Quote Originally Posted by youngatheart View Post
NTL also seems to demonstrate a similar lack of action... Perhaps, as one poster mentioned, they also may not know how to drill.
Yes, it all goes to show how goldmining is certainly a game for the big guys. Newmont just stalled Glass Earth on Waihi West (surely always a good bet), waited for them to run out of money. They were outfoxed in Otago by an older operator, but they were well and truly done up in Waihi. Drilling costs a heap, you have to drill a lot of holes to get good data reliable enough for mining. GEL only had to pay a smaller percentage, but that was always too much for their budget at WKP, and Waihi West was not really started. Then they lost the new capital Brent Cook brought along (or the potential for it) at Drybread, and they were sunk. Lots of the SI permits were probably never adequately checked out, they had too many permits for the funds available.

I still think that they were unlucky not to find a rich spot in their few contracted drills, but when it came to alluvial mining, they were inept compared to people who had been doing it for a living. That's what finished off the game as far as shareholders were concerned.