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| Gold Exploration & Mining |
We are talking here mostly about
companies listed on the various stock exchanges (although the information here
can apply to private gold mining companies also). These are public companies
and, although there are variations from country to country, the essentials are
the same. All are public listed companies. All have a share price that varies
from day to day depending on various factors, such their management style,
production, future prospects and so forth, and all are involved either in
exploration, mining or both.
It is a good idea to establish
which a company is. Some are exploration
only. Some are mining only and some; many in fact, are a combination of the
two. Mining companies can also invest in
each other and have shares in another mining company or exploration
company. Some mining companies are even
offshoots of others.
It is also a good idea, before one buys
gold investments or shares in any public company in the gold mining sector, to
really understand all the aspects of a company, who is running it, what style
of management is used, what they actually do, what are their prospects, what
are their assets, the balance sheet, etc.
As in any type of financial arrangement, one should consult with ones
financial advisors before embarking on any investment adventure.
Having said that, let’s find out
what sort of activities we can expect from a gold exploration and mining
company.
Prospecting and Exploration
It all starts with the prospecting.
Initial prospecting is done to determine if a full exploration is
warranted. A full exploration can cost
many thousands, even millions so before such expense is undertaken, initial
prospecting including sampling of the surface and possibly some distance down
from the surface is done. It is commonly thought that any gold underground will
show some traces on the surface and this is what mining prospectors look for to
start with.
These days, for serious gold mining,
one is not looking for gold nuggets on the surface say in streams for
example. That is panning for gold and
is too small for a full gold mining operation.
For serious gold mining one is
looking for a concentration of gold within minerals, usually of a type of
rock. The concentration is measured in
grams of gold per tone of ore. The more
grams of gold per tonne the more economical and therefore profitable it is to
mine the gold.
How much gold is estimated to be in
a particular mine or project? What is
the expected gold ounce per tone of ore?
The less gold extracted per tone of ore the higher the cost to extract
it. This is usually measured in reports as g/mt or grams of gold extracted per
tonne of ore, so 10 g/t would be ten ounces of gold produced from one metric tonne
of ore. What are the production costs is another question to ask. Also how much
gold is expected to be produced over the entire project? This can tell you the
viability of setting up operations for that project, capital and running costs,
maintenance etc. 10 g/t with an
expectancy of 50,000 ounces of gold or more might be considered good all things
being equal. 1 g/t with an expectancy of 100 ounces would be considered very
bad. Of course these are extremes but
they do indicate the necessity of getting all the relevant data and checking
through it thoroughly.
A MEG (Metal Economic Group) study
has come up with a set of averages or guide for gold mining and exploration.
No of Projects: 5
Budget per project: $US1.8 million
Size of each project: 570sq km
Drilling on each project: 6,800m
Budget per planned metre: $288.40
No of Geoscientists: 8
Budget per geoscientist: $1.4 million
In short, it is not just a matter
of how many grams or ounces in each tonne of ore one can recover, it is also
how big the lode or lodes are and how many thousands of ounces of gold an
organisation can recover.
Mining
Mining of gold is usually either open cut or underground. Most gold on the surface these days has been
already located and mined although some pockets do get found on occasion. Most gold is mined from under the earth and
this can be either a few feet down or even up to many hundreds of feet or even
kilometres. Of course underground mining
is generally more expensive than open cut as more energy and equipment has to
be expended to shore up the mines and bring the ore to the surface. Not only that but more safety measures are
required and more equipment is needed.
This all has to be taken into account when assessing the cost of
extracting the gold and there needs to be sufficient gold available to be
extracted to make it worth while for the mining company to go forth and
continue with the mining. It can be
noted here that, the higher the value of gold in the market place, the more
viable it becomes to mine gold that is more difficultly and costly to mine and
the lower grams per tone of ore can be mined.
With the price of gold 10 years ago, lower grams of gold ore would not
have been viable due to the cost of mining and processing. These days, as the
price of gold continues to rise, mines containing a lower amount of gold per
tone of ore become more viable to mine.
More on Gold Mining
Generally when a mining or exploration company discovers a viable and
worth while lode they will apply for a licence.
How this is done various from country to country and even state to state
in some cases and is not really of much interest to investors of mining
companies other than the fact that all mining companies do need to have all the
relevant licenses and lease agreements required by law. This is something that should be listed in
any mining company’s prospectus and should be looked for to establish the
authenticity of the company. A company
with no licence and or leasing agreements would not be able to mine and is
probably not a bona fide mining company at all.
Mining companies lease tenements or
blocks. These have been established to
contain lodes, mineral rock in which the metal is contained. Sometimes you see mentioned Mother Lode. A
mother load is an ore deposit from which a placer is derived; the mother rock
of a placer (Placer: A deposit of sand or gravel that contains particles of
gold, gemstones, or other heavy minerals of value. They are commonly stream
gravels and beach sands).
Mining Company Structure
Important to consider also the mining company itself. Is it a public
company already floated on the stock exchange? Is it a private company looking
to initiate an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and list on the exchange? Who runs the company? Are they experienced in management, geology
and, importantly finance? What are the governance policies of
the company? What is the offer to shareholders?
The history of the company. All
these factors should be taken into consideration. Just finding a large deposit of gold is not
enough. It has to be managed well,
correctly assessed and the finances should be in place to extract the gold
satisfactory and at a profit otherwise the company could go bust, regardless of
how much gold they have. They could lose their license to mine or the lease
hold and the gold could well end up in someone else’s hands.
Future Gold Mining Prospects
Of course the future of the company is dependent on how much gold they
expect to dig up over a period of time.
If they expect to dig up, say 20,000 ounces a year for twenty years then
that sounds quite viable. But if the
gold they have discovered runs out after two years then the share price is
going to drop and the company go bust.
So how long the gold will last is an important question. The gold price
has a bearing also as that can determine the viability of extracting the gold.
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