Mining Minerals & Metals Share Discussion Threads

[valentine] 23/10/2008 09:54

Hugh McCullough, Managing Director of Glencar commented,
"We are delighted with this very positive resource upgrade and are
confident that the Komana concession holds even further potential. We
are particularly encouraged by the Komana East prospect where this
season's drilling will initially be concentrated and which we expect
will add considerably to the resource. That additional drilling has
already begun on site and we look forward to reporting those results
as they become available."


We may get 2m plus yet!

Great stuff.

[robbi123] 23/10/2008 09:43

Komana Resource Update




23 October 2008

Glencar Mining plc

Independent Resource Estimate at Komana Project increased by 139% to
1.25 million ounces.

Highlights
* Combined Komana East and Komana West mineral resource now
stands at 1,250,000 ounces of gold with a mean grade of 1.6
grammes/tonne, a 139% increase over the October 2007 figure of
520,000 ounces with a mean grade of 1.4 grammes/tonne.
* SRK studies show that the likely mined grade could be
increased to 2 grammes/tonne gold through selective mining and with
a loss of only some 10% of the contained metal.
* Komana East remains open in all directions and there is a
good likelihood that the resource here will be increased following
the completion of further drilling which is already underway.
* Further drilling at Komana West will be targeted at proving
the down-dip and down- plunge extensions of high grade shoots.
* Drilling to recommence shortly on additional highly
prospective targets along the main Sankarani Shear zone also within
the Komana licence.

Glencar Mining plc ("Glencar" or "the Company"), the AIM and IEX
listed company with gold exploration interests in Africa, is pleased
to announce that the independent resource study of the Komana
Project, carried out by SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd ("SRK"), has reported
an Indicated and Inferred, JORC compliant, Mineral Resource of
1,250,000 ounces of gold, within 150 metres of surface based on a 0.5
grammes/tonne cutoff grade.

This study was commissioned by Glencar to provide an initial estimate
of the Komana East deposit, where drilling commenced earlier this
year and also to update the original resource estimate for the Komana
West deposit following some additional drilling carried out there
this year. The Komana West and East deposits lie within 7 kilometres
of each other.

SRK's Independent Resource Statement is given in the table below.

Indicated and Inferred mineral resource at Komana Project



Category Tonnage Grade Gold Content
(Mt) g/t) (Oz)
Komana West
Indicated 5.45 2.0 350,000
Inferred 7.65 1.3 330,000
Indicated + Inferred 13.10 1.6 680,000
Komana East
Indicated 1.47 1.5 70,000
Inferred 9.61 1.6 500,000
Indicated + Inferred 11.08 1.6 570,000
Total
Indicated 6.92 1.9 420,000
Inferred 17.26 1.5 830,000
Total Indicated + Inferred 24.18 1.6 1,250,000



















This first preliminary resource of 570,000 ounces at a grade of 1.6
grammes/tonne for Komana East is based on a 0.5 grammes/tonne cutoff
grade and has been restricted to mineralization within 150 metres of
surface. While this is already a very positive outcome on the Komana
East resource estimate, given the limited drilling completed to date
and the relatively limited area drilled to date, we believe that
additional drilling, currently underway, is likely to lead to a
significant increase in both the resource ounces and the resource
grade when the next review of the Komana East deposit is carried out.

The new drilling carried out at the Komana West deposit has
intersected additional mineralization, especially in the southeastern
and southwestern areas of the deposit. This additional drilling has
also given rise to a more accurate interpretation of the orebody
geometry which, in turn, has led to an increase in confidence levels
in orebody modeling. The Komana West resource at a 0.5 grammes/tonne
cutoff now stands at approximately 680,000 ounces at a mean grade of
1.6 grammes/tonne. We are very encouraged by the increase in the
Komana West resource and we believe strongly in the potential for
deeper extensions to the high grade shoots, which, if confirmed,
would present a strong case for underground mining from the floor of
an open pit.

The table below summarises the tonnage and grade within 150 metres of
surface at different cutoff grades. At a 1 gramme/tonne cutoff, for
example, the model contains 1.01million ounces of gold at a grade of
2.2 grammes/tonne.

