Member Info for DASUT

I agree it would be good to hear from Tibbs again. I will however offer my thoughts I am disappointed that the plant feed grade was only 1.3 after the 1.7 in the last quarter of 2017 BUT all other numbers are extremely positive not least the increased ROM stockpile. As I have said previously mining transitional ore to access higher grades always create production blips and am encouraged that Andrew Pardey is saying that they are still standing by the 580000 ounces pa so we now need close to 3 x the last qtr 2017 (152000 ounces per qtr). Given all but the feed grade should be doable.

Robbie Thanks I guessed that the main reason for no major push in West Africa is the size of the properties and making sense of what they do with the resource given distance, processes etc. Can be expensive to process transitional and sulphide ores at a start up stage much more pleasant if can kick start a mine with oxide ores and grow into the more difficult processes, albeit quite a lot of experience already gained in West Africa. Only thought on Burkina is that they have more experience as Ivory Coast sorry Cote D'Ivoire had suffered many years of civil war. All changed since I retired as I can see since about 2014 some major steps have been made and several mines are up and running and can now see why ABC has come to the fore quite quickly given success at Randgold's Tongon Mine which looks to follow similar geology. Looks exciting but not holding my breath on too much news on this coming out with the 1st quarter results.

How interesting if I was a betting man I would have put money on Burkina properties being the first to be developed. Unfortunately there isn't enough detail on the web site to see why Doropo and ABC are maybe further advanced which may be to do with ease of mining. Some time back I remember commenting on something relating to the gold being locked in and difficult to process so making 2 + 2 make considerably more than 4 could be that Doropo and ABC has more oxide ores (weathered rock) at a higher grade so easier and cheaper initially to move to a start up.

This is what I thought as it would be very unlike any mining company to report weekly shipments as it doesn't really tell us much, especially when a company is selling at spot. The only figures that I take notice of are those provided on a quarterly basis. Also it is extremely difficult to guess at what the company could produce if they pulled out all of the stops as there are far too many factors to take into account over the whole year. We saw last year the impact of a cut back where the strip ratio of waste to ore increased. Just let me provide you with one small example of something that the mine has to contend with as the hole in the ground gets deeper inevitably the distance that each truck travels is longer and gradually over time the number of truck loads per hour delivering to the crusher/ waste dump gets fewer, so do you increase the number of trucks? maybe , but do you have enough loaders to cope with extra trucks? can you flatten out the haul roads or can you improve the haul roads and the questions go on, if so what are the cost implications. Given that at quoted grades of 0.70 with a cut off grade of 0.30 per tonne both of which are pretty much what some old spoil heaps were generating as waste produced back in the day when mine processes were nowhere near as efficient as they are today, small changes in the production cycle has a significant effect on production. I take my hat off to the efficiencies at Sukari as they still predict increases in annual production given the above and believe me there are so many more factors involved and efficiencies are so so crucial to the continued success of any mine. Alexandra if you are reading then what I think we on this board would like to see is where and how quickly the company will be spreading the risk namely generating revenue from more than just Egypt. A timeline relating to growth would be very useful.

OK thanks and on West Africa I can understand the frustration. When I was working much of the team's job was to follow new opportunities and a mine reporting gold finds and drilling results would quite often be a good length of time after having chats with geologists working out of tents and relying on small generators to sustain their existence in the bush. These geo's would most often be the start and 5/6 years later if the drilling and the core sample results were promising then we could look forward to running numbers with the mining engineer planners as they developed their mine plan and bankable documents. The smaller mining companies would work quite quickly and the larger the organisation the longer it would take albeit there were the odd exception. Sukari for example it was 2000 when I met Sami El Raghy and he was looking for funding to kick start the mine and he had been working on the mine for a good few years prior to this because in 2000 he had a pretty detailed mine plan. 2008 was the year I retired and invested some of my lump sum because whilst we had already supplied machines and the mine had been opened up and infrastructure in place full on mining hadn't commenced because there was a need for some crucial approvals not least of which was the blasting licence. So 8 years and they already had a plan in place. I really don't think Centamin are being deliberately vague I think they still have a lot of work to make sense of the results bearing in mind the size of their properties and the fact that they straddle a border. A few months ago I asked the guys on the ground and there wasn't much if anything coming forward regarding machine fleets/contractor or owner mining/type of plant etc so mining I would suggest isn't imminent BUT this isn't necessarily a bad thing because I have seen mines who haven't done the detailed due diligence come a cropper and suggest Centamin are the type of company that will want to get it right first time rather than having expensive changes part way into the project(s). Guess what I am saying is keep the faith

Cowichan what do you believe would happen to the share price if there was a share buy back of say the 6% or the value paid out in dividends? I have no personal experience of such an action. I also sense some frustration on the board and admit to being a little disappointed with the performance of the share price but at the same time I am not disappointed with the performance of Centamin and guardedly optimistic with the current performance of the Gold Price. Looking forward to seeing first quarter results and think it is time to hear some more detail on a positive West African timeline although not holding my breath on the latter as is possibly still a little early.

Prof Yes I agree there is maybe a downside that is why my opening question was do we think cc is still having an impact on the SP. I feel as I have said more than once, Centamin's growth in to other regions and the spreading of risk is where we will see the significant improvement in the SP and I am going to see if there are any of my old contacts beating the bushes in Burkina and Ivory Coast.

Prof I think it will if not already be forgotten by the "system".

All I haven't been on the site for a while been busy elsewhere and really interesting having a quick catch up on the various comments. Do we think that the cc is having much of an impact on the SP? I have always thought that it is definitely a deterrent to the hovering predators. Although I think the overall general climate for investors is enough of a deterrent. My belief and only a belief is that the cc will be lost in time. Sukari is a difficult mine to manage and I feel the so called larger mining companies would struggle to maintain profitability. Profitable open pit mines with grades of less than 1 gram per tonne are few and far between, this is why I take my hat off to the Centamin team (OK helped by good underground grades but underground mines get more expensive over time). The GP quite obviously will impact the SP as will the results and dividends BUT the major impact will I believe be the West African properties. Gestation periods for developing a gold mine are traditionally lengthy and having properties straddling borders won't make it any easier.