AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

[elZorro]

There's a bit more detail about the proposed new director, Mr Fleming, in this NZResources article.

Glass Earth gains a new director and seeks another
15 February 2012
Active gold explorer and boutique miner Glass Earth Gold Ltd (NZAX & TSX-V: GEL) has appointed a new director and has a nomination for another director.Justin Cochrane has been appointed to the board and the company said well known geoscientist and corporate developer Adrian Fleming has been nominated to become a director at the annual general meeting on April 25.Both Cochrane and Fleming are Canadian residents in Vancouver and Fleming retains a New Zealand residence and spends a lot of time on the South Island.

Cochrane is executive vice president of corporate development at Sandstorm Metals & Energy, as well as being actively involved with Sandstorm Gold and earlier worked as an executive of Canada’s National Bank Financial.Cochrane said Glass Earth Gold was going through a “transformational period” and said the company differed from other junior exploration companies, being well funded and generating cash from its placer gold operations. Excess cash from this can be reinvested into drilling hard-rock projects in New Zealand.

Adrian Fleming is a geologist with 35 years diversified experience in the mining sector and has been in teams that made gold discoveries at Porgera (Papua New Guinea), Big Bell, (Western Australia), Gross Rosebel (Suriname), Hope Bay (Nunavut, Canada) and most recently White Gold (Yukon, Canada) with Underworld Resources -- which was acquired by Kinross Gold in 2010.He is the founder and CEO of Smash Minerals, a director of Goldminex Resources, and several TSX-V listed companies."This is a great time to be invited to join Glass Earth Gold. The company is NZ's leading junior gold explorer, and in contrast to its peers has developed small scale gold mining operations which provide a cash flow to cover its fixed costs,” Fleming said.

Glass Earth Gold has licences covering more than 10,000 square kilometres on both the North and South islands and, at the end of last year had a net cash position of $C3.6 M.

I would like to see GEL hold onto 35% of the WKP area if they can, and this just needs a bit more capital to be put in for a (likely) large return. I put this to Simon Henderson:

Q. There are very few details about the WKP area JV document with Newmont. If the 4 years of exploration by Newmont under the JV is technically complete in mid 2011, and the permit is finishing its 10 year term next year, what is the timeline for a mine feasibility study? Is Newmont entitled to take control of this regardless, in which case the earn-in for GEL will reduce to 25% or 20% from 35%, or can GEL opt to pay for the study? Is the intention to add a four year discovery permit to this area? Does Newmont have a more recent estimate of the resources at WKP than that supplied for 2010, and if so, what is the figure?

A. WKP (10km north of Waihi) you'll of course be familiar with, it looks like a company-changer and is our top priority for this year - we're looking forward to some real drilling progress and taking care to release both news and plans as soon as that's possible.

Regarding the WKP JV: the window for Newmont funding a feasibility study in exchange for another 10% of interest has passed. Newmont shares our excitement about the project but we're not quite at the stage we can put a solid timeline on how it will progress. Close, but not yet, and in the meantime we see no issues arising around the permit administration. We've made real progress at WKP so far and there's plenty of drilling to be done yet. I don't believe they have officially revised their estimate but are likely to soon, and for now the priority is getting on to some drilling in anger.

Sounds like Newmont are in the driving seat, and are committed to further drilling at WKP - they still have their eye on the prize.