Combined Indicated and Inferred mineral resource at different cutoff
grades


Cut-Off Grade Tonnage Grade Gold Content
(Mt) g/t) (Oz)
Komana West
1.0 7.0 2.4 540,000
0.5 13.1 1.6 680,000
0.0 34.8 1.3 810,000
Komana East
1.0 7.0 2.1 470,000
0.5 11.1 1.6 570,000
0.0 13.9 1.3 590,000
Total
1.0 14.0 2.2 1,010,000
0.5 24.2 1.6 1,250,000
0.0 48.7 1.3 1,400,000
Total Unconstrained 63.8 0.8 1,680,000























As can be seen in the table above, the total gold content,
unconstrained by geology, structure or depth, within the two
deposits now stands at some 1.68 million ounces and this is expected
to increase considerably with additional drilling.

A report, written by SRK to accompany the resource estimate, states
their opinion that selective mining should be able to achieve a mined
grade of 2.0 grammes/tonne for a loss of less than 10% of the metal
content.

Drilling has already recommenced on the Komana concession and,
initially the programme will focus on the prospect of extending the
Komana East resource along strike to the north and the south as well
as testing additional targets within close proximity to the main
Komana East deposit. A second rig is due to arrive on the property
before the end of October to test additional targets delineated by
the aeromagnetic survey and geological mapping, which lie along the
Sankarani Shear Zone within the Komana licence.

Further drilling is also planned at Komana West, especially to test
the down- plunge extensions to the known high grade shoots within the
deposit. Drilling will also be carried out to the north of the
Komana West deposit to test for an extension to the main Komana West
shear system which has been delineated from the new aeromagnetic
survey carried out over the licence earlier this year.

Although ore grade mineralization was encountered in the drilling
carried out at Soloba and at Kama, to the south of Komana West, it is
proposed to drill test other highly prospective targets on the Komana
Licence before carrying out follow up drilling on those targets.

Hugh McCullough, Managing Director of Glencar commented,
"We are delighted with this very positive resource upgrade and are
confident that the Komana concession holds even further potential. We
are particularly encouraged by the Komana East prospect where this
season's drilling will initially be concentrated and which we expect
will add considerably to the resource. That additional drilling has
already begun on site and we look forward to reporting those results
as they become available."

Hugh McCullough, EurGeol., PGeo, Managing Director of Glencar, is a
member of the Institute of Geologists of Ireland. He is a qualified
person as defined in the Guidance Note for Mining, Oil and Gas
Companies, March 2006, of the London Stock Exchange. He has reviewed
and approved the technical information contained in this
announcement.


For further information please contact:

Glencar Mining plc
Hugh McCullough, Managing Director
Tel: [phone]
e-mail: [e-mail]



Davy
Brian Corr, Associate Director
Tel: [phone]



Bishopsgate Communications
Nick Rome/Michael Kinirons
Tel: [phone]
e-mail: [e-mail]

[bongo bwana] 23/10/2008 07:26

Can anyone provide an analysis of yesterdays dealings in GEX?

[1waving] 22/10/2008 11:33

Very good article on seeking alpha from Frank Holmes, recommended read to give a bigger picture of the movement in gold -- couple of extracts:--

FH: Over the next two years gold will be well over a $1,000, maybe running up to $2,000. The number-one Asian analyst, Chris Wood, is advocating a 30% gold exposure to institutions. Now, this is the number-one brokerage firm in Asia and their research is excellent.

TGR: What's the name of the firm?

FH: CLSA-Asia Pacific Markets. It recommends a portfolio allocation of 30% gold:15% gold bullion and 15% unhedged gold stocks. When an analyst of his stature advises putting 30% of your portfolio into gold, you have to take note. We tell our clients to put a maximum of 5% into bullion and no more than 5% toward gold equities.

TGR: Doug Casey's latest missive rounded it up to 30% too.

FH: The significance here is that the institutional side is getting on board with gold. That's a big deal.

TGR: Because the gold market is so small compared to the market caps these institutions deal with, even a small change in percentage would make a huge difference.
-------------------

FH: Unless they have two grams of gold (per ton) or a million ounces, junior explorers have been drifting lower and lower. Historically in situ reserves have traded at one-tenth of an ounce of gold. So, if gold is $600, then your reserves are worth $60 per ounce. When gold was $300, they were worth $30. That was the model for determining a fair market cap for junior explorers. With gold at $850, these companies should be worth $85 per ounce of reserves, but they're not. This amazes us. And when one of these companies is bought out, it's usually paid more than the ten times ratio. But valuations are now drifting down to $40 and $35 per ounce. So the market is basically valuing a company that has 8 million ounces as if it had only 4 million ounces.

