UniCredit SpA’s Jochen Hitzfeld, the most accurate gold forecaster tracked by Bloomberg in the last three quarters, raised his estimate for the metal’s average price next year by 12 percent to $1,400 an ounce.
Bullion will average $1,600 an ounce in 2012, Munich-based Hitzfeld said today in a report. He increased next year’s forecast from $1,250. Gold for immediate delivery traded at $1,249.75 at 3:45 p.m. in London, 1.2 percent below a record $1,265.30 reached on June 21.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/gold-s-most-accurate-forecaster-hitzfeld-raises-2011-s-estimate-to-1-400.html
11 comments:
Oh shoot Caribe does that mean were
headed for .30. LOL
Hopefully we'll be into the higher grade ore before then.
In response to my email requesting for the August update, PB replied .."presentation should be available next week. Sent from my Verizon Wireless Blackberry"
``Did a little hike toward Century's property,Ran into a couple of drill holes,man there were quartz viens at surface everywhere. Need longs and lats to verify.``
Hi Moich,
Good to hear you spotted a couple of holes and some quartz on the way towards our NWT property.
There is a mad gold rush happening in Yukon right now. Yukon is ruling the northern part of Canada, with regards to capitalizing on the gold bull market. NWT has missed out completely over the past 10 years of this gold bull market. They need to join real soon.
Diamonds might a girl`s best friend (I am aware of 3 diamond mines in NWT), but gold has been the best asset class the last 10 years, it is the go to asset class and currency right now, and it still has a bright future for at least a few more years (there are current no active gold mines in NWT that I am aware of).
Century has prime (proven) real estate in the Yellowknife area, and likely not too far from power, roads, workforce, infrastructure, etc. I really like the general concept of our NWT property, including the location. It`s total opposite of many places in Alaska (i.e. Canarc), places in northern BC (Fire River) and even places about 70 - 100 km north of Yellowknife (Tyhee Development). Those places are extremely remote and very isolated, with a lot of challenges. This leads to extremely high development costs, major logistical challenges and high operating costs.
Century no longer has Peggy`s NWT reputation as the face of the company.
My understanding is that employment rates and business investment in the northern places are difficult in even the best economic times. With the global crisis, I can only imagine how much more difficult it is now.
Earlier this year (or last year), the Canadian Federal government committed $12 million to beef up the administration departments in the northern areas in order to more rapidly process applications, especially for resource projects (which has been notoriously slow in the past). The Federal gov`t is trying to stimulate business activity in those parts.
IMO, NWT should initiate a promotional campaign, focusing on letting the business community know that they are open for business (while still striking a solid balance with protecting the environment). Tyhee Development has had no problems gaining permits and moving their projects forward north of Yellowknife, therefore it sounds like they are actually open for business. They just need to provide awarenss to the business community.
It would help also if they were to structure an exploration benefit program at least somewhat similar to what Quebec has in place. It would help them to better compete with Quebec and Yukon (but not a must if they don`t have the money or can`t get a gov`t grant). Right now, it looks like NWT will have to step it up big time if they want to compete with Quebec and Yukon for busines activity in the natural resource space. IMO, they already wasted 10 years.
IMO, NWT has the gold in the ground to be a much bigger player in the gold space. IMO, NWT has an opportunity to decrease their unemployment rate in these tough economic times, generate more gov`t tax dollars and improve the local communities via community programs by invested companies, while still balancing protection of the environment.
``places in Alaska (i.e. Canarc), places in northern BC (Fire River)``
That should obviously be flipped around, as such:
* Alaska (i.e. Fire River`s Nixon Fork)
* Northern BC (i.e. Canarc`s Polaris)
As we know, the January 2009 bankable feasibility study was positive. That study was used as the foundation for everything related to the Lamaque start up (including key DD for investors). The current mine plan may or may not be slightly different in some ways, but the basic structure of the current mine plan is the same as the January 2009 bankable study.
