Member Info for goldgnome

For those interested in the role of gold in decarbonisation, please read on.

Gold and climate change: Decarbonising investment portfolios

Key findings
• The findings indicate that holding gold can contribute to
portfolio alignment with climate targets and a Net Zero
scenario. The benefits of gold allocations on a global
multi-asset portfolio (of equities and corporate bonds)
include:
– Reducing the portfolio’s overall carbon footprint
– Increasing portfolio alignment to climate
decarbonisation – Net Zero – pathways
– Reducing the vulnerability of the portfolio to climate
transition risks and shocks, such as the introduction
of a carbon tax
• A range of measures were used to quantify these
impacts, showing a consistent trend.
• We also found that these positive climate impacts
were achieved without adversely affecting the riskreturn profile of the portfolio. In fact, there were strong
indications that an allocation to gold would improve the
performance and risk profile of the portfolio, in addition
to its climate transition benefits.
• While the latter finding needs to be qualified, given
the limited (five-year) time frame of the back-testing
and gold’s relative outperformance during this period,
longer-term testing found that the performance and risk
profile impacts of gold allocations on the portfolio were
similarly favourable, although to a lesser extent.

https://www.sprott.com/media/4496/wgc-gold-and-climate-change-decarbonising-investment-portfolios.pdf
Any comments?

cheers
the gnome

Is this the Marshall Wace you refer to?
https://www.mwam.com/about-us/

Some interesting action in the markets and the "market makers and influencers". Elon Musk is hinting he may have believed his own image one too many times, and his Twitter investment maybe a bit more than he can manage, LOL. Perhaps he is mortal? It might be his "management style" is not as all conquering as what he thinks it is. Love the BBC documentary on him...a hootin tootin $ootin man.

Looks like there might be more investment money looking for a more reputable home (GOLD!), as the crypto world splutters again. Investors began pulling funds from Singapore-based Crypto.com on Monday, questions on the exchange’s handling of a $US400 million ($600 million) transfer, in a sign that the dramatic collapse of FTX.com last week is sparking contagion among more digital asset exchanges. FTX’s offshore status and its willingness to keep American traders off its Bahamas-based exchange (and why would one not do that) in large part shielded the company from strict U.S. laws that govern trading and how investments can be sold to the public (one wonders when the investors are going to wake up to the shonk moves, and we wont mention legislators).

FTX’s implosion last week and reports that it used customer funds to back an affiliate’s risky venture investments have exposed the company and its founder to potential criminal liability?. Again the darling young things thinking they have some sort of divine powers?

The narratives built up around the special powers and superhuman characteristics of some of the market players by the US propaganda press does get a bit tedious? LOL

And to remind everyone of the workings of the press: Tutankhamun's tomb is not inscribed with a curse on those who disturb it. This was a media invention of 20th-century tabloid journalists.

However the Egyptians did have a healthy respect for gold going back a few Millenia, and this continues to this day. "Gold is a good investment at a time when the world is concerned about inflation", Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris recently told CNBC, and this is where his money seems to go. The ancient empire of Egypt, made gold the first official medium of exchange for international trade in about 1500 BC. OLD HABITS DIE HARD?

Sawirus recently created a $1.4b fund to invest in gold abd battery metals. La Mancha’s gold mining assets include a 19.1% stake in Endeavour Mining (TSX, LON: EDV), 33.4% in Golden Star (NYSE, TSX: GSS), and a 35.1% interest in Altus Strategies and another investment in Elemental Royalties [now merged into Elemental Altus Royalties Corp. (ELE on TSX.V)]

happy reading of the press, but please have a few buckets of salt at your side.

go gold!

the gnome.

What is amazing is the strongest Fiat currency is the one loaded with debt, founded in social unrest and polical division and led by the military which has lost every war it has fought in for the last 3 or more decades. The holy US$

If logic has a place int the financial system (no guarantees here of course), the US$ is overpriced, will not remain so as it is no ones interest that it is this strong, and so in all probabilities the most likley out come will be that the value of the dollar will decrease. We are at PEAK DOLLAR. It would follow the price of gold in the US$ terms is likely to increase.

