The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with London Stock Exchange Group's Chris Mayo has just been released. Listen here.
Cheers Ocelot. I mailed Alba sometime ago asking about some photos that appeared on Daily Mail online, showing some gold found by Alba. As someone on here kindly pointed out the photos were not from Alba. I received an email from Alba on Friday, apologising for the late response, confirming that the photos were not taken by Alba. Thanking me for my support, and telling me to look out for news on future plans and developments coming very soon. It all sounded very positive.
The Gold pictures were taken earlier and not found by ALBA, shame on the mail online.
My point was only to show the type of nugget gold material Alba will be mining, very different from the fine Gold some may be familiar with. The pics show the same gold from ALBA Clogau Gold belt that we will be mining.
For those who have not seen what our nuggets look like, some pics in this article Mail online from march 2021...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9325447/Gold-miners-strike-rich-unearth-new-deposits-near-historic-Welsh-pit.html
Great RNS this morning it could not be more positive.
The dewatering permit news is very encouraging "Following further discussions, the Company continues to progress its work on a set of detailed submissions seeking a further consideration by the authorities of the Company's dewatering application"
Granting of this permit without having to go through a formal appeal process will show that Alba's relationship with NRW is still in good standing, that will send out a very positive message to potential investors as we need NRW full cooperation going forward. I do think NRW are fully behind Alba. After going through the permit refusal details, I say ALBA scored 99/100 in terms of ticking the boxes. I do think the permit was refused because they have to be ultra strict, they say jump, we say how high, that's OK. The time delay is frustrating, but doing it right by the book is the way to go long term in a National Park Area. When this permit is granted ,this alone will produce a very big jump in the share price.
Well done Alba, the science shows the gold is in the ground, we have seen it, there will be plenty of it..all will come good.
When I last posted I was not aware the permit application information had been published for us all to see. I was only aware it was due this week. I have now read the lengthy documents. My take on this is….
The permit has been refused only because there is not enough data showing the humidity levels of the mine shaft/cave. Long term data monitors were put in the shaft in 2018, these could not be retrieved this year because of structural changes in the shaft .New ones were put in and produced seven weeks of data for the application. This data showed constant 100% humidity as to be expected. The view of the Eco team who produced the report for Alba was that the humidity would not be affected to cause any harm to the bats and indeed the Otter.
If Alba had more data on the humidity there would be no reason for refusal.
This is the only reason they did not get the permit, as far as I can see.
I should think the permit will be granted on producing more data, if it needs to go to appeal, I think it would definitely be granted. Humidity is a big deal for bats(not so sure about the otter) so I guess NRW are just being ultra cautious but as you can see from the quote below from the eco report, humidity should not be a problem anyway.
"Airflow through the mine system is not predicted to change significantly. Airflow currently
travels down the shaft connecting the Llechfraith adit and the drainage adit, and exits the
drainage adit at the riverside – this will continue throughout the de-watering. The lower
workings do not have any additional outflow of air, and are thus it is not considered that they
will cause increased airflow through the mine system.
Effects to bats from any change in airflow and humidity levels are predicted to be of No
Change and therefore not significant. This will in no way affect the FCS of lesser
horseshoe bat within the SAC."
I have always said it was when and not if the de watering permit would be issued, I still stand by that. I was not expecting the setback with the wildlife issues, very disappointing, but unexpected issues can arise with such applications. I have a hunch that news on the Environmental Permitting Regulations could be imminent. My hunch is based on the fact NRW will be updating the information on their website" public register for a permit or licence" by the end of the week. The fact that they never updated it after the permit was refused was of interest to me. I am hopefully the permit will be granted without need for an appeal, and this is why the information was not updated previously.
https://www.envsys.co.uk/projects/clogau-gold-mine/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4325407.stm
Some easy reading during this quiet time.
Clogau Gold Mine
I started work at Clogau Gold Mine in 1996/97.
In the Clogau Gold Mine it was known that if you hit what is known as silver led you are not far off hitting the Welsh gold itself. I learnt this in 1996 when I worked in the mining tunnel called John Hughes Load . The geologist in 1905 said to the managers of the Mine at that time that there was no gold at the face of the tunnel in that part of the mine as the geology had changed which meant that there would be no gold but in those days they did not have a professional person like myself with the sensitivity to pick up the gold with the techniques that I use.
In 1996 I did find the gold in the John Hughes Load and the reason why they missed it in 1905 at the face of the John Hughes' Tunnel was that the geology had changed because the earth movement had changed and created a fault which had dropped the gold below the existing tunnel face into a different position just 2 feet below the floor of the face of the tunnel within the mine I come across the silver led which indicates the gold will not be far from it at which time I informed the Mining Company that this was the place for them to proceed and dig downwards which they did and found the gold which lasted them for 9 months of continuous extracting. During my time at Clogau near where they called it “number 2 Shaft” I did guide the miners to find another location of gold which turned out to be a gold pod, for those of you who may not know what a gold pod is it is like an explosion of gold from the centre exploding out from the quartz so the density of the gold is in the centre and spread out like a star, in this case the amount of gold found was about 250ozs to 260ozs from the pod. About a year later sadly they closed the mine but has now re-opened with a different company.
And even today there is still plenty of gold in Wales if you know where to look to find it.
Yet another great RNS.
The Q and A and today's RNS, just prove what a good company ALBA is, not that they needed to prove anything.
For any newcomers "Ocelots" posts offer a good true sense of what is going on with ALBA . Appreciate your posts.
Trevorgerald--Filtered.
Well done ALBA keep up the good work.
Just watched q&a. George very bullish
Great q&a, it really makes those negative posters on here look really ignorant, and shows they have little knowledge of Alba, basically you guys were talking c**p,. Well done George and Alba, you are doing great.tjank you for your hard work.
Here is a quote taken from an e mail that I received after contacting Alba " as ever, you can rest assured that the team is working extremely hard to deliver value for Alba shareholders"
I believe them. I know some things, one of those things I know is that team Alba 100% believe in what they are doing and that they will be sucessfull. I also know that George is determined and super confident that Alba will be successfull. I am also confident that Alba will be a huge success story. It was, and is always going to be one hell of a ride on the Aim roller coaster, but when it gets to the end of the ride, I will not be feeling sick. Do I have misplaced confidence, I don't think so. I do know I would not want anyone but George leading the Alba team. He has, and is doing a great job.