George Frangeskides, Exec-Chair at Alba Mineral Resources, discusses grades at the Clogau Gold Mine. Watch the full video here.
Sorry Tibbs what is your question? Are you referring to the waste contract? This isn't contract mining and the only contract mining they had was the underground which has now finished. Capital in addition to the waste movement also has a drill and blast contract, still not contract mining but it is a contractor rather than owner.
The growing contract mining business I find interesting because when I got involved in the mining industry it was late 80's early 90's when mining was a come again business in Ghana where all but Ashanti Goldfields were defunct having been nationalised. This saw juniors initially entering the market and eventually mid to late 90's we saw mines growing and the arrival of majors and contractors, initially from Australia, South Africa, England, Ireland, Scotland now a good number of indigenous companies are involved.
If you want to see a scope of work for contract mining take a look at the technical report for Doropo on the Centamin web site from memory think it is covered in section 16.4.
Dealts anyone who has been a long termer will be disappointed with the performance of Centamin' s SP. So I am very interested in what Horgan has to say to us on Monday. As many of us as possible need to get registered for the presentation and fire in a question or two before hand.
Keep the questions short and concise and who knows we might get some very important insights to their thoughts.
Tornadotony Shanta a mining company formed in 2005 a company looking for a new CEO and struggling to produce 25,000 ounces a qtr. Market value of £110 million. AIM listed SP less than 11 pence.
West Kenya has been promising for quite some time and I visited the region back in the late 1990's and we all got excited when Barrick became involved but they sold to Shanta in 2020 so I wish Shanta luck because the grades look amazing.
Singida is new but a relatively small resource "So far".
My view is a neat junior but doubt it would fit into Centamin's core business plans.
Cowichan I don't disagree with any of the numbers or caveats. Input from Horgan himself at the stage of a prefeasibility study I think would be minimal other than directional and an outline by way of a questions to justify future development of the resource. As far as I can see nothing hidden from people like you and I should we want to read and digest the report.
There are many vague numbers reported and to be honest I wouldn't expect much different from the brief that all of the consulting teams have when putting some flesh around the bare bones of a pre feasibility study.
At this stage people like my old team would be asked for numbers that relate to the Life cycle costings of an estimated fleet of equipment based on annual tonnage.
At DFS stage there might be some more information to go on but until someone actually produces a mine plan with a pit layout it is extremely difficult to provide anywhere near some good estimates.
So I would only ever treat a PFS as a good guide risky business this mining lark.
The reason why I feel Doropo is a goer is because the wording the numbers and the consultant company names involved are so common to the many gold mines that I was involved in when working the West African region.
Not saying I am right just saying that much is early days gut feel and the detail will only become clear when the mine plan is known for the first stages.
The teams involved will by now have a great deal more information that will be fed into the DFS at the end of which it will be decision time.
3bear of course the build stage will be difficult because outgoings will be obvious but what is the alternative (look forward to hearing from our members)?
Centamin is a mining company and there is no cheap way of being successful in extracting minerals but we need to be thankful that the end product is gold. The risks are far greater when mining the likes of nickel, copper, manganese, rutile, bauxite,coal etc.
Paul, Definitive study (mid2024) is this when decision will be made?? Who knows the way forward like any business plan that any company puts together is gaining the confidence of the backers, be they the board using internal funds or outside finance organisations.
My view for what it is worth is that Centamin are being over conservative and plans should already be in place to go mining at Doropo in some form. From what I have read about the metallurgy is that they could open up the mine and at the same time start laying down leach pads to accrue revenue, whilst plant is being built.
There again I am an old f..rt who is looking in from the outside.
Tibbs why don't you think Doropo is a goer?
To me it looks a straight forward 150/200,000 ounce per annum ore body, OK nothing fantastic but a healthy addition.
Horgan has a pretty good record operating in West Africa which suggests he and his team are well connected.
Coup's occur in Africa it is all part of "development" as is corruption all taught and gleaned from outside influences, certainly not invented in Africa.
Yes agreed it don't come cheap but if investors don't understand that mining is capital intensive and risky then why invest in such ventures?
Paul right now I would settle for silver toe caps which is far better than the tin that we can maybe afford at the current SP. Will be a while before we get near the gold flip flops.
A question was also asked about when Doropo will influence the SP which again is a difficult prediction.
Initial impact will be when the green light is given to go mining. Then another impact will be when they ship the first ounces. My belief is that both of these will happen but when I have no idea.
Mr Bond tend to agree that is why I am asking where we are hearing that the plant closed for 30 days. As Cowichan rightly says 130,000 ounces is a big ask so they need a kick start of a considerable number of ounces.
Can the plant produce 130,000 ounces at the current low grades I don't know so worthy of a question for the retail presentation.
From my experience I have never ever seen a mine working at 100% of the optimum feed. By this I mean a truck feeding the mill, with the next truck backing up just as the truck feeding is moving away. This allows a percentage of time to feed with loaders from the ROM.
Guess it depends on the overall efficiency of the plant as to whether there is capacity to achieve the necessary ounces.
Paul It is way too early for forecasts from anyone outside of the Centamin teams given the new mine plan is only just known to us but given that the open pit now has the flexibility of mining ore from several faces, actually processing more of the low grade ores by placing on heap leach pads, lower strip ratios over the next 15 months, reductions of operational costs, upgrading of underground equipment, waste contract ending during this period, additional trucks in the open pit.