This is the bet I have placed, so lets see...

the gnome

June 2025 gold futures selling at us$1880, and June 2028 us$1990 Gold (NYM $/ozt)

The futures look very rosy for gold, no futures I can see in the WSJ NY market lower than current price.
https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/futures/GC00/contracts

There are some shudders going through the market, with Meta laying off 11,000, Redfin has tied up hundreds of millions of dollars in houses that ‘you yourself wouldn’t want to own right now.’ and as a consequence has laid off 13% of theri staff, and crypto melted down again and may finally be discovering the fundamental flaw of trying to build an alternative to government-backed finance: no government backing.

and of course, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. promoted 80 bankers into its partnership on Wednesday, the biggest class since Chief Executive David Solomon took over in 2018, almost guarantees a salary of $1m +, so happy to see the Goldmans group happy and relaxed! The class battle continues in the USA, and can only see social unrest in the future,

The midterm elections in the US has not quite turned out as predicted, but probably enough in it to coax Trump to run again for President?

A memo for the record was released in USA, on conversations with President Cheney: and VP Bush Ezra Cohen, chair of the board, said the declassification of the historical record was “an important step towards additional public transparency.” https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2012-163-doc-1-release-material.pdf
Interesting read, for those interested in "history"....some of the first steps toards the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and the destabilisation of Syria.

You do have to have a sense of humour about things !!!

Article in National Geographic got my attention this morning

It cost a lot to maintain the world’s greatest empire. A new story finds a clue to Rome’s decline can be found in the smallest of its artifacts as well as its majestic walls and columns.

Rome’s coins tell a story of a strapped empire faced with plague, enhanced military spending, and mob riots. Rome had to reduce the amount of silver in those coins it minted to cover expenses. Over the decades, that led to crippling inflation, one factor in its fall (along with invading Goths, corruption, and overreliance on slave labor).

The empire eventually split in two—and was never the same again.

Away we go again. The US Empire is in danger of splitting and ending.

best
the gnome

Of course anyone who is a watcher of the US Military machine, which gives uninvited advice and "assistance' world wide, would realise the big one is coming. Just ask a retired General, or a Military lobbyist, and write it up in the Wall Street Journal, LOL

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the fading power of America’s military deterrent, a fact that too few of our leaders seem willing to admit in public. So it is encouraging to hear a senior flag officer acknowledge the danger in a way that we hope is the start of a campaign to educate the American public.

“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said this week at a conference. “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested” for “a long time.” (since Vitenam, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, hard to know what he is referring to?)

How bad is it? Well, the admiral said, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are.” Sinking slowly is hardly a consolation. As “those curves keep going,” it won’t matter “how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are—we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.”

and so on and so forth. heard it all before, the verbs and adjectives change, and of course some of the old generals fall off their perch...

But the song remains the same

the Gnome

GP is always a risk, but fundamentally in times of uncertainty, querulous leadership by central banks, lack of leadership and incompetence by governments, not to mention excessive debt AND climbing interest rates, with real wage pressures to go higher I think the GP will hold and should even increase. You can't print gold at infinitum, and now days it is getting harder to find and more expensive to mine (due to energy costs). And now land access is getting very cloudy, especially in Australia, and about to get very slow and expensive.

One of the most important compensation judgements is being made on some illegal exploration and mining by Fortescue Mining.

The Aboriginal people were enshrined as traditional owners of their land by the High Court in 2020 after a long-running dispute with the mining company.

This year Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) asked the Federal Court to make a ruling on compensation after negotiations over a land use agreement failed.

The 2020 decision confirmed YAC, which represents traditional owners, have "exclusive possession" of their country.

This means they can sue for economic and cultural loss as FMG were effectively mining on Yindjibarndi land without permission.

The dispute is centred on FMG's lucrative Solomon Hub, one of many iron ore operations in the mineral-rich region.

YAC told the court it wanted to call about 20 witnesses across 10 days, with sessions to be held on-country near the Solomon Hub and in the town of Roebourne, where most Yindjibarndi people live.

Mr Woodley has previously claimed up to 5,000 sacred sites such as birthplaces and burial grounds could have been damaged by FMG.

He said the on-country hearings would allow Yindjibarndi people to share experiences of cultural loss, which they say were caused by the mine.

"This is a very important time for the Yindjibarndi people and one that we should take with both hands," Mr Woodley said.

The Australian Financial Review reported the compensation claim could reach $500 million, but Mr Woodley would not be drawn on the exact figure his people would seek.

If Twiggy Forrest can make a personal $25b fortune, through what the court has determined as illegal moves, what can a tribe of indigenous people make through legitimate means ... ?

This brings about the possibility of retrospective compensation rulings, and the possibility of very significant compensation.

The risk of exploration and mining in Australia is about to go up!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-07/andrew-forrest-vs-traditional-owners-legal-battle/101613690

best
the Gnome...

