AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

[elZorro]

Further to the above post, in this 2008 article it's obvious that a big chunk of the raised funds was spent on exploration. Back then, Simon Henderson was convinced that only good drilling results would keep the funding going.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/9942/glass-earth-drilling-under-way

It was probably only when general interest in greenfield explorers dried up worldwide after the GFC, that the idea of doing some placer/alluvial mining for extra cashflow gained more prominence. The gold price had reached a high by then, and was only to trend backwards. If they'd been lucky enough to find a pocket of good grades close to the surface, this would have worked well. But the gold at Drybread was very fine, locked into clay, quite a way down, and generally a shallow layer at low grade. They excavated it and trucked it to GRUs. Looking back, it was a big ask to make it profitable.

As far as permits go, well Glass Earth has had a few. At the moment they have just two locked into their name at NZPAM: Sparrowhawk in Otago S.I, and Waihi West in the Waikato, N.I.

I've always suspected that the Waihi West permit, being under most of Waihi township and right beside the gaping Martha Hill mine excavation, is a proxy for Newmont's holdings. Newmont are of course tunnelling away under the East part of Waihi township in a highly directed and safe way, to extract a high-grade gold resource from their own permit, after gaining approvals. They will need this to work, to keep their mining staff levels as they are now, with other nearby gold resources being run down over time.

Perhaps, over time, Newmont will look harder at the Waihi West permit, currently 100% held by Glass Earth (no name change on record). Sparrowhawk in Otago had some drilling when it was a bigger permit, and I've forgotten the details about this one, but it was more prospective than most of the GEL permits that we heard of. There has to be a reason that this one wasn't surrendered or traded in lieu of accounts owing.

Antipodes /GEL also have the one or two joint permits with Newmont covering the WKP exploration area north of Waihi, which at one stage they were mentioning could hold over 3Moz of gold. It is not permissible to make these kinds of official statements without qualifications under TSX rules, so now the market is being told about the 101 figure of an estimated 290,000oz of gold in one area of WKP that has been drilled enough to measure it approximately.

With their backs up against the wall and nothing happening at Antipodes without funds, while debt payment deadlines from creditors approach rapidly, I guess we'll see some kind of announcement soon. Newmont would seem to be in the driver's seat here, although OGC is also looking for underground mining investment propositions in lower wage countries.

The Company’s cash position as at September 30, 2014 was $13,000 (September 30, 2013: $423,000)
with Trade Payables of $1,357,000. Payment of $595,000 of these Trade Payables is subject to deferred payments (up to December 31, 2014) while the Company refinances.

A further $677,000 of Trade Payables is owed to joint venture partner Newmont Mining, repayable by sole funding exploration activity by October 2015.

The Company has reduced its staff down to three office holders who are part-time and are unpaid since
December 2013. The Company has reduced its non-exploration expenditures to the absolute minimum.