AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

Glass Earth to seek NZAX listing after $10m IPO

This gold prospector will launch their prospectus on 11th September.

Has anybody managed to obtain a copy of the prospectus for the IPO?

An interesting philosophy for their data gathering information around the country. I would only be slightly concerned about New Zealand's bad for business Resource Management Act posing a hindrance for any progression when it came to any type of excavation of the land.

Further thoughts would be appreciated if anyone has had a closer look at the prospectus.

I got this email from ASB today.


You may also be aware there is a small issue of Glass Earth Ltd. The issue price is .25c per share and the company intends on listing on the NZAX market. We do have a small allocation in this issue. If you would like a copy of the prospectus please let me know as soon as possible. For additional information please visit the following website, www.glassearth.co.nz.

You can get the prospectus on their website.

Glass Earth prospects for gold and cash
27 September 2006

By BRUCE MCKAY
It's been a long time since a goldmining company listed on a New Zealand stock exchange. There is only one other gold prospecting/mining company listed here and that is Heritage Gold.


It listed 20 years ago and today commands a market capitalisation of about $4.6 million.

Oceana Gold has its primary listing in Australia, though its production is all in New Zealand.

Now, another prospector, Glass Earth, plans to list as an overseas issuer on the NZAX market. In an initial public offering, it is issuing 40 million 25-cent shares to raise $10 million. For every two shares bought, the company will issue an option exercisable at 35 cents before October 6, 2008.

Glass Earth is a New Zealand-based company with its primary listing on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the ticker GEL. Subscribers to the share issue will be buying securities in a foreign company that has all its activities here.

Odder things have happened, but it could have been simpler to have a New Zealand-structured company with a listing in Canada, rather than a Canadian company with a listing in New Zealand.

Glass Earth has secured prospecting rights over large chunks of the North and South islands.

In the North Island it has rights over 9701 square kilometres, centred around the Hauraki Gold Region and the Central Volcanic Plateau. In the South Island the company has 21,600sq km in Otago.

Being able to secure prospecting rights over 31,300sq km of the country probably reflects as much as anything a lack of competition in the bidding for prospecting rights.

Recent mining activity in New Zealand has been all about energy exploration; precious metals have taken a rather distant back seat.

Glass Earth reckons it can be more successful at finding commercially viable deposits of gold because of its technology. This comes in two parts.

The first is a massive database of information about previous mining activity in its prospecting areas. Glass Earth holds prospecting licences for most of the Otago Province and, given the history of goldmining in the area, there is bound to be a lot of useful historical information. This information would be gathered together and turned into a database for computer analysis.

AdvertisementAdvertisementThe second part is new technology that allows the company to "see" below the surface layer of materials covering the country. This is where the technology and lots of big mining-type words will start to confuse.

It is believed that in the central North Island, mining companies have failed to find gold because of the inability to get below the layers of ash, pumice and whatnot from volcanic eruptions. The volcanic process itself has thrown out a lot of gold and somewhere below the layers of ash are commercial deposits.

The technology would be put in an aeroplane, which is flown up and down over the prospecting site in a defined grid pattern. The data collected is then analysed to find out where the more interesting prospects lie.

The final part is to get into the field and drill into the prospects to see whether the data gathered matches up with the drill samples.

If the samples are encouraging then more holes are drilled till a site is deemed economic. At that point, the Energy Ministry would be applied to for a mining licence.

That, broadly, is the theory. This is mining by computer rather than teams of geologists marching up hill and down dale looking for a suspiciously interesting outcrop of rock.

Mining by computer won't replace geologists in the field but it should make their lives easier by pointing out accurately where to look.

Of course, flying aircraft, crunching huge amounts of data and drilling test holes isn't cheap. Of the $10 million being raised, $5.65 million will be spent in the central North Island. The company has about 21 "targets" ready for drilling in the area.

In Otago $2.5 million will be spent on "airborne geophysics" and data crunching. The Otago pros

Going to keep an eye on this one to see how it PANS out over he coming weeks. Pie in the sky or not.?. See how it goes. Wonder how much effect it will have on HGD's price?

Quiet market debut for high-tech prospector

Saturday October 14, 2006
By Adam Bennett


Investors in high-tech gold prospector Glass Earth have yet to strike it rich after the company made a subdued debut on the NZAX alternative market yesterday.