Already in early 2021, there were reasons to question the prevailing wisdom about the Biden stimulus. Most notably, Harvard economist and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers began warning that the bill being contemplated could lead to inflation. Although serious inflation had not occurred in decades, Summers had a simple and compelling insight. Throwing trillions of dollars into an economy with severe supply constraints and only a modest demand shortage had to be inflationary.

11/2022: Prices across many emerging markets and developing economies have risen even faster, for example, with inflation exceeding 80 percent in Turkey and nearing 100 percent in Argentina.

MAGICAL MONETARY THINKING

Be interesting to see how the magical money theories will turn out. I am willing to take a bet they will turn out fairly badly, but hope they pull out a tad short of chaos.

Should be good for gold if we have a proper functioing market...always a long shot. ....

best
the Gnome

The Melbourne Cup Day (dedicated to horses) increase in interest rates (dedicated tohouseholds?) was inline with expectations (except my betting was astray and I lost the lot) and means the overnight cash rate has leapt from 0.1 per cent to 2.85 per cent since early May, the fastest tightening cycle in almost 30 years! And who would be counting?

Following the shock post-budget 32-year-high inflation result, economists and financial markets upgraded their forecasts for interest rates. Investors are pricing in a cash rate peak of almost 4 per cent by July next year, while leading economists think 3.85 per cent could be on the cards. And why not?

This is well above the 3.35 per cent assumption used to underpin the economic assumptions in Dr Chalmers’ budget, suggesting employment levels and economic growth could be squeezed further than expected.

Well all bets are on the table, and there are various horses you can rule out.

"Economista fristas" (barrier nos 4, odds 6,790,240,562/1), The radical left nag, lovely looking, runs quickly, but often in the wrong direction?,
"Prince Bizmark". (barrier nos 1, odds 26,780,240,329/1), Radical right, vegan, high blood pressure, seems a bit over the top and will get over the top of any young fillY!
"Elsepeth", (barrier nos 69, odds 7,437,212,329/1)has swapped genders every second month and third race, speaks in tongues, and otherwise is good in a party.

and so on and so forth

Great to have a laugh. The alternatives are a bit depressing?

best
the gnome

Bob

Block caving, in theory... everything caves very well according to plan. The plans are built arond rock properties, AND 3D ROCK FABRIC. Both of these are in fact poorly known in reality, which means that in reality the block caves do not go accoring to plan. When this happens one better have a very good recovery plan. You can imagine that the roof does not falling in as a single unit. But you get hangers...some are 50 to 100 meters above you...

Cave mining methods have become viable and preferred mass underground mining options where the objectives are low cost and high production rates. However, the cave mining industry has already entered into a less certain period or environment where some of the current cave mining options are already showing not to be fully suitable to achieving the envisaged low cost and high productivity objectives. This environment includes deeper and sometimes blind deposits (up to 1,400 m from surface), lower average grade deposits, harder and heterogeneous rock masses, higher stress and, in some cases, higher temperature environments. This is requiring design of greater caving block heights, demand for increased safety and productivity, and escalating mining costs (capital and operating). In addition, there is increasing shortage of technical skills, capital becoming more difficult to access, and communities desiring higher environmental standards. In this new cave mining environment, several hazards are identified that can have critical impact on safety, productivity and profitability. It is necessary, therefore, that these major hazards be acknowledged,and the likelihood of their occurrence be evaluated and minimised during the deposit investigation, mine design and planning, and operational stages of the caving process. These are not trivial issues and can have the most serious of consequences. They demand serious managerial and technical attention (Brown 2012).

... https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/1905_0.3_Flores-Gonzalez/

https://www.srk.com/en/publications/cave-mining-risks-not-necessarily-greater-but-definitely-different

Very interesting area, the future of mining large low grade underground depsoits...well the alternatives are not that great, or profitable.

good luck

the gnome

When the genie gets out of the bottle it is hard to put her back.

European data on Friday showed record inflation in Germany, France, and Italy, with figures due on Monday expected to show an all-time inflation top of 10.3 per cent for the entire eurozone.

Germany’s headline consumer price index struck an annual rate of 11.6 per cent in October, well above economists’ forecasts of 10.9 per cent. Italy’s raced to 11.9 per cent, against 9.5 per cent expected, and France’s rose to 7.1 per cent, topping forecasts for 6.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, economists said the full effect of inflation in the eurozone had not yet reached consumers and was likely to stay in double-digit territory for some time, keeping pressure on the ECB to keep raising interest rates.

