4th August based on what has been achieved but it is really important that we hear some positives on the way forward and interesting times for the new team that are to take Centamin through the next chapter of the development of what is a relatively young company.

Tiger I do hope you are right because when I looked at the gold price after getting back from the golf course I was expecting to see Centamin up by at least a couple of pence but to see the opposite was a surprise and a worry.

Mr Bond I wouldn't put the blame totally on the old British colonial rulers teaching corruption because there are many of the countries ruled by the Brits that are a joy to visit and are extremely well managed. It is all about countries growing and the pains of growth. Some grow up better than others, unfortunately Nigeria had too much wealth too quickly and bad practices followed the instant wealth not helped by the civil war which will take a great deal of time to remedy.
Not a lot of difference from pretty much every country that has suffered civil wars at some time in their history.
I hope Nigeria does find a way to overcome what goldgnome sums up extremely well as there are many good Nigerian people doing great work and who suffer the same headaches that I suffered albeit they have to suffer such barriers on a daily basis.

So anyone have any idea why Gold up and Sp down and that there are so many single figure purchases and considerable trades of 100 and 200 shares it looks as though deliberate push at keeping the SP down?

Tibbs all I can say is the article is in my opinion political rhetoric.

Wow this needs some personal research because I had many meetings over the years with Nigerian officials relating to the Solid Mineral opportunities is Nigeria but always ended up with a sore head after too many brick walls.
$3 billion losses from smuggled gold ? Where are these mines and I suggest artisan mining is all that will ever happen given the lack of transparency and the one for you and two for me attitude.
Reminds me of the joke told to me by a very senior Nigerian "When the Americans were looking to put the first man on the moon and the first applicant was an English man who offered his services for a $1 million to go to his wife if he didn't return, the next applicant was a Frenchman who wanted $2 million with $1 million to go to his wife and $1 million to go to his mistress if he didn't return, in came the Nigerian who asked for $3 million and explained that there is a $1 million for himself, $1 million for the guy doing the interviewing and they would send the silly Englishman."
Seriously I am certain that Nigeria is awash with minerals including Gold but they really struggle to coordinate a meaningful strategy involving the large mining houses or even encouraging the tried and tested International second and third tier mining companies to get out there and do the ground work .
Safety would also be something that would worry me even though I travelled pretty much the whole of Nigeria in my time Boko Haram weren't in existence , but it was still not overly comfortable.

Goldgnome like you I struggle to understand how the SP isn't motoring upwards the figures are excellent what more is expected I don't know?

Rebess I think the reference to maintenance relates to the Processing Plant and Crushers being static plant which isn't something that I have had any involvement but suggest we are talking best part of a day or more but breakdown delays caused by lack of maintenance isn't an option.
The mobile fleet will have ongoing maintenance with their own maintenance team being on site. The dealership guys likely do specialist component rebuilds offsite where they will have the specialist testing equipment. Simplified example Engine out at scheduled interval prior to breakdown replaced by an exchange component, old engine rebuilt and then goes back to site as an exchange component so minimum delay and given a fleet of say trucks minimal impact as spread across a fleet.
So as I say reference I would suggest relates to the Processing plant and other large static pieces of equipment where maintenance will involve a shutdown.
Sorry I can't be more helpful but what I would say not doing maintenance isn't an option and maybe this is why they have narrowed the annual ounces prediction.

Prof spent the day travelling so my first opportunity to scan the half year report and to be honest with the so so or as you say mute response to the increase in SP I thought the report must have been somewhat disappointing, however far from it given the rest of the world suffering economically here we read a very good report with above target achievements. So maybe the market needs a bit of time to actually digest what has been reported and disregard the ( brackets) and understand the achievements.
OK the achievements explained as being because of delayed maintenance/service which did make me shudder a little so hope they put this right in 3 rd quarter when production should be helped by increase in underground results.