AXG - Antipodes Gold [formerly GEL - Glass Earth]

[elZorro]

Hi Yankiwi, yes, I agree the shareprice shouldn't drop too much from here, although I've said that before when it was at 25c and 35c. I continue to monitor my main share investment (GEL) carefully, but I have other investments.

Have a look at the books for the last 9 months, it makes clear that Dunstan Mining might have been short on cash to pay its bills at the time of takeover, that the price GEL paid was made up in permit valuations and fair value of equipment. GEL had to pay those Dunstan bills I guess, then start making monthly payments to Bob Kilgour after the one-off payment. Except it's unclear whether they are up to date, because as at 30th Sept there was a bigger than normal current liabilities amount for the mining company instalments, equal to 12 of the payments.

Don't get me wrong, these are not big amounts compared to the possible returns from a good placer permit. But I'll be breathing easier when the placer returns swamp out these new capital overheads, some of which will not run for too long anyway. Neavesville is another claim on the gold profits if it goes ahead. I'd like to see some strong indications of a focus on gold returns from the placer permits, before GEL hares off on too many exploration fronts again. If the company has the placer cashflow, exploration without shareholder dilution will be easily achieved. Shareholders can then sit back and be fairly comfortable in ticking the shareprice up on any weakness.

But at the moment we're wondering whether there's yet another private placement needed.

[elZorro]

I found this article about Neavesville, during the depression years around 1930s.

http://www.ohinemuri.org.nz/journal/...eavesville.htm

[Balance]

Trading all time low after a 5:1 consolidation.

Placement after placement at an ever lower and lower price.

Sorry. elZorro but this looks like yet another mining stock designed by the promoters and management to keep themselves in jobs and clover for as long as they can manage the PR.

Is the Chairman, John Dow, the same Pike River John Dow?

The John Dow who believed that he was being very diligent and did his utmost to ensure the safety of the miners?

[GRIFFIN]

Then they must have caught the bug from Heritage Gold as they were able to keep themselves in jobs and clover for many years then they split off the good bits and left the share holders with NTL which is going oh so well, shares are up to 1 cent well done HGD.

[Balance]

Trading all time low after a 5:1 consolidation.

Placement after placement at an ever lower and lower price.

Sorry. elZorro but this looks like yet another mining stock designed by the promoters and management to keep themselves in jobs and clover for as long as they can manage the PR.

Is the Chairman, John Dow, the same Pike River John Dow?

The John Dow who believed that he was being very diligent and did his utmost to ensure the safety of the miners?

The same John Dow who kept throwing shareholders' funds at all the problems of Pike River without sussing out and sorting out the underlying problems?

[bucko]

here we go again.....

[Balance]

here we go again.....

Got my attention.

Let's rumble.

[elZorro]

Sorry work has been flat out today so I couldn't reply earlier. In all my time observing GEL, I haven't seen any real input from the Chairman John Dow. But he does have strong connections to Newmont. He is the same John Dow caught up in the Pike River debacle, but I figured that wasn't relevant here. GEL doesn't go underground at the moment, and anyway there's no issue with gas in their gold areas.

Do I see the GEL employees and board as just cruising along? No. They have been tight with their funds for years, and have fairly modest salaries and assets. They have done a lot of exploration with $45 mill over 6-7 years, compared with other juior explorers. They'd perhaps be less inclined to dilute the share if they had more holdings themselves, that is a fair comment. I think the issue is that the bigger money they need has been hard to wrestle out of well-heeled investors.

I've invested in this share because they have a strong probability of getting to the mining stage somewhere, or of being bought out. If/when this happens, I'm not looking for 20% p.a. return, but a one-off 1000% return, something in that order. I have other investments that have done a lot better in the last 6 years, outside the sharemarket. But I still think that here's a really interesting company, right under our noses.

[elZorro]

Private venture re-establishes gold mining at Waikaia

Ross Louthean — 19 December 2012
A new private gold dredging operation is to be developed in northern Southland in the new year.
The Waikaia gold project has completed financing arrangements for what is projected to be a $12 million project.
This follows the granting of resource consents for mining in January this year.
The project’s executive director is well known Kiwi geologist Warren Batt who spent several years on gold and base metal operations in Australia.
Before returning to New Zealand he was the exploration chief for Perilya Ltd which ran gold operations in Western Australia and now is the major operator at the lead-zinc-silver operations at Broken Hill in western New South Wales.
While Batt was with Perilya the company ran the Island Block alluvial gold project near Roxburgh in partnership with contractor March Mining. Some of the old March Mining team are involved in the Waikaia project.
Batt said this week that development of Waikaia was expected to begin by the end of March after delivery of 2,700 tonnes of sheet pile which will be shipped into Bluff from Japan.
The sheet pile will be used to construct a groundwater cut-off wall around the mine site. Excavation of the mine “starter” pit would begin about six weeks later.
Construction of a gold recovery plant will start in January and the 250 tonne plant will be fabricated in kitset form in Nelson and Greymouth and transported to the mine site for assembly inside the completed “starter’ pit.
Commissioning of the gold recovery plant is anticipated during the third quarter of 2013.
Once full production is reached the plant will treat 700,000 cubic metres of gold bearing wash per annum. About 3 M cu m of overburden will be stripped ahead of the mine in the first year of mining operations.
Batt said the mine will advance at the rate of 20m per week with the overburden being replaced behind the mine.
The mined land will be progressively restored to pasture and full farm production.
Under the current mine plan 5 M cu m of gold bearing wash and 17 M cu m of overburden will be mined over the 7.5 year mine life producing about 106,000 oz of gold.
The Waikaia mine, owned by Waikaia Gold Ltd, will employ about 40 people and inject about $115 M per annum into the local economy before Crown royalties and taxes.
It is anticipated that the mine will be among the top 5 gold producers in NZ.
Warren Batt said the Waikaia district has a strong historical association with gold mining and the company was delighted it could make this announcement in the year of the 150th anniversary of the first discovery of gold in the district,.
By coincidence there will be gold mining anniversary celebrations in Waikaia from January 11-13.

GEL has a couple of spots at least, on the Waikaia, as well. I did a few numbers, the average grade for the above permit is about 0.65grams/m3 (similar to Drybread), and assuming they'd try a near 24/7 operation, it's just one (floating trommel?) plant processing about 80-100 m3 of ore per hour. They have to move a fair bit of low-grade gravel too, but it's not too bad.

With one piece of processing gear, they hope to produce twice GEL's target production from 5 trommels, each year. This shows how scaling placer work up doesn't have to be very expensive, GEL should be capable of doing something similar.

[gonzo56]

Did you see the SSH announcement saying an ACC employee got 250,000 shares on 11 December for $48,370.76? That's 19.35 cents per share. Why is he allowed to purchase GEL at that price?