“We think that the ECB focus on the likelihood of recession, the assessment of the 200 basis points of tightening so far, and the typical lag in monetary policy transmission all warrant some caution going forward,” said Fabio Bassi, chief European rates strategist at JPMorgan.

It is rather amazing to see the lift in theprice of common household items, the rising of taxes (or attempts), the incredible price rises in commodities, and energy, the freezing of salaries (been going on for a long time unless you are in IT) and the stupidity of the ruling classes in listening to the dicates of the chattering classes now amplified and distorted by social and mass media to the point of being deafening and stupifying.

We have people roaring about renewables when we do not have the metal supply from the mines (which have not been found) to make this happen, let alone make it happen according to the all in costing which has not been released. IN Oz we have sample supplies of gas, uranium, clean coal, sunlight yet we dont have access ot the gas we own (its all been privatised withthe notable exception of West Australia) and we are not allowed to develop a nuclear industry because of reasons which are not clear (depsite royal commisiosn to investigate and recomend that we do?!) - not enough work done? http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/app/uploads/2016/02/NFCRC-Tentative-Findings.pdf

Back onto the mines of the future for the energy of the future, apart form the fact they have not been found yet.
The latest IEA market analysis highlights the fundamental disconnect between fantasy and reality when it comes to renewable energy targets. The report concludes that the industry needs to build 50 more lithium mines, 60 more nickel mines and 17 more cobalt mines by 2030 to meet global net carbon emissions goals. All this in an environment where it is becoming increasingly problematic to develop new mines in many parts of the world
https://nabtrade.podbean.com/e/is-the-commodities-boom-here-to-stay/
Mind numbing leadership, is the new global pandemic issue (again).
New idea: Lets have a war with China?

the gnome

Bob

Block caving is defintely not exclusive to Newcrest. It has been around for a long while and is in operation by several other companies. It is the mining method of "future choice", but how well it works is someting to be very wary of.

Typically, cave mining operational costs are a tenth the cost of conventional underground mining methods. Despite the low operational cost, cave mining is highly capital intensive. This is because a large underground infrastructure platform needs to be established before production can proceed. For example, Codelco, Chile’s state-owned miner, will be investing $5.6 billion to convert the century-old Chuquicamata open pit mine into an underground project (Casey, 2019).

How well the block caving can be implimented is alrgely a function fo the ground weakness and natural break. For instance in one of the mines I worked in, it was very difficult to stop the ground from caving as it was too broken! which meant we got a lot of overbreak. In another, the bolck would not cave to design, which mean large slabs of ore could be dangerously suspeneded in the roof, requiring a lot of attention and slowness and danger.

To balance large upfront capital expenditure, the mine must have a high rate of production and tonnage per drawpoint once the mine is in operation. The Chuquicamata mine in Chile, the Resolution Copper project in Arizona, and the Grasberg caving complex in Indonesia are some of the biggest cave mining projects, targeting a production of more than 100,000 tonnes of ore per day.

While caving methods can be used with any type of commodity, the key considerations are grade distribution, geological and geotechnical characteristic of the ore body. It is the primary underground mining method used for extracting large copper or gold porphyry deposits. Considered as dense, less than 2 per cent of nearly 2 billion metric tons of ore within the Resolution Copper project is believed to be copper, making it the fourth-largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world (Philips, 2016).

Smaller orebodies can still be economically mined, if they have sufficient height and metal content to justify the capital expenditure. Northparkes in Australia, Palabora in South Africa or New Afton in Canada are successful operations with a smaller footprint and daily production.

What is often not mentioned is that the fracturing in a lot of mines, is subvertical, meaning it is undersampled by vertical drilling. This means the real fracture pattern in a block that one wants to cave is not well known, and this is a major reason of FU's and failures.

Newcrest is mining a low grade inhomogenous orebody at Cadia. Their head grades are declining, their recoveries are declining, and the mine is getting deeper. Good luck with that
https://miningdataonline.com/property/185/Cadia-Valley-Operation.aspx

https://www.ausimm.com/bulletin/bulletin-articles/what-every-mining-professional-needs-to-know-about-block-caving--t

The key aspect of the gold assay is not the total amount of gold in the sample, but rather the total amount of extractacble gold. Its the extractable gold you make money from, the total gold can be misleading.

The other v important part is the sample size, especially with nuggety gold.