TGR: This is a short-term phenomenon, right?

FH: Yes.

TGR: So, when this situation changes, how quickly will producers and majors start buying up the juniors?

FH: That's a different point. The seniors are going to buy only those juniors that have two grams of gold per ton or a million ounces. The other juniors will just work their way out of the system or go bankrupt.
___________________________

Full article

[valentine] 22/10/2008 11:23

250k buy @ 4.12 plus 3 x 100k at same.
Someone is interested at these levels.
All we need is the market to wake up now!

[bongo bwana] 22/10/2008 11:19

wakey wakey's

:-)

Someone was VERY keen to buy a decent lump of GEX early today.

We saw similar activity prior to the recent RNS.

[1waving] 20/10/2008 18:21

From a Greg McCoach of Gold World email just received:--

And just in case you still harbor doubts about gold, consider this... reported last week in the Financial Times...

"... Investors in gold are demanding 'unprecedented' amounts of bullion bars and coins and moving them into their own vaults as fears about the health of the global financial system deepen."

And since gold bullion is getting harder and harder to come by, more investors are looking for the next best alternative, and that's...

Precious Metals Mining Stocks

Bottom line: Junior mining stocks will begin to make major moves to the upside, rewarding those who got in early and held on... and those who get in now at what are, frankly, bargain share prices.

You see, nothing can keep gold from doubling up and hitting $2,000 an ounce... causing shares in our mining exploration companies to skyrocket.
-----------------------

[malkie] 17/10/2008 19:03

JOIN "KILL THE SPREAD" CAMPAIGN FOR A MORE EFFICIENT AIM SMALL CAP MARKET WITH DIRECT MARKET ACCESS.



Over One thousand people have signed our on-line petition and voted in the Poll!!
If you haven't yet done so join us now!!!

Here is what the Fleet Street Letter says about the Campaign!





If you want tighter spreads on small cap AIM stocks and Direct Market Access, and small cap auctions - then join the campaign!

To be presented to the CEO of the LSE Clara Furse.
The campaign is gaining momentum and the press are now picking up on it.....









Market makers should not be traders as well as there is a clear conflict of interests.

Someone took 20p for 135k GEM when the bid was 26p - over a barrel with Market Makers the only game in town.

On 10th September 450k SOLG sold at 1p when the bid was 3p. Same stock sold back into the market over next few days for 2.5p-3p

Market Maker system leaves a lot to be desired. This isn't "making an orderly market", it is profiteering.

and please spread the word!

[serpicouk] 17/10/2008 19:02

It's hard to be too forward looking as we really need to know what rigs will be where and for how long. Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future GEX will provide some further details on this drill season [and the geochem which has been outstanding for a while].

I too would be surprised with 4m by June. But who knows, if Goldfields throw a load of rigs at Sankarani and progress it to an initial jorc and if GEX throw rigs at solano and get some good RC done and if KW and KE continue to add oz and if all the targets come up trumps then who knows...

I get the feeling that the jorc in a few weeks time will be much like last seasons. A comparatively 'low' value but with the caveat that significantly more ozs are expected to be added on further drilling.

If they are going to double the drilling compared to last season then I expect them to run out of money fairly quickly - given the current climate I will be holding off adding further until that situation is resolved.

[bongo bwana] 17/10/2008 16:24

I think that will prove to be EXCELLENT timing 1W.

Always appreciate Ur continuing efforts here.

[share_shark] 17/10/2008 15:04

I waving, just a thank you..

[haydock] 17/10/2008 11:20

Minesite article, the $ price is no longer relevant?

Who Says Gold Is Not Going Up?

[haydock] 16/10/2008 10:16

Well Contrarain on CEY has found an article which makes a few suggestions as to the position & the future direction:

I am unsure if this 12/10/08 article (gold the last carry trade) from Seeking Alpha as been posted here before (apologises if that is the case)

Some interesting points.

Additionally I also found that the ECB sold E153m of gold last week.

I'm waiting for an entry point because I believe that in spite of all the manipulations that as been used against gold. It will burst of above $1000 in the coming months not only as a hegde against inflation. But also because, the soveriegn wealth funds etc WILL give up SOME their $1150 trillions worth of US T Bills and move into GOLD. Just my thoughts.

You comments and views are welcome.