Glass Earth's shares, issued at 25c, eased to 24c on light turnover worth just over $12,000. Options, which were issued one for every two shares, traded at 5c, pushing the total value of the stock to 26.5c.

The Wellington-based company said an initial public offer of 40 million shares had been fully subscribed, with Canadian miner St Andrew Goldfields taking 48.3 per cent to keep its stake at present levels.

Chief executive Glenn Laing said the listing would provide financial backing for the company's gold and silver exploration and development programmes.

The company, which has technology that can detect gold beneath layers of ash, holds exploration permits in Waihi, Otago, and the volcanic Central Plateau.

Does this mean that there will be no interim test results for 4 months?

Glass Earth Announces Commencement of Major Airborne Geophysics Campaign
Otago Region Airborne Geophysical Survey

The airborne geophysical survey will cover an area of over 22,000 square kilometres and is the largest airborne survey of this nature ever flown in New Zealand. The airborne geophysical survey is contracted to Fugro BTW Limited. It has been planned to obtain a detailed geological understanding of the area allowing targeting of new areas with the potential for hardrock and/or alluvial gold. The survey will involve the helicopter-borne "RESOLVETM" EM system combined with a magnetic gradiometer. This system targets the top 100 metres of the earth's crust (the zone of interest for Glass Earth). Two helicopters each towing a 9 metre ResolveTM drone will carry out this geophysical survey which is expected to take about 4 months to complete.

NBR reported today that GEL intend to commence active mining in the 3rd 1/4 this year.
i was initially drawn to this outfit a while in otago watching a helicopter towing this "torpedo thingy' over head......I hold 5000 shares and bought another 5000 today.

i do not think they have got any Mining Permits in Otago yet?

will be interesting where they intend to mine this year as L&M took ages to get their consent for the Earnscleugh project
So looking on Crown Minerals site at current Mining Permits not many around i would be very careful at the moment..
especially at their cash burn rate....

HGD should have a permit shortly......hmmm

Might be a good idea to keep an eye on the Crown Minerals site to ascertain when the actual mining permit is applied for.

Note there are several types of permit applications.

The following link will get those interested to the search page if you want to check it out further.

http://www.crownminerals.govt.nz/cms...ate/CMINPSMINL

Cheers
BP

Glass Earth should be an interesting watch this year. They appear to be an earnest bunch of geologists, and although they have trimmed back on staff, are still working on using their own resources to get more cashflow (hence placer mining). The big picture is still to find another major resource(s) for farm-in operations, as I understand it. The exciting thing about this business is that nobody has ever made the effort to carry out a large-scale survey over NZ with the latest gear before. Which makes their gathered data worth working on. And the odds of them finding something big? fairly good I'd say.

These guys basically put a Exploration Permit on anything that wasn't nailed down and killed big areas for the little guy and his dredge,lots of there ground isn't commercially viable for a big operation but is for a few guys small scale,pissed off allot of people in the south island as they will never work the stuff the little guys wants to.

Same with some of there north island ground where the nature of the field is small patchy rich pockets,having a permit on half the bloody country doesn't automatically mean they will find something viable to mine.

Cheers
Miner

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by miner

These guys basically put a Exploration Permit on anything that wasn't nailed down and killed big areas for the little guy and his dredge,lots of there ground isn't commercially viable for a big operation but is for a few guys small scale,pissed off allot of people in the south island as they will never work the stuff the little guys wants to.

Same with some of there north island ground where the nature of the field is small patchy rich pockets,having a permit on half the bloody country doesn't automatically mean they will find something viable to mine.

Cheers
Miner

---

Well Miner, I would hope that after taking several million $ in an IPO, that GEL would do exactly what they said they'd do with it. Without large exploration permits, there'd have been no point in bringing over the scanning equipment for a look around. They are looking for large scale mining opportunities, and already linking up with Newmont in Waihi, to provide some of the muscle.

But in a way, they are going to try some of the smaller scale prospecting you're keen on, down south. Looks like starting with a movable crusher/screen and the hiring of some locals, to get some cash for further operations (see website).

With all the data that they have available, their first bit of sluicing should be interesting.

- elZorro -