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‘Wonderful faces of gold in the mine itself’ was a nice phrase to hear.

I would say 'a start' rather than 'a good start', and the market seems to agree with a modestly positive response. Over the last few months I've come to dread SGZ updates, so an RNS followed by anything other than a plunge is progress of sorts.

Baz, and the concentrate number is only what was bagged up and ready to go on 11 May. We’ve had three weeks of (patchy) production since then which by the sound of it won’t have been enough to get us to our guesstimate/hope of 500oz for April and May, but maybe c. 300oz all in. Baby steps.

Meanwhile the gold price continues to advance - not a bad time to become a gold producer even if it’s exactly six months after a certain ex CEO led the market to believe that’s what SGZ already was.

Ah, many a slip between pilot plant and full production though Bellers. And we should know. Tell the young lady to get back to you in five years' time...

Baz, RH, 500oz seems like a reasonable expectation to me though the unknown variables are so many that this is just a guessing game at this point. The last guidance we had was that calendar year 2021 would be 'materially less' than the previous guidance of 7,000oz - 7,900oz.

We know the plant has been operating - albeit on a gradual ramp up basis - since the beginning of April. So let's take a relatively pessimistic interpretation that 'materially less' means, say, 5,000oz in 2021.

Spread across 9 months that would mean an average of 550oz a month. We know that April and May will have been less than that because of a) ramp up b) relatively low grade development ore, but we don't know how much less. I wouldn't be surprised if your guess of 50% less is there or thereabouts though.

*dore. Though many of us are nursing a Scottish Gold sore...

The first shipment of gold concentrate is due to go out the door this week. Amount unknown. No news yet on ‘Scottish Gold’ sore.

HH, it's a weird glitch that's been going on for a while on LSE, alongside the 'let's use the uncrossing trade above the ask as the new SP midpoint'. Presumably individual trades being disaggregated for some reason. Don't worry about it.

That was the sound of the elastic snapping, that has been holding the gold price below $1800 for a while. Looks like a decisive move but over the last six months breakouts have been followed immediately by smackdowns, so we'll see. Back to £1300 in sterling too.

With first concentrate shipment next week and cashflow critical, the gold price now becomes a significant factor in determining if Cononish will need another cash injection under the revised mine plan, and if so how much. I wonder if they have hedged at all?

A positive gold price move up from here will see renewed market interest in exposure to junior miners and Scotgold is now a producer - if upwards POG momentum is maintained I would say an attractively-priced one even allowing for the lingering uncertainties over ramp-up and cash position. Keep yer fingers and toes crossed everyone.

Wonder if we've done 10kg yet?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/29/10kg-gold-coin-is-royal-mints-biggest-ever

RH, thanks, that's put more expertly than I could, but consistent with my understanding of what was actually said on Tuesday. Ie 'the development work is not far enough progressed to get to meaningful quantities of the good stuff yet, and we're looking at tweaking things to get the good stuff flowing more quickly in the short term to minimise the duration of the current cashflow issues'. Ie to get to at least some stope exposure as quickly as possible, by whatever (safe) means possible.

What it doesn't mean is that there is no ore at all at the surface, or coming to the surface. Surely even at much lower than optimal grade there is some development ore worth processing?

HH, I agree completely with your post. I've just re-read the RNS after a couple of days to allow emotions to settle. The key is how you interpret this sentence: 'Mine development is insufficient for the mine to provide optimal ore quantity and quality in the short term, however this is not predicted to have long term impacts.'

What that doesn't say is insufficient for what? I think it means insufficient to meet the production guidance given in the March and Feb updates, nothing more than that. Not that that's anything to celebrate, obviously.

As you say, we are left with two major uncertainties (from which others flow, like timing of Phase 2 and financing of drilling programmes, for instance):

1) how much more cash is required, in what form, to bridge the revenue gap created by several months of non-production?
2) what is the revised production guidance for the year under the revised mine plan?

Until those two are answered this is a punt for new investors.

Those of us who have endured the farrago of the 'gold drip' and subsequent market-deceiving RNSs from the previous CEO will understandably experience Tuesday's announcement as a final boot in the baws. In my view it's actually a new start. The board must have been exasperated and appalled as the month on month promises evaporated between November and March. They're ultimately responsible and they are now feeling it in their pockets. I think Tuesday was the standard new CEO 'kitchen sink' announcement, deliberately lowering expectations so that future delivery has a chance of exceeding those expectations, instead of month on month and year on year of the opposite under the previous CEO.

So I think they'll raise some short term debt finance one way or another, I don't think that will be as bad as some fear, and we will get revised production guidance for 2021 that is lower - and will likely have knock-on effects for Phase 2 and new drilling - but not a disaster.

Within the next few months this mine will be producing gold and cash will begin to flow. Once there is realistic guidance on those two metrics, based on a significant level of detail from management, market sentiment will improve.

Eck, average 82p, still just about holding but having a few moments...

RH, agree with all of that though the mine team redeployment began, what, 18 months ago? The impact of that should surely have been factored in to production guidance over recent months.

RG may well have got his wellies grubby from time to time, but there was rather a telling moment in - I think - episode 2 of the doc when someone in the office was describing where everyone was and said something like: 'and management are...[pause]...doing whatever it is management do'. Maybe unfair but the impression was of a CEO who popped up occasionally to offer a few platitudes while leaving a lot of the operational decision-making to Jason et al. Mr Day seems like a man not given to patrician platitudes, and more comfortable up to his elbows in grease and dust. If he can start by producing a couple of announcements that don't under-deliver on the previous ones, that would be a great leap forward in Scotgold comms.

