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It would indeed, fotf. Gold is back to around the lows of 30 November ‘gold pour’ day, since when it’s been up to the 1950s and down to the 1670s. Meanwhile, in those four and a half months Scotgold - as far as we know - hasn’t produced a single oz of gold.
There’s definitely some more positive market commentary around for gold now - as you say, with (maybe) a reversal in sentiment and price action for gold, now would be a good time for Scotgold to break the omertà with some good news on real production. And so we wait...
Cononish will do a lot more than chug along and pay the wages Baz, and when the expanded resource is proved up that will be a step change in the project value, given that most of the capex will already have been incurred. There's much to look forward to and the economics of Cononish are extremely resilient both to higher costs and lower gold price. The stuff does need to start coming out of the end of the production line though. A few hundred ounces at April's end? That would do, as a start.
yayay, I don't think you can blame St Bride's, they need to have material to work with and Scotgold have so botched the transition into production - which I thought St Bride's did a good job trailing in advance - that there's really very little to be said on the 'good news' front until the plant is up and running. I suspect they feel as burned as the rest of us by promoting a 'Scotgold in production' story when there's still no production over four months on. Not good for their reputation. I'd like to know who, if anyone, has advised on RNSs from November onwards - and if it's them then your criticism is fair - but if I understand correctly they have a media relations brief, not an investor relations role, so their job is to promote the company in the media not 'cultivate the market' as you put it. Difficult to do that when the company is its own worst enemy and insists on a monthly schedule of self-inflicted pratfalls. I would hope they are now working on profile pieces, interviews and good news around the new CEO and the start of real production.
RH, NLR has his own credibility to think of. He's been made to look a chump with the £1.10p placing, now seriously under water, and I expect there will have been some brisk phone calls from Styslingers, Hetheringtons etc to whom he has sold the Scotgold opportunity. I continue to believe he is in for the long haul and isn't looking for the exit any time soon, so in that sense short term SP isn't critical, but if I'm reading the signals (ie RG booted upstairs) correctly, the board have lost patience and want to see some shareholder value created in the short-medium term.
RH, I think we are looking at two possibilities for the next RNS:
1) the 'Kitchen Sink', where the new CEO takes the opportunity to get absolutely every bit of bad news out there to lance the boil and rebuild credibility with the market.
2) the 'Fresh Start', which assumes we have now had the bad news, and the new guy gets garlanded with the announcement that we are finally in production and revenue-generating.
Sometimes the market response to 1) is positive, but credibility is so battered at this point that I doubt that would be the case for Scotgold in the short term. Longer term is a different matter, but I think we've all had our fill of jam tomorrow.
c. £45k of buys so far this morning vs c. £3k of sells. Gold price starting to look firmer with the fundamentals moving in its favour - weaker dollar, very negative outlook for real yields, wildly overvalued equity markets, crypto bubble may be running out of steam in the short term.
Question is, are Scotgold ever going to start producing gold to sell?
RG is presenting this evening at 6.00pm at this:
https://minsouth.org.uk/event/scotgold/
I have other things to do but as far as I can tell it's open to all and you can still register through Eventbrite. Might be worth a look for clues as to current status, though on past form I would expect any update on progress to amount to a breezy "we've had a few teething problems with the plant commissioning but we're confident now that we've got those sorted".
So on Monday I posted:
“Alternatively it would be darkly amusing and somewhat fitting if there was a final RG RNS in the next few days, telling us the expectations in the previous RNS hadn't quite been met but everything was looking good for next month(ish). He might even wish us a Happy Christmas again.”
Well there are no seasonal greetings from Mr Gray, and as it turns out I can’t even find much gallows humour to contribute. Four months since ‘gold pour’.
Also, today's tick up for SGZ is welcome but a bit mysterious on tiny volume. A large buy order in the background perhaps?
RM, Archegos counterparty fallout looks to be contained. How many more Archegoses are out there though? Meanwhile no rush to gold's safe haven, which is getting banjaxed in early US trading.
Bellers I don't think there's anything in official RNSs but I seem to recall RG saying in an interview the company would update the market on a monthly basis.
Given the expectation set in the last RNS for 1,000t of ore to be processed in March, and the full phase 1 rate of 3,000t/month to be reached 'from April onwards' I would hope and expect we will get a status update on those this week or next at the latest. Phillip Day officially starts on 1 April so they might want to wait until he is on board to lead the comms.
Alternatively it would be darkly amusing and somewhat fitting if there was a final RG RNS in the next few days, telling us the expectations in the previous RNS hadn't quite been met but everything was looking good for next month(ish). He might even wish us a Happy Christmas again.
First mow of the year today. Not sure I can claim to have Bellers’s magic touch, but happy to do my bit.
https://youtu.be/nnQ2zOmb6Hg
So RM, the Fed maintains the highly accommodative programme - no taper no rate hikes, signalling they’ll pretty much let it ride through the next couple of years. Gold up to £1,745 - fairly modest rise but I’ll take that after the last couple of months.
Meanwhile yet another chunky buy, 40k reported late (of course) and as a sell (of course).
RH, Scotgold Twitter may be snoozing, but there are definitely signs of life in the market. Will be interesting to see what the next few days bring...
but we have now erased the post 29 January RNS slump. Onwards and upwards! Could be some gold price volatility coming up this evening post-Fed...
This morning, but this time posted only a few hours late, rather than a day or two. Amazing!
Look forward to catching up with Gold Town Pt2 later, though never good to see people hurt. An odd one as well - for all the hazards involved in mining, to get banjaxed by some matting...
There are now no trading hours left before we feature again on a blockbuster television programme bringing our fantastic future to millions of potential new investors. Who has dared to be out of this goldmine over the weekend?
Have a good one all.
Everyone taking a breather after Tuesday's fun? Consolidating nicely after the rise - can anyone work out whether that late 70,000 trade reported last night is a buy or sell? Looks marginal to me.
Hamilton & Inches tweeting last night:
https://twitter.com/hamiltoninches/status/1369399067508436999
Not much left of the original inventory from the BPT gold - clearly they're confident that stocks will be replenished soon...
You might want to do a bit of research, although a quick scan of your posts suggests that’s not really your style.
Alcohol and mowing - what could possibly go wrong?! Nice to be drinking in celebration of a decent rise though, rather than to blot out the pain...
Shurething: 'bit of a slow burner': understatement of the decade which will raise a hollow/crazed/hysterical laugh amongst the much-battered LTHs here but it does look as though we are, finally, mining gold for real.
'a decent resource both tonnage wise and and grade': notably the latter, which is world class. The former is bijou by international standards but in the opinion of some on here much better qualified than me, very likely 2 x the currently quoted resource.
"The Cononish mineralisation remains open at depth down plunge and to the west along strike."
The ionic leach results from Inverchorachan in particular suggest another high grade, well-defined resource. Once the drills get going there and on Beinn Udlaidh we will see SGZ's total resource start to look very different, with Cononish throwing off cash at a healthy rate.
This is the end of the beginning...