Member Info for Eck71

Good effort Bellers, I’ll be watching with interest!

Quite liking this gradual inching up from the July dip, accompanied by modest but now regular construction updates on the Scotgold twitter feed. The SP has come close to breaching that crucial 40p options level twice this year, and failed twice. Third time lucky soon? Slow and steady...

Yup. Horror show.

There we are back to the option price for the ask. Can we push on beyond that? Hope so, even though I had to offload a few yesterday as needed some readies. Not ideal but there you go. That FT piece on Hamilton and Inches with some (accurate, for once) background on the mine history was very nice. Not sure Mrs Eck is in line for the Holyrood Palace cuff just yet, but we live in hope.

BBB, morar entirely agree. There used to be a guy on here a few years ago who was very excited about dividends, along with the SP’s decimal point moving (I don’t think he meant via a consolidation).

RM dividends by April? Dreaming I’m afraid, though delighted to be proved wrong. The development of Cononish 2,3,4 will be cash-hungry so I can’t see cash being returned to shareholders any time soon.

SPAngel calling 84p now eh? Obviously the in-house broker’s view isn’t worth a fish’s ***, but that would be nice - it’s about my average, beaten down over the years from my initial splurge at 520p...

GLA

Not much time to comment on this, but:

1) I look like an idiot for saying the lack of comms could be read as confidence of no further equity fundraising needed. Fair cop. I neglected the possibility that if the directors want to bolster their stake on the (relative) cheap without being offered an outrageous discount, a low SP still makes sense. Very naive of me.

2) Production delay not a surprise (to me anyway) and not a huge issue, however:

3) Some of the reasons given for delay are pathetic and wholly foreseeable. "Mine development (widening of main access adit) commenced ahead of schedule but at a reduced pace as teams were trained and safety procedures developed." So what, the original schedule envisaged no training or safety procedures?

4) Good to get a bit of an exploration update. Helpful. Interesting. Haven't had a chance to look at the detailed doc.

5) Good to get the revised project economics. I wouldn't call £1,200/oz a conservative gold price assumption, but still, 46 per cent increase in NPV people!

6) The capital and production cost increases are not insignificant, though the bringing forward of some of the Phase 2 development into Phase 1 seems sensible.

So a mixed bag and good to get some clarity on current status, finally. I remain aghast at the regularity with which Scotgold under-delivers. You'd think by now that, to break the monotony if nothing else, they'd want to under-promise and over-deliver. Scotgold eh? Kin ell.

Morning all. I understand that institutions might be put off by the difficulty in building a significant stake within the current float but, as has been so obvious over the past seven-eight years, we're not on institutional radar anyway. Once there's cashflow we might start to show up on the screen, but not before. I'm confident there'll be PI buying pressure once we near production, to what extent and to what effect on the SP who knows...

More to the point, as I've said before, is that there's absolutely no incentive for the company to spend time and money supporting the SP until later in the year when they - presumably - would like to see some options exercised and therefore to see the SP sustainably above 40p. The major shareholders are in for the long term so short term SP performance is of no consequence.

If you want to go glass half full, you could infer from the general lack of interest in supporting the SP that there is no likelihood of any additional equity fundraising/dilution in the run-up to production, as if there were then a higher SP would be desirable for the major shareholders.

Ideal for AIM then...

I should have said sustained SP progress *in the short-medium* term is dependent on those variables. In the longer term, 'open at depth', Benn Udlaidh etc...

Hi Samson

I agree until there is product coming out of the ground and being sold, nothing spectacular will happen to the share price, though an update (next month with Annual Report perhaps?) that indicates development is on track would I'm sure give a bump back towards/over 40p.

Once the stuff is coming out of the ground, it will be a question of whether cost of production, rate of production and grades match expectations, what the gold price is doing, how much can be sold at a premium and what that premium is. Further news on exploration would be nice but my expectations on that are very limited.

Whether the SP will 'fly' is very much open to question. Something around the in-house broker 'target' of 57p seems eminently achievable to me on commencement of production, particularly if the current gold price is maintained or continues to rise. Sustained progress beyond that sort of level is I think dependent on positive news re the variables mentioned above.

Anyway, GLA, hopefully not too long to wait now...

The extent to which the share price of this company has been unmoved by gold's recent run-up is really quite remarkable. Gold in sterling is up around 23 per cent since late May, the junior gold miners ETF up 45 per cent over the same period, while Scotgold is down 5 per cent.

I know we're not producing yet but how much higher does the price of our product have to go to have *any* effect on Scotgold's value?

Herald story reprising the kit loan story here:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17830229.gold-rush-commercial-goldmine-set-running-december/

Other than that nothing new.

Enjoy your all time highs folks. Some might say the Scotgold Twitter account should really be seizing the moment, but I think they're quite right to take it slow and not rush into that crucial third tweet. Anyway there's all that fantastic up-to-date project information on the website for newbies to get into, now that the junior mining sector corpse threatens to start twitching...

Glen, completely agree and if I had anything spare I’d be scooping these up with both hands and both feet today.

Correct sugardaddy re NLR, though I don't think he's from the Danny branch of the La Rue/Rouxs. Re the options, you might want to read my 14.02 post again.

Same here Samson. Being seven years too early has been a harsh lesson, though I've managed to stick with it and average down. I'll still be doing well to be at breakeven in 2020 though, not really what you look for after eight or nine years of angst and thumb-twiddling. Still, you live and learn eh...

BBB, yayay, it would be good to get an operational update before the annual results in (presumably) September. It won't take much to stop the drift, just a note that development is on track and, perhaps, some sort of indication of the effect on project economics of a gold price nearer £1120 than £920.

Unfortunately I can't see that there's any particular incentive for the company to spend time and money supporting the sp over the next few months. Despite what a certain perennial detractor would claim, there is no need for any more equity financing in the near term. So why bother diverting management resources away from the main task at hand, which is developing the mine?

I do hope we'll get some sort of update to fill the void, along with a website that tells the story properly, but I wouldn't be surprised if comms are minimal for the rest of the summer.

Come the autumn there is an incentive to make sure the sp is sent firmly and sustainably over 40p before the end of the year to secure the additional cash from the options that are out there, and I would expect significant operational updates to achieve that quite easily, assuming things are broadly on track.

I'm optimistic that I will be exercising my options before the end of the year, though we may see some continued drift before that confidence is seen to be justified.

GLA etc

Thanks Morar. It really oughtn’t to be a particularly long tunnel. A couple of thousand quid, a bright teenager and a few days is all that’s needed.

This must be doing some quite interesting things to our project economics. Nice to see a couple of buyers agreeing. We could really do with that new website - hope you're right Morar!

Oh, I see, it’s because the US Iran war’s going to happen. Smashing.