Photo: Miningglobal.com
Do you agree with Mark Bristow on the issue of all in sustaining cost (AICS) vs cash cost?
The gold mining industry was fundamentally broke at a gold price of $1 300/oz, Randgold Resources CEO Dr Mark Bristow said on Wednesday.Speaking to journalists at a media lunch, Bristow said the industry was unable to make returns at that low level of gold price range.
As promised, here is the second article on Mick Davis. Again, it is a great read for a little glimpse into the investing and business development side of the mining industry. This article focuses more on his current venture, X2 Resources and its development. Have a read and let me know what you think.
Building another resource giant? Photo: X2 Resources
One of the best quotes about Mick Davis, the founder CEO of Xstrata, comes from former JP Morgan banker Ian Hannam who assisted with a number of transactions for Davis.
He said: “There are four people who claim they brought Billiton to London: [Brian] Gilbertson, myself, Adrian Coates [a well-known banker in London, then at HSBC] and Davis. The answer is – it was Davis. He saw the opportunity and managed to persuade Gilbertson that it would create a platform to build a new company to rival Rio [Tinto]”. Continue reading
I came across two interesting articles recently published on the South African mining news website Miningmx about Mick Davis, his past and a bit on his new venture, X2 Resources. Many of you might followed him at Xstrata and the subsequent merger with Glencore, or maybe you followed the listing of Billiton on the LSE and its merger with BHP. These two articles give quite interesting insight into the investor and business development side of the mining industry, worth a read for any geologist. The first of the two articles, written by David McKay follows.
New mining giant on the way? Photo: X2 Resources
I had to re-post this video. It recently appeared on Australian Mining‘s website. It’s German, and from the 80’s… the video, that is. It is a bit long (9 odd minutes) but do yourself a favour and watch to the end. If ever there was going to be a forklift apocalypse, this is what it would look like. Enjoy!
Here is an interesting post on the Zenyatta graphite deposit. Certainly seems to be an interesting and unique deposit type. If you are going to be at this year’s PDAC Convention, it would be great to hear what the geologists /academics have to say. I think I’ll stop by for a chat and learn something new!
I was reviewing a project this week, a Cu-Ni-PGE advanced stage project in North America. On my way to their NI 43-101 technical report I had to wade through what is the usual marsh of marketing rubbish that is known as the “junior explorer website”. I review a lot of early and advanced stage projects and I can count on my one hand websites that I have come across that are actually attempting to present their results in a truthful and conservative (wise) way.
Me, try to get valuable information from a junior explorer website. (Photo: http://www.dailymail.co.uk)
Today was the first day of the 20th Investing in Africa Mining Indaba. This year will once again see the influential mining houses, government, labour and other stakeholders converge in Cape Town until Thursday this week. If you have any interest in the African mining industry, companies that operate in Africa or you are an African it will do you well to keep at least one eye on proceedings this week. After all, many, if not most African economies are dominated by natural resource-based contributions to GDP. Therefore, what affects mining in Africa will probably affect Africa as a whole.
The Union Platinum Mine, South Africa. (Photo: Flickr Anglo American Feed)
This year is already in full swing and I managed to enter it in style! My new year’s eve party went something like this: On the morning of the 31st we woke up in our tent, pitched in an alpine forest, at the foot of a glacial valley. We then spent the day trekking through deciduous Beech forests, rolling shrub-land, flanked by the spires of the Paine Massif on our left and turquoise blue glacial lakes on our right. By late afternoon, with icy winds carrying light snow, we slogged into the next camp site, welcomed by a Chilean meat buffet next to the fire place! Bubbly cider, hats, wigs and even the Chilean national anthem at the base of the Torres! A spectacular setting close of 2013 and greet 2014!
The spectacular spires of the Torres del Paine National Park. Cuernos Norte can be seen on the right.
So far we have looked at the scoping and the pre-feasibility phases of the feasibility process. Of all the possible scenarios considered during the pre-feasibility study, the best scenario is selected and only it is then taken forward as the foundation for the final (a.k.a. definitive) feasibility study. This scenario will include the best understanding of the geological model and the accompanying resource estimation, details around the mining and recovery method, to which then a more accurate costing estimation, market understanding and execution strategy is applied to answer the fundamental question: “What will it be?” What will this resource be? What will this investment be? This question is broad (covering all aspects of the project in as much depth as possible) yet singular in focus (all things considered, including unconsidered things!, is this a feasible investment?).
It just seemed very feasible to include this awesome photo in this post!
The feasibility study process is critical in mineral exploration as it is the best opportunity the project owner will have to define what the project could, should and will be. In my previous post, we looked at the scoping phase of the feasibility process and how it is responsible for answering the question: “What could the project be?”. The next phase of the process is known as the pre-feasibility study and addresses the question: “What should the project be?” This is arguably the most important study in the feasibility process for any organisation. I will explain why I hold this opinion, but let’s first define the practicalities of the pre-feasibility study.
The Economic Geologist 