The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
If alba sent off, say, 1 ton of sample to be processed, then this was concentrated to 100:1 (not unreasonable in the industry) then that would have given 10 kg of concentrate. We know that concentrate has 20g of gold per ton, so the original bulk sample would have contained just 0.2g gold per ton.
Look at the cores on twitter, the gold is found only in the quartz. The quartz vein is roughly 10% of the total core that was assayed. Therefore the concentration of gold in the quartz is actually about 18g per ton. I'm sure that's why they are justifiably delighted with the assay results.
I can't find any information on the alba website regarding the extensive archaeological survey that must be completed before any trenching work can begin. Does anyone have any info on this? They have to get the planners approval for this work but I don't see any application submitted as yet. Even after the archaeological survey has been completed they still have to apply to the planners for permission to proceed with the trenching.
Hopefully this is all out in the news somewhere and I have missed it. It does worry me at the moment though.
I think that they have got wind of the gold grades and are going back to the sweet spots to get as much out before the end of the month. That's what I would be doing.
Near the end of the program they showed a map of the UK with various places highlighted on it, presumably places featured in the series. One of the places was right on top of the Clogau gold mine, so I'd expect it to be featured in near future. Perhaps they will time it to coincide with the news release of a bonanza grade gold discovery.
If the gold is as high-grade as I expect they would need to be building sentry boxes for the armed guards that they will need to protect the mine.
I'm not sure if this has been posted before but it shows the massive extent of the titanium deposit at Thule. In my mind it was just a smallish black beach but it is huge and has a very high level of the valuable ore.
https://www.share-talk.com/alba-mineral-resources-plc-aimalba-thule-flyover-video-with-voiceover/#gs.gd3i94
If anyone is wondering what it looks like, it looks like this. 400 tons like this. ttp://www.mwminerals.com/m6270_Gold_Wales.html
More from Howard Baker...
“My understanding is there’s been less than 100m of underground development drilling completed at the project. That speaks volumes – they really were just following what they saw on a day-to-day basis. The forward planning in terms of mine schedules and drilling in advance of the mining – it’s a totally different environment, and obviously the economics have changed substantially. I think looking at historical mining gives you a false story of what’s achievable now.”
This is the opinion of Howard Baker, alba's previous technical director, regarding the underdevelopment of the Clogau mine in the past....
"They followed the mineralised veins – the mining was the exploration. Not a single diamond drill-hole has been put in it, from an exploration perspective. There hasn’t been any focused geochemistry or geophysics. From a modern-day exploration perspective, it’s amazingly under-developed."
No worries bb, onwards and upwards.
Per ardua ad astra.
Quite right to be skeptical bb. Normally I'd ignore this sort of rumour. And no I didn't start it, first heard it this morning on a df n then over the day. Makes some sense though, with it being Welsh gold.
In 2014 samples taken from the Clogau mine tested up to 435g of gold per ton. Before that the miners stumbled upon a quartz vein about the size of a mattress and extracted 500 ounces of gold from it. So the gold grades in the Clogau mine can be staggering, and we're drilling around 1600 feet straight into it and using modern technology.
Has anyone noticed that in todays Guardian quick crossword if you take the clue for 1 across, together with its answer and 6 down plus 10 across you get...
"Snowdonia National Park deal ahead"
That's clinched it for me, thanks for the tip off!
The planning committee meeting is scheduled to be on Wednesday the 2nd of September, 2 weeks from today. There should be an agenda published online soon.
This is how I see the next few weeks for Alba:
Planning permission for the trenching work granted on the 2nd of September, just over 2 weeks from now.
Trenching and sampling completed by the end of September.
In-mine drilling and bulk sampling completed end of September.
Gold assay results back in October.
500,000 ounces plus declared.
All operations and rights bought out by a major mining company. How much for though, £50 million? £500 million? Name your price?
All my own opinions of course but I'm very, very excited about the prospects in the next few weeks.
A full planning application for the trenching and sampling work was made on the 1st of May 2020. It's worth noting that when the mine last closed the gold price was around $290 an ounce.
Planning permission for the trenching work should be granted 6 weeks from today - on Wednesday 2nd September. So it's looking like it will be a very busy and interesting September for alba. Good luck to them.
The Welsh gold sold at the recent auction sold for around £7700 per ounce. Or 540% of the gold spot price. They don't need to find much at clogau to be into a massive profit.