Don't waste your time then would be the advice - lost cause stocks like AXG (or more accurately, GEL) are a dime a hundred.
Nobody half smart is going to sucked in and contribute to the directors and management mining lifestyles.
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I've seen the shared services office in Auckland, Balance. That wasn't a lifestyle spot, they were fairly careful with office overheads. They made some big mistakes with equipment at Drybread though.
Most of the exploration money was spent with contractors and in writing up the required reports and data to be handed across to NZPAM. Including the large aeromagnetic surveys, now available to new explorers.
Quote:
5/12/2014 — General
The big Government spend on exploration will be airborne
By Simon Hartley
Most of the $8 million the Government is putting into mineral, and oil and gas geotechnical studies will be spent on aerial aeromagnetic surveys - including more over Otago.
In its Budget in May, the Government set aside $8 M to spend over four years on studies around the country, with Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges saying yesterday about $6.4 M was for new aeromagnetic and specific geotechnical studies.
The findings go into a data base of permitting agency New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals, which international exploration companies can access, to encourage them to apply for exploration permits.
Combined with previous aerial surveys, including the biggest which was around Otago, the new surveys would lift coverage to about 30% of New Zealand's total land area.
“The data collected will have a wide range of applications in fields such as geological mapping and geological hazard assessment, as well as potential mineral exploration,” Bridges said.
One of the most active explorers in recent years former Glass Earth Gold - now Antipodes Gold Ltd (TSX-V & NZAX: AGX) - combined with the Otago Regional Council in a $4 M aeromagnetic survey of Otago in 2007, covering 1.3 million hectares, used for broad use, not just exploration.
Glass Earth had spent more than $40 M prospecting around mainly Otago, but sold its boutique alluvial operations in Central Otago in mid-2013, switched its focus to central North Island tenements, then rebranded as Antipodes.
Following the earlier Otago survey, the Government had since surveyed Northland and the West Coast in recent years, with the next aerial programme shifting focus to Nelson-Marlborough, Southland and parts of Otago, Bridges said.
Providing comprehensive data to potential investors helped New Zealand compete on the international market for petroleum and mineral exploration and development, he said.
“Good data can tip the balance of investment decisions in our favour,” Bridges said.
The Government would spend $1.6 M on petroleum data projects and studies, including a national project to audit well outcomes and by gathering additional (offshore) frontier basin data through NIWA's research vessel, the RV Tangaroa, he said.
*Simon Hartley is senior business reporter and assistant chief reporter for the Otago Daily Times.
Companies mentioned in article
Antipodes Gold Ltd
New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals
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.
Quote:
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.
At least GEL was not as short-lived as MCAM Ltd (another greenfields explorer) appears to be.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/indu...-to-recover-1m
Although MCAM Minerals had a good write-up in the ODT recently.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/3...atinum-gravels
GEL took over some Platinum/Gold-style permits from Bob Kilgour down in Southland, even had one or two of their own, but I think these were let go or transferred in lieu of creditor payments.
Start of the new year, which means AXG needed to repay some old debts by now, and their Sparrowhawk permit EP 53189 in the S.I. also requires a 30 month report to NZPAM, which is to include drilling and trenching results (90% owned by AXG). Meanwhile the shareprice is getting hammered, down to C1.5c on the TSX. No major volume being sold, of course. But the market values the company and its net assets at about the same as a beaten-up state house in a provincial town.
There are no doubt some big shareholders who have put in over a million dollars of cash each, wondering if Simon and co. can pull a rabbit out of the hat. And also, perhaps, wondering what the initial market valuations were based on.
Time to wind it up and hope for another company to come along to chuck into the shell? Kim Dotcom is always looking to chuck another monstrosity onto market ;)
I think Kim will be working on MEGA for a while yet. He has a new CEO looking to convert more freebie customers into paying customers.
A lot of the relinquished GEL/AXG permits in Otago were 10% owned by Mark Gunton, of Westgate fame (as New Zealand Minerals Ltd). He, in turn, has been working on a ten-year project in his area of expertise, and it has started paying off.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11155295
NZM also has two minerals permits, 100% owned. The emerging pattern is one of previous backers of GEL moving on, still taking a punt on their discrete projects, but not being interested in the AXG offering.
I will keep an eye out for news on AXG, but last year the first official report to SEDAR didn't come out until the annual report on 30th April (closeoff is 31st December). The TSX shares are now trading at 1c, with two NZ bids on the NZX at 1.1c and 1.3c.
Fresh capital was being sought by April 2014, and here is the page from the Rabone presentation showing key shareholders at that point. ACC has sold down some shares since. Not sure about anyone else on the list, but they don't seem to be putting up the new funds. Drilling at WKP was supposed to be restarting in June 2014.
Instead, AXG are pursuing a restructuring with an un-named third party, as announced in November 2014.
Nothing to report, except that after a quick investigation of the Antipodes Gold website, it appears that they've used the FREE version of Weebly website builder, which means no video or audio player, and an ad on the bottom of each screen. I'm not sure if that's how you impress new investors with the required deep pockets.
http://www.websitetooltester.com/en/...weebly-review/
http://www.antipodesgold.com/
I wonder how the restructure is going.