Happy trading all. NB Also posted on the GOLD thread.

c2i

Today's commentary concerns the last carry trade left in the markets, i.e. gold. Gold peaked at $1032 in March this year; however, since then it has fallen steadily, trading as low as $734. While this fall has been in line with a rising USD dollar, it has also been orchestrated.

Gold has been falling in an environment of rising inflation and rising uncertainty, and I've spoken in the past about gold de-coupling from the USD correlation one day.

At this point in time we need to distinguish between different types of gold, i.e. physical gold and paper gold.

Central banks hold a lot of physical gold and it just sits there earning nothing. As we know, central banks have been pumping money into the markets for 13 months now; what has not been reported is that they have also made their holdings of gold available for lease for about 0.25% for a month.

A short seller in gold can sell spot and lease the gold from the central banks at a nominal interest rate of 0.25%. If you sell gold, you receive USD; the cost of borrowing USD is therefore 0.25% (the gold lease rate) - so as long as gold doesn't go up it is a cheap source of funding.

The central banks don't mind this, especially when they want the USD up and as a rule they always want gold to fall. A falling gold price is a sign that everything is ok.

However, as you can imagine this is a time bomb because they are leasing physical gold to a paper gold market. At some point in time paper gold will not trade the same way as physical gold.

The demand for physical gold is the highest it has been for years, and this is the problem. Without the paper gold carry trade, you could argue that gold would be a few thousand dollars higher right now.

All is not well in the paper gold market. And this is a sign of an impending big rally in gold.

Lease rates have been skyrocketing over the past month. For the past six years, the 1 Month Gold Forward Lease Rate has chopped about at levels below 0.25 percent. Higher volatility over the past year has seen the rate move as high as 0.5 percent, but only in recent weeks have we seen rates greater than 2.5 percent (see chart below).

click to enlarge

On a global scale, the gold market is unregulated and opaque. No one really knows the size of the worldwide short position in gold, but it exists and it is large (at least 10,000 tonnes). Unlike financial markets, there are few rules and regulations on selling gold short. For years, a dark pool of short sales is believed to have been suppressing the natural ascent of gold prices.

The current spike in gold lease rates indicates that demand for physical gold is extremely high and growing quickly. We may well be witnessing the first seeds of the gold price breaking free from the short sellers and the end (death) of the gold carry trade, which so many bullion banks made such large profits on in the 1990's.

The lease rates (available on TheBullionDesk.com) will be the key indicator to watch. If the short sellers in the gold market cannot afford to roll over their positions, they will be forced to close out their trades by buying gold. This could be one potential catalyst (there are many others) that sparks a major gold rally in the months ahead.

[haydock] 16/10/2008 09:32

What happens historically when a market is skewed ?
Well clearly a black market is one answer,but if enough of the producers etc are not happy then surely an alternative market will develop.
Dubai perhaps or Joberg?

[serpicouk] 15/10/2008 21:07

I think you can read the actions contained in that article one of two ways. Either Randgold are bad guys and can't be trusted or that they have continually acted to increase the value in their existing portfolio whilst dropping activities that they didn't perceive would add future value.

Being a fan of Randgold I'm in the second camp and believe if they saw real value in a JV with GEX then they would drive the project to a very successful outcome.

[haydock] 15/10/2008 19:22

Well done lwaving, we will not be expecting anything from that direction.

It is interesting to look at the production figures though for a Mali project.
I am sure others will do the same soon.

[1waving] 15/10/2008 15:13

A few posts on Randgold recently. Anyone thinking of a potential JV with them needs their fairly short term memory jogging --- not a company to get involved with.

From a Minesite article Aug 6th 2008
Randgold Resources Reports Encouraging Interims But Appears To Have Difficulty Keeping Its Friends

At one time Mark Bristow used to point out that the ground around Morila did not belong to the joint venture, but recently he has been pretty reticent on that subject. Presumably, he would like to come up with a new resource estimate and re-start mining once he has shed AngloGold completely.

There could be one or two problems with this plan. For a start AngloGold presumably has an equal share in the plant and would rather dismantle it and haul it to the North Pole than let Randgold take it over. Perhaps it would have been wise to stay on better terms. More recently, Randgold backed out of a joint venture with African Eagle and this is reported to have left a nasty taste, as all Randgold had done on this project was test its conceptual deposit model while doing very little on the ground. In fact Randgold did not bother to tell shareholders when it agreed the joint venture, or when it quit, so it is easy to see how much value it assigns to what it clearly thinks are sideshows. Juniors be warned.

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Full article