It looks like Century might have been (at least a bit) conservative with the Lamaque no. 2 efficiency assumptions. This was from the January 2009 study:
``In the production plan used for the economic model, Century has
conservatively assumed that full dilution will occur over the full 6ft (1.8 m) stope height. Century
has also used conservative stope productivities of 60 tpd and an additional dilution of 5% and losses of 5% of insitu tonnage. The planned dilution in the flats is expected to be reduced
considerably (perhaps by 30-50%) when using the mechanised, selective method proposed but
this will only be determined after experience is gained and only if strict controls are employed. As
a result, PRL advocates no reduction in dilution is applied to the grades mined from flat vein
areas.``
Now, this is from Marilyn Scales` CMJ article:
``When CMJ visited the minesite in
August, mining was underway through #2 portal in an area of flat-lying veins. `In this area, productivity has increased significantly since the introduction of low profile equipment at the operation. A
previous 60-ton jackleg round taking a shift to drill, blast bolt and slush out can now be done in much less time. The low profile
equipment can drill off twice the
development or stope round in the room and pillar stopes in much less time and subsequently mucked out or extracted nearly five times as fast, and of course much cleaner, getting all the gold! It works out to nearly an eight- to ten-fold increase in productivity,` said Century Director of Investor Relations Peter Ball, making the future of continued mining bright. The mucking rate doubled each month since mining began, reaching over 820-t/d in July, with a record 375 tonnes in one shift by one low-profile equipment operator.``
``Results are showing that assigning two Scooptrams and one single boom jumbo per stope, rates of 500 t/d can be achieved in active stopes.``
Perhaps they meant to say 60 tonne per shift per stope, instead of saying 60 tpd. If we assume 60 per shift per stope (which is similar to jackleg performance) then we get 180 tpd per stope (3 shifts per day).
Now, Marilyn Scales is told that 1 single boom jumbo (with 2 scooptrams) can reach 500 tpd at the higher end. Let`s assume that the average for each jumbo is 360 tpd. That is still double what a single jackleg can do and potentially double what was built into the original bankable study for Lamaque.
We`ll have to see how it all shakes out. There is still dilution (we don`t know the impact of extending the paths from 6 ft to 6.5 ft, to accommodate the low profile equipment), as well as the slightly reduced non-reserve grade and other factors to consider.
Nevertheless, all and all, the available data all points to net efficiency shaking out very well. I guess only time will tell.
By the way, it`s quite amazing hearing about that one low-profile operator hitting a record of 375 tonnes in one shift, when a jackleg averages 60 tonnes per shift.
There was quartz every where, my son and grabed nice quartz-granite pieces to use for ornaments around the house. My geoligest friend from BHP explained the many benefits of of these as a surface sample.The NWT is considering of downsizing or maybe even eliminating the current water board as they have chased away many companys. Devollution ,if we ever get it, Is the only way the territorial govt could offer help, as of now,all goes to the Feds,we are stuck in the red.Avalon ventures might be a go, rare earth might be our new gold up here, we will see.cheers
Prod05
During CMJ's tour, there was a short discussion about how competent the ground might be in the Lamaque mine... What does it mean? seems important to merit a discussion as such.
Wingfong,
I don`t know exactly. Lamaque is an old mine. I believe Lamaque no. 2 was originally mined from 1950 to 1955. It might have been worked on occasionally between then and now also. It probably makes sense that they would ask those types of questions.
Prod05
Comment noted with tks
Just fyi info for FAR, FAR, FAR down the road.
I get the sense that gold/precious metals exploration throughout Alaska is really heating up also. It might be due to a combination of the historic gold price, Coeur d'Alene Mines` favourable Supreme Court decision and a number of other factors.
Both producing mines (Coeur`s Kensington and Hecla`s Greens Creek) in the Juneau, Alaska area are off to a great start. All 8 of our Alaskan properties are located in the general vicinity of both mines, in the Juneau area.
Coeur provided an update today on their Kensington Mine. They have a good size resource base already and exploration still continues to be very positive. They are expecting to produce 125,000 ounces of gold per year @ US$490 cash cost per oz.
Of Century`s 8 Alaskan properties, I had previously written about the one I am most curious about - though I like the potential of a number of them (orginally posted on June 9`10):
``The property I am curious about the most is the Sweetheart Property. It`s a polymetallic property. It has several polymetallic targets identified. The property was tested in 1978 by a company called Mapco Minerals. The exploration program included 16 shallow diamond drill holes which returned Cu to 1.4%, Zn to 3.2%, Pb to 1.7%, Ag to 1.3 opt (40.3 g/t), and Au to 0.27 opt (8.37 g/t) - best results in each of the individual metal categories. The best drill hole intersection was 3metres (10 ft) 1.1% Cu, .62% Zn, .7% Pb, .58 opt (17.98 g/t) Ag, and 0.27 opt (8.37 g/t) Au. I haven`t seen the results for the other 15 individual drill holes. The Sweetheart mineralization extends over 12,600 feet (4 km) strike length.``
On June 10`10 I had posted a bit about Hecla`s Greens Creeks Mine (in the Juneau area). It is located (on an island) about 30 km from our Sweetheart (grassroots) polymetallic - our property is on the mainland I think. A 2008 transaction valued Hecla`s Greens Creek Mine at $1.1 billion. Hecla`s mine is polymetallic (silver, gold, lead and zinc), but it is also considered one of the top 5 silver producers in the world.
You might want to check out Barkerville...actually pouring and sitting on top of nice reserves.
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