According to this website (Macroaxis), which seems to automatically scrape the web for data and put up charts and predictions for any listed company, AXG is in a bit of trouble. Some of their data is out, but I feel this part of the analysis is accurate.
http://www.macroaxis.com/invest/rati...-Of-Bankruptcy
On 26th January 2015, Antipodes Gold surrendered EP53189 with NZPAM, this was the 6400Ha Sparrowhawk permit in Otago. Maybe it had been for sale, but in any case it could be an opportunity for someone, later on.
Periodically, I update a basic speadsheet on the permits that GEL or AXG hold with NZPAM, the govt permitting outfit.
First note: Antipodes Gold appears to have no permits at all, perhaps they haven't bothered with any name changes since last year.
Second note: Glass Earth is mentioned in only three currently running permit records that I can see.
EP40598: the WKP area and surrounds, above Waihi, up in the bush. Waihi Gold (Newmont) have 65% ownership, GEL have 35%. The operator is listed as Waihi Gold. Not Antipodes Gold, whatever they might say in their press releases.
EP40183: Glamorgan, a permit beside the WKP area. 65% owned by Waihi Gold, they are also the operator.
EP40767: Waihi West area, this is mostly under the south-west part of the Waihi Township. It's right beside the massive Martha Hill mine, that is nearly mined out. The Correnso targeted mining area is across to the east from here. NZPAM show that this permit is 100% owned by Glass Earth Gold, and they are the operator. However under an earn-in, Waihi Gold have done some drilling and exploration here (Not Glass Earth), and Waihi Gold (Newmont) should have 60% of this permit under that agreement. It's likely that they are quite happy at this stage to leave it in Glass Earth's name.
Glass Earth or Antipodes Gold owed Waihi Gold $720,000 for previously agreed exploration work that has been completed. In March 2014 the two parties set out a new agreement where AXG needed to spend that same amount on approved exploration of WKP by October 2015, and some new rules from then on. They are only the project Manager, not the Operator.
http://web.tmxmoney.com/article.php?...&qm_symbol=AXG
Of course, at this stage AXG have no funds at all, and don't look like getting any before October.
On 12th Feb 2015, Oceana Gold was granted a 2 year prospecting permit over 10,9764 Ha, immediately southwest of their main mining permit at Macraes. The curious thing is that this permit is called Lot's Wife, and Glass Earth had an Exploration permit for the same area under the same name, also about 11,000 Ha, from July 2005 to July 2010.
Maybe they missed something.
It's not so great across the Tasman, either.
Quote:
18/2/2015 — General
Geoscience jobs continue to fall in Australia
By Ross Louthean
One of the major geosciences bodies in Australia has raised concerning statistics that also impact on professional employment in New Zealand.
The Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) this week released figures showing that unemployment for geoscientists was continuing to rise.
The degree of the problem has been well shown in news reports showing massive cutbacks in the Pilbara iron ore fields and coal fields of Queensland and New South Wales.
There is also the fact that more than 80 listed junior explorers on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) have “zombie” classifications – insufficient funds to last the next six months without considering exploration.
AIG said its latest survey for the December quarter showed that an uptick in jobs in the previous quarter was short lived.
The survey showed the unemployment rate among 666 respondents in the latest survey was 15.5%, a full 2% higher than the rate for the end of the September quarter. The under-employment rate in the latest survey among self employed geoscientists rose to 16.9% from 15.4% in the previous quarter.
The unemployment rate of 15.5% was the second highest recorded since the AIG started this survey in mid 2009.
“The combined unemployment and underemployment rate of 32.4% was also the second highest recorded by this survey,” the AIG said.
Self-employed geoscientists continued to struggle with more than a third unable to secure more than 10% of their desired workload. Were these self-employed geoscientists to be considered to be essentially unemployed, the overall unemployment rate would be a staggering 21.3% - more than one in every five geoscientists in Australia today.
The latest survey showed 12.2% of the geoscientists lost their jobs in the previous three months. Almost 40% had been unemployed for more than a year.
The survey showed more than 66% of unemployed or under-employed geoscientsits were not confident of returning to full time employment in their chosen field within 12 months, and 6% were seeking alternate employment.
“The increase in unemployment amongst Australia’s geoscientists in the final quarter of 2014 will be seen as very disheartening by many in the profession,” commented AIG president, Wayne Spilsbury.
“The employment downturn, since it peaked at the end of 2013, has shown little sign of improvement whereas the GFC in 2008 to 2009 was a short, sharp event.
“The current, continuing downturn appears to be a product of sustained depressed commodity prices which has dampened equity markets, contributing to a marked decrease in exploration funding that is essential to the sustainability of Australia’s minerals and energy resource industries and Australia’s continued economic prosperity,” Spilsbury added.
Western Australia, which had been the boom State that also was a mecca for geoscientists and other mining professionals and skilled workers from New Zealand, has borne the brunt of the downturn.
Spilsbury said that some promised incentives and initiatives from the Federal and some Australian State governments have failed to stop the rot.
Another peak industry body, the AusIMM, has been raising concerns about the massive loss of jobs for its members, which include geoscientists, mining engineers and metallurgists.