AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

[Citizen Erased]

A friend of an old flatmate used to go to great lengths to be tramping on census night, so that he was off the electoral roll. Is that the meaning of your moniker?

Cool story, bro, but it's nothing like that. I was just trying to think of yet another forum user name and picked the title of a song by one of my favourite bands.

I haven't bought any shares yet. There are three things that concern me:
1. The lack of regular updates from the company (nothing since June 28).
2. The stock is very illiquid, with little market depth.
3. I'm not convinced that mining shares will outperform the price of physical bullion in the long term as there are so many other factors at play.

[elZorro]

Hi CE, so it's Muse, the rock band? Found a video of your song..very cool. No I'd never heard of them, don't get out much...

Muse: Citizen Erased

Fair enough..valid points about Glass Earth. I have emailed Simon Henderson recently with some questions about progress. No reply as yet, which is unusual.

Points 1 and 2 are linked.

3: Companies that move from exploring to mining gold very commonly have big shareprice ramps. Unfortunately, many explorers never make it, or take a long time getting there. So it comes down to how likely GEL is to make this step, and how far off are they?

I think they're in with a good chance, as they have a lot of permit area, some big players on board for such a small company, and JVs with the second biggest gold miner in the world. If they map out a big deposit, funding to mine it won't be a problem, or their interest will be purchased from them.

L&M Mining's Earnscleugh is progressing apparently, one big GRU doing over 100oz a week. 30 staff on the job. One of the photos in the article on NZResources is of the manager Mark Coleman, he was the owner of GEL's GRU#1 and leased it back for a year or so.

Earnscleugh lifts production after service work

Ross Louthean — 15 August 2012
Production of gold at the alluvial mining operation at Earnscleugh in Otago lifted significantly in July after some performance issues and a maintenance shutdown a month earlier.
The operation owned by private company L&M Group lifted production in July to 577 ounces, after low production, maintenance and recovery issues the previous two months.
L&M Group’s chairman Geoff Loudon said what is helping improve the performance has been the skills now being shown by the local trainees and he believes the project – which had its opposition from locals concerned about noise and their perceptions about mining – is now welcomed in the region.
Project manager Mark Coleman told NZResources.com that the operation now has grown from having one person on site to a staff of 32 and several machines and sub-contractors on site.
“The local community’s fears have been allayed because we have kept a low profile and have made an effort to employ local people and use local contractors and suppliers thus making a large financial contribution to the local economy,” Coleman said.
Experienced staff have helped train inexperienced local workers who were now among the operation’s best operators.
“This has helped us immensely also as it is very difficult to find people with mining industry experience in the Central Otago region,” he said.
Coleman admitted that L&M has had a fair share of production issues as the operation ramped-up. When the No 8 plant was assembled and commissioned there was a steep but good learning curve for all staff in coming to grips with the new systems installed on the plant.
Several months ago Geoff Loudon told this writer that the back-up from technical suppliers had been disappointing.
However, Coleman said the technical support was improving with key suppliers bringing extra staff into the area to meet requirements.
“Other suppliers are moving up with us as they gain more understanding of the nature of our business. There have been no significant projects in this area for some time and services like freight deliveries are very limited,” he added.
The strength of improved community understanding was reflected in the open day called by the mining operation with the latest event helped by the fact it did not have the inclement weather of the 2011 open day, yet it still attracted 300.
The March open day this year, in fine weather, attracted 1,000.
This, Mark Coleman said, was also a great opportunity for people to gain a good understanding of the project.

[elZorro]

Signs that GEL on the TSX is recovering, as quite a few shares sold overnight, some as high as C21.5c or NZ27c. There should be another quarterly report out soon, and by the law of averages, a press release or three. Last year the release date was 29 August, and it started off a great run in the shareprice. This year the Ausimm conference is around that date too. Always good to have something to show off while the audience is there.

I have a feeling that we're only one good press release away from a solid shareprice increase, to something sensible. That's what I'm telling the better half too..

[elZorro]

Newmont begins permitting process for Correnso mine

Ross Louthean — 17 August 2012
Newmont Waihi Gold has lodged an application with the Hauraki District Council for a land-use resource consent for the Golden Link project at Waihi.
This incorporates the proposed Correnso underground mine which Newmont Asia Pacific vice president, Jeff Huspeni, highlighted as a new development in New Zealand at last week’s Diggers & Dealers Forum in Kalgoorlie.
Newmont Waihi Gold expects the council will publicly notify the application within the next few weeks.
The company said that when the application is publicly notified it will publish a guide to preparing a submission under the Resource Management Act.
Meanwhile, the company also said that the Martha open cut mine expansion plan was now with the Environment Court and, after the just-completed hearing, it expects to hear the court’s recommendations later this year.

From NZResources. The Correnso area is under a small part of Waihi, and GEL has an adjacent JV with Newmont to the West of this area, also under the township. There is a possibility that the rich seam of gold at Correnso also extends into GEL's JV.

[elZorro]

A bit more background from a mining magazine, on Newmont Waihi, GEL and Talisman. I may have posted this already, from about April 2012.

http://waterfordpress.co.nz/site/wat...NZ%2026-33.pdf

[elZorro]

It's been a long time since a news release for Glass Earth. Last time I looked, NZPAM had granted a prospecting permit to GEL, it's right beside OGC's Globe Progress mine in Reefton. A couple of EPs have been extended for another 5 years. These become quite expensive at that stage, so they must be good spots, right? According to my table, GEL now spends over half a million on fees for the various permits each year.