The delays in the Lab are not suited to the gold industry, and really prohibit true optimisation of various processes.

cheers
the Gnome

Yes, it does make one wonder what the SP would be if gold was at $1850 with positive momentum.

Workers in Oz being told to tighten their belt, no pay rise for another couple of years (whilst inflation increases). A lot of what is happening now, is very poorly thought through, and is not sustainable. The low gold price will be in that category.

best
the Gnome

Thanks Cowichan

There is a big difference between aeromegnetic and electromagnetic surveys.
Magnetic measures magnetic properties.
Eletromagnetic measures conductivity properties.

Not the same.

However in an electromagnetic survey you do measure magnetic properties as well

thanks

the gnome

The degree would not be in political"science" - whatever that is. Political governance, required course, as would be common sense, commerce, law, ethics, how real economies work or fail etc.

CEY seem to do an excellent job in training their empoyees. It is in everyones best interest. For instance Universities in Egypt have alomost no practical geology taught in their degree courses. It is all theory. Some of the graduates dont even know how to use a compass.

Egypt is not alone and the old "education system" in many African countries produce graduates who lack practical knowldge (I have said this before) but in Africa it is worse than those int he developed countries. It creates enormous problems. Thye need to introduce Training Instiutes which train them how to use the knowlege they acquire in a practcal way.

CEY is acting as this training Instiute, and this needs to be recognised by the Egyptian Government. I think it is a government repsonsibility, but then thats a problem as Egypt has never had a mining Industry, and thus is devoid of Gexperienced practical Geologists to teach at such an Instiute. I have heard that there might be a new Training Instiute/Education College being formed...no details, but much needed.

So it goes nito the Govt Mining Administration, which is packed with people who have no Mning or Geological experience...and so on..and you know what flows from this ...impractical laws, the highest ground holding costs in the world and so on. This then discriminates gainst having vibrant Junior Companies...

regards
the Gnome

Bob

We have to vote, even if there is no party worthy of getting a vote. So yes, we can also vote informal, but we have to vote.

regards
the gnome

Cowichan

CEY completed an airborne TEM survey (VTEM), the first in Egypt

regards
the gnome

Thanks Bob

Yes, we have the vote to kick out one group of nutters and vote another group of nutters in, thats our lot these days in the democratic world. We have to be far better at attracting a better class of people to do the job, obviously.

Well the quick anwer to your question, is I dont favour or see as even slightly attractive any of the governments you mention. What about Egypt?

Regardless of this, I also do not see much attractive about the UK system which delivers up an array of buffoons of various flavours and ideologies, and I wont speak about the US.
I would far rather a proper system be put in place to have potential politicans go through a rigorous x-year education and training programs which teach them how the world works, how businesses actually work, and give them a decent understanding of ethics and morals (etc) Now wouldn't that be fun.

It is extraordinary how politicians (esp in the southern penal colony) can be elected, who have no significant education, no life skills, few morals, basically unemployable, serve with distinct incompetence, some even have relationships with Bikies whilst serving on the parliamentary law enforcement committee that was gathering material about outlaw motorcycle gangs in an inquiry into online drug trading?! and then retire on a handsome pension, free air travel etc. whilst consulting and being paid a fortune to lobby on behalf of any foreign powers and cronies wandering the streets. LOL

As commented previously the lunatics are playing a brilliant game, and if we dont watch out we will be wiped out.

Thank goodness for the younger generation, who will put all this right, and wonder constantly about what the older people (who will be locked up in Aged Care homes) were ever thinking about? Or even if they were thinking at all.

Back to my medicine, I might have taken an overdose with my porridge, in between rain showers down under.

cheers
the Gnome

That was a solid report by Centamin, and some very interesting comments on the exploration, in particular the airborne TEM surveys at Sukhari. My read was that they provided very insightful data, such that will may see more focus, and more results coming from exploration.

Lithium has run so hot, its a good thing to get out of, and gold has run so poorly (against logic), thats its a good thing to get into now!

I think with Centamin obviously turning a corner now, its a great time to reposition it in your portfolio! and I say that not calling for a small fee?

Not sure how the UK can go through so many PM's, so quickly, each being a few cents short on the dollar, not to mention Chancellors,
Kwasi Kwarteng
2022

Nadhim Zahawi
2022

Rishi Sunak
2020 to 2022

Sajid Javid
2019 to 2020

and now we see Boris being touted as being a front runner to be new PM...and certainly not by the people, matter of fact in the UK the vote of the people seems to count for nought? An odd state of affairs all round to see the least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWMvFPoBuvg

best
the Gnome