AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

[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.

[elZorro]

Here's the article on Garibaldi- quite interesting grades at up to 1/2oz/tonne, and close to surface

AUSIMM NZ 2012: New Glass Earth prospect presented to geoscientists

Ross Louthean — 28 August 2012
The new gold discovery in Central Otago for Glass Earth Gold Ltd (TSX-V & NZAX: GEL) was aired during a geosciences session at yesterday’s opening day of the AusIMM NZ Minerals Conference in Rotorua.
Managing director Simon Henderson stood in for petrologist Anthony Coote to detail the progress being made on the Garibaldi prospect. This is situated roughly between the Macraes gold project and Alexandra in Central Otago.
Henderson told NZResources.com that the likely search programme for the balance of this year would involve about 1,000 to 1,500 metres of drilling on the known structure to depths of about 50m. Drilling would proceed after the lambing season.
While this was a hard rock target, he reminded delegates that historically 8 million ounces of gold has been produced from alluvials in Central Otago.
The company now had three relatively small alluvial gold operations in the region from which it was seeking to produce more than 21 oz per week.
He said Garibaldi lies within a geophysical domain of the Otago schist in which extensive positive magnetic field anomalism correlates directly with the distribution of magnetite-bearing mafic schist.
Henderson said the estimated surface anomalism of gold soil anomalism, quartz veining and hydrothermal alteration on a key target had a strike of about 1,600 metres and was up to 300m wide.
Within a 6.5 km by 2.5 km area there were five anomalous zones and east-west orientated quartz veins had shown individual grades ranging between 1-16 grams/tonne gold, while “inter-fingered mafic schist grades varied between 0.5-2.65 g/t gold.

There must be a mistake in that article, the three or four placer machines (GRUs) should produce 21oz a day, they'll need to do that to get to 7,500 oz a year. But keep these figures in mind, based on the throughput and the hours we've been told about, it won't be too hard to figure out some annual profits later.

[elZorro]

The Q2 report and MD&A is out, best to look at this on the TSX if you want the real news. For once, we get to act on the report before the TSX.

http://tmx.quotemedia.com/article.ph...&qm_symbol=GEL

OK, some exploration has been written off, four permits at least dropped in the last few days. But there is a clear intention to hold the best spots, and the geographically isolated permits seem to be the ones that are being let go.

Good noises being made about the placer prospects, there could be something quite interesting going on in the Drybread mining areas, because Gunclub has been put on hold and the gear moved to Drybread. I have a little spreadsheet going that I'm keen to fill out with some actual figures, but let's just say that grades above 0.5 grams per cubic metre would reap millions of dollars of annual profit, even at 65 hours operation per GRU per week. Run any of the machines for 24/7 and there would be awesome-looking returns. This cash would come in very handy when it's time to work on the other hardrock permits, where the huge potential remains.

At last, an accurate permit map showing that the area around Talisman is gone, and shows the massive Kakanui permit.

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/MapGEL829.jpg