I had a look at the SEDAR reports for GEL, found out a bit about the latest private placement. An early warning report on 21st June 2012 states that Woolwich International Holdings Ltd purchased 5 mill shares at C20c, bringing their holding to 15.55% of the total issued and outstanding shares. At about the same time Sprott Asset Management LP dropped their holding by dilution mainly (they probably took no part in the PP) to 6.1% of the shares.

Total shares are now about 80.1 million.

Been a bit of press about Newmont's interest in a permit called Puhipuhi up in Northland. Like WKP, it has potential to be a few Moz, and here's a link to the EP51985.

http://www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/online-...ate/CMINPSCURR

Various mining companies have had a recent look here for 10 years or so. Newmont says they're just at the start of the exploration on foot, and it takes years. In that case WKP, with active drilling, is a lot further ahead.

Well-known area..

[elZorro]

The AusIMM annual conference kicks off this weekend, and Glass Earth has a part to play there. No doubt there will be a few useful meetings.

I sent another email to Simon Henderson with a few questions, and he has again been helpful.

I asked how the GRUs were going on the placer permits:

SH: Placer results: you asked if the machines are going well, I’d answer with a qualified “yes”. They are highly sensitive units and must undergo weeks of calibration and tinkering before they’ll deliver. This is compounded by the ground we’re working: a far higher than typical fraction of feed is “undersize” (sub-10mm gravels which must be processed within the plant instead of being bypassed) meaning we must carefully regulate feed rates (one plant is currently being fed at 45 loose cubic metres/h, the other ex-Earnscleugh plant at around 55lcm/h). Also, a far, far higher than typical fraction of the feed is extremely fine clay which means our sediment ponds and recirculating water need intensive management and treatment to keep the plants running. Others have given up on similar ground but we believe we’re now a step ahead.

Simon is talking here about GRU#3 (doing about 45 m3/hr) and GRU#1 (doing 55 m3/hr). Both are at sites on the Drybread permit. The tricky ground may be helpful to the cause, it might have been out of favour in the past. I have read that in rivers, gold is often found on the top of clay pans, or in layers underneath them. So the presence of quite a bit of clay could also be good, especially if they're working the top of the permits and the test RC drilling gave better grades lower down. I'm not sure how the clay will be causing an issue with the pumps and settling ponds, maybe it blocks water filters.

Here's a very informative article on jigs, the primary recovery method GRU#1 uses, at least.

http://mines.az.gov/Publications/circ052jig.html

The video of GRU#1 (GEL website) shows the plungers working, and this method appears to be self-cleaning and less likely to block up with heavier minerals like ironsand. It's also good for fine gold, better than riffles. So if GRU#3 and GRU#1 are working similar grades, GRU#1, with its bigger capacity and the jig system, should do better. You'd probably be able to run it for longer without washing up the gold.

[elZorro]

Simon added more detail in the email of 24th August. This relates to the hours of operation of the two GRUs at Drybread.

Both sites are working single shift, 12 hours each day, 6 days per week – currently we’re experiencing up to 65 hours of processing time each week, but it requires constant effort to forecast and manage plant shutdowns.

The nature of alluvial deposits means grade fluctuates daily but, over time, it’s reconciling closely with our exploration.....It has been a long winter (and not over yet), both sites are still leaving the bedding-down phase, and at least another month of full, unhindered operation is needed before we can announce sensible news.

But long story short – we believe our forecasts of consistent 100oz per week production by December are achievable.

That must be a tough job working for 12 hours in Otago over winter, maybe as the weather improves they'll look at running 24/7 on one or more GRUs, with 2 or three shifts. This information implies that we'll get a fairly good picture of the placer operations by the end of September. The gear is being run reasonably intensively, nothing is holding it up too much, and the targets look like they are (or will be) achievable.

A bit more interest being shown in GEL shares today, with the Q2 report due soon and some chance of a news release around AusIMM, this is a good time to hold onto any cheaper shares that you've picked up, IMHO.

[elZorro]

A small note from Simon about WKP in the email:

WKP: I can be more open about progress once results and report from Newmont are available. I can say there is nothing geologically to dampen our interest and the enthusiasm that Newmont have expressed (at Diggers and Dealers) is justified, although whether this can translate into impetus being provided from Newmont (up in Denver) is another matter. I’m meeting with Lorrance Torckler (Newmont’s chief geo in NZ) at AusIMM and planning a press release to go out by the end of the month or shortly after.

He's referring here to an earlier post, notes from a reporter at the Diggers and Dealers conference. WKP is big scale in NZ. The only question now, is where it fits in with Newmont's global strategy. But there is a Newmont mill and mining staff sequestered close by to the WKP permit, and it's being diamond drilled.

[elZorro]

I asked if the Pig Burn permit was next for a placer site.

SH: Yes, I think Pigburn is next (but many irons in the fire) and is in the early stages of planning – we’re considering mining in partnership to allow a quicker startup.

Garibaldi: we are drawing breath, awaiting results, and working at the desktop rather than in the field to assess our work to date. At Muirs drilling has been paused (extremely difficult drilling, holes often have to be redrilled, and there is an exceptionally long delay in assay turnaround from the lab we use in Waihi) so we are now regrouping and calculating the resource.

We’re also working steadily on our JV with PGI at Shepherd’s Flat – some interesting results and data being reviewed while we plan some further drilling with our own rig.

Anyway, I hope that’s gone some way to filling you in and at least putting you on notice of what news we hope can come soon.

There has been an article written on Simon's Garibaldi talk at AusIMM.