Of all the stooshies on here over the years easily the stupidest was the 'visible gold' argument. Whether or not there are some isolated visible specks/flakes here and there is completely beside the point. What matters is that the gold overwhelmingly exists in the form of tiny particles associated with the pyrite in the vein.

Some of you following ALBA have commented on last week's drilling results and the underwhelming grades which the COO claimed to be pleased with, particularly given the 'highly nuggety' nature of their lode. His point being that in a 'nuggety' lode you can drill and miss a lot.

You can take the glass half full or half empty view on that - they may also have been lucky and hit a relatively high proportion of their nuggets, ie the true grades are even lower. The point being that in a 'nuggety' lode, you've got a higher degree of grade uncertainty than in a 'granular' lode like Cononish.

The Cononish grades are robust, the resource is open at depth and on strike, and very likely 2 x what is currently measured, indicated and inferred. There is a processing facility up and running.

On the downside we're running out of cash and we don't have enough staff (yet).

Right, buck up everyone.

1) PD is three weeks into the job. He didn't say a lot but what he did say amounted to 'the processing plant is now running properly and I'm getting a grip on the management processes at the mine'. I'm not surprised he didn't have more to say at this point, and frankly after years of RG's breezy assurances about progress I don't blame him for keeping it tight to start with. It would have been helpful to have had a question or two on the revised mine development plan and what exactly they are looking to revise, but there you go.

2) A burly Aussie who looks like he's not afraid of getting his hands dirty is just what's needed right now. He's listed in the Board section of the website as RG was, I don't think there's anything weird going on regarding his appointment and the market 'not being told the whole story'.

3) Ore. It was always the case that lower grade 'development ore' would be first out of the mine. My reading of the RNS is that, because cashflow has been banjaxed by the production delays, they need a laser-like focus on getting to the higher grade 'stope ore'. I'm not a miner so I'm out of my depth here, but maybe that means prioritising high grade extraction over broader underground construction to get the higher grades flowing quicker. The RNS talks about 'reliable and robust *short term* mine plans'. Which I take to mean targeting high grade areas and getting the ore out of those PDQ.

4) There's a lot of bed-wetting going on about grades. The resource was drilled to an inch of its life in the early 2010s, the grades are well established. The problem is that the current plan isn't getting to the high grades quick enough given the cash situation.

5) It's not surprising that underground development is behind given the number of vacant positions - including 'several' underground miners - and the fact recruitment problems have been mentioned recently. We have to hope that the recruitment situation improves quickly. You can't mine without miners.

6) None of which is to attempt to polish the mostly brown sticky splat that was this morning's announcement. Kitchen sink it was, except that we have some more to come on financing, and we just have to hope that's not too bad.

7) If NLR, Styslinger and Hetherington were going to take Scotgold private, now would probably be the time to do it. It's a possibility but I doubt it. I think NLR cares about his reputation in the City, and taking it private at a discount to two very recent fundraises (50% in the case of the £1.10p one) wouldn't look great. It's now a risk though, in a way that I didn't feel it was when the SP was nearer £1.

8) I can't see how RG's position on the board is tenable. The succession of month-on-month incorrect/misleading guidance, including the very last RNS on his watch, is just unforgivable. He shouldn't be allowed near another public company, let alone this one.

I suspect RM is probably thinking of Stage 2 liftoff and certainly that will be a key moment. Currently scheduled for Sept 22 but on Scotgold time that would be at least St Andrew’s Day or probably a bit after.

There’s Phase 1 ramp up news and two exploration seasons before then though, so I don’t think you’re facing a news drought for the next 18 months yayay.

In answer to the 'where did the axe fall' question, it looks like Marshall Badza is no longer mine manager. He could have left voluntarily of course, but circumstantial evidence/hearsay suggests perhaps not.

Jason Saint has been promoted (presumably) from Project Construction Manager to Group Operations Manager.

Here's a recommendation on Phillip Day's LinkedIn: "Few professionals I've encountered show the same technical mastery and communication skills that he holds." Well, what Scotgold desperately need is someone running the show to get a grip on any outstanding technical issues, and to start communicating properly. So that's encouraging, I guess.

Here's some news for you which doesn't seem to have been commented on yet. Scotgold is currently advertising for seven roles, plus 'several' underground mine operatives, all with an application deadline of the end of next week:

https://www.scotgoldresources.com/about-us/recruitment/

So, are we feeling glass half full or half empty about that? I think I'm a bit of both. It implies (and the company themselves have referred to this in RNSs, so not exactly a surprise) that recruitment to date has been a problem and they are under strength. It might also imply a clear-out of underperformers, at TB1872 has hinted at.

So what it says to me is that a) they are still some way from being up to Phase 1 speed and b) new management is taking decisive action to remedy that.

Given the absolute shambles of the last five months, I reckon the market would respond ok to the next announcement saying something along the lines of 'we've sorted the technical problems, but the incoming CEO has undertaken an HR review which has identified a number of staffing issues. The company is now aggressively recruiting in the market to address legacy underperformance and understaffing.'

Very hard to decipher the trading yesterday. Two pairs of c.£25k buys which had a bit of a bed n isa look about them, but are over the ISA threshold so may have been genuine buys. A £71k buy. A whole load of delayed self-cancelling sells, but also some more real largeish sells to add to the steady offloading that someone - or some people - have been doing over the last week.

All in all, that seems to reflect the mood on here. Some still have faith, others have lost faith or patience. Both positions seem justified at this point.

now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8tYredfCR8&t=34s

Haven't watched the whole thing but judging by the last 5 mins or so, no detail on the recent commissioning fun and games.

Interesting:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/china-opens-its-borders-to-multi-billion-dollar-gold-imports-sources/articleshow/82101272.cms