I have confidence that the mine is now moving in the right direction but the initial proof will be that the flexibility enables the mine to make up the 3rd quarter shortfall and that efficiencies reduce costs.
All this said the sales values of gold (OK some protection), is all important.
Mhendersen I get why the repairs might not have been scheduled but can you let us know where you heard that the mill was down for 30 days?
If they produced 101,000 ounces in 2 months then they should have ore sitting on the ROM containing at least another 30,000 ounces, available for processing from 1st October.
Cowichan I am not saying I am happy and certainly not laughing at the current SP but I can do nothing about the issues that have occurred but if the strip ratios from 2025 are 10:1 and above for a few years there is nothing that Horgan can do about it as it is the nature of the ore body.
What we now need to suffer is a longer wait to see what advantages the painful cost of the waste removal contract has on the production in 2024 when the report says they are going to be working with a strip ratio of 6.4:1 which gives Horgan and his team some short term credit and stay of execution, only wish the more important ore grade was more than 0.87.
I certainly am not saying that everything is great because it isn't and won't be until we start seeing the consistency of healthy profits.
Cowichan, Of course we can have it both ways it is called moving with the times and the all important mine flexibility coming into play. The new mine plan explains far more than we knew previously and the proof will now be in the future profits.
Yes the open pit production costs will be higher but so will be production ounces but other costs are looking to be reduced.
If Sukari was all about the open pit with grades of 0.9 and strip ratios at 10 then it would be marginal but Sukari is also a good grade underground mine hence being quoted as a world class ore body.
Horgan and his team have now set themselves targets and these need to be met or improved upon so next year is crucial to their and the mines success.
The reason the LOM Strip ratio was 5.3:1 was that it was wrong because it didn't achieve the necessary waste removal to optimise ongoing annual production. 6.5:1 isn't great but a hell of a lot better than the last 18/24 months.
Is this going to be achieved only time will tell but right now I don't have any information that tells me different.
One slightly good thing is that we are being told that they will achieve the bottom end of the forecast, can they make up quarter 3 shortfall ? My opinion for what it is worth is that it will be a close run thing albeit a good point is that they will have had a sizeable stock pile of ore on the ROM which will give them a kick start to the 4th Quarter.
What I take from the presentation is some positivity of getting back to a mine working as a mine should work not a mine that is in the process of back to basics to understand the ore body and writing up a plan to go mining, which is what we have been experiencing over the last couple of years or since Horgan came on board.
Now the proof really will be in the eating and we will see how good the newish team are and next year will be crunch time and rather than accuse the board of lies we will unfortunately still need to wait for proof by way of results against their new plans.
Tibbs just catching up on a few posts and find your reduce the number of kids somewhat Developed country rhetoric. In the developing world there isn't such a thing as social care, government national pension schemes and the security blanket that you enjoy.
So like it or not kids are produced and the extended family develops to protect the elderly who can no longer work to look after themselves. The more kids the less of a burden on each individual.
The villages and small townships create far less pollution than a single street or road because they seldom have gas and electric multiple radiators, ovens, fridges and freezers and all so called creature comforts. They do however produce more children per household with kids walking miles to school after their morning chores, fetching water tending to goats or the odd free range chicken that share their hut.
Unfortunately simple solutions in this world of variations aren't easy and could be damaging the less complicated family structures.
Unfortunately it is the developed world that needs to address the issues of climate change and pollution.
Major problem is politicians only skilled at politics and not what is really needed to overcome real life issues.
Granted population growth has to be a contributory factor but not developing alternatives to oil and gas quickly enough is the major issue and politicians talking and debating only slows the inevitable need for alternatives.
Spoonington, "Non sustaining Capex particularly the waste contract".
Feel the Capex expenditure on Solar Farm is money well spent, Likewise the upgrading equipment and reverting to owner mining underground should be a profitable venture and money well spent.
Personally believe light weight bodies geared to the weight of the material being hauled is a good albeit risky venture that I hope works out over the long term but I am sure it will need tweaking to get the balance of lightweight and wear material sorted out.
Capex related to coupling up to the National Grid will I am sure be beneficial and won't require difficult maths to determine the return on investment, when compared with running a diesel generation facility, this type of study is not new and has happened in many countries around the world.
The waste contract I do hope won't need to be continued after it is due to end mid next year as I have said previously this is a necessary evil and by way of explanation.
The hole in the ground is basically not large enough and if left any longer enlarging the hole would have proved unviable. Apologies in advance for those mining engineers or miners reading this forum but imagine digging a hole in the ground 20 foot in diameter and 10 foot deep and once dug realising it needed to be 22 foot in diameter. Now how do you take out the extra two foot without a considerable amount of material ending up in the bottom of the hole.
However if you realise that the hole needs to be 2 foot wider when you have only dug 4 foot then the problem is somewhat easier to overcome.
Obviously this is very basic and Centamin's issues are way more complicated but the need to remedy the driving into a blind alley was paramount. As I have also said the proof in the decision to blitz the waste and expand the pit will only become clear once the contract ends and hopefully there are numerous ore bearing faces that can be worked and not reliant on working one and moving on to the next, therefore far more flexible and hopefully more productive.
I agree however Spoonington that this Capex is not sustainable and the ratio between working in waste and ore has to drop.
The good news is once the waste has been moved it won't need to be moved again, although there will always be the need to move different waste but this has to be at a lower ratio.