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First we had Willian Sheridian exercising his warrants n now we have AM. Feel their decisions to do so bode well to the SP at this juncture. Believe insiders buyings are always positive as far as SP is concerned
Agreed. Any insider buying is good insider buying at this point.
This baby is just waiting for a pop. The announcement of the close of the second PP should give us a nice kick.
Doesn't look like we'll see an announcement before Wednesday at the earliest though. They need to push it out IMO by Wednesday at the latest to avoid a sagging shareprice. We need to continue this little run.
It's abundantly clear that the $5 million PP won't close until the market finishes buying the shares that one or more of the PP placees are selling into the market to finance the PP. It is also clear that the over-allotment won't be exercised which to me is a good thing. The less dilution at 39 cents with warrants the better.
When I see the end of TD dumping large blocks at the bid, then I'll know that the PP has closed. The previous PP closed when Scotia stopped dumping blocks at the bid.
What is unacceptable is IR telling callers last week that the PP was closed. Either he was lying or mis-informed. The history of lack of credibility continues.
Carib,,, What is unacceptable is IR telling callers last week that the PP was closed. Either he was lying or mis-informed. The history of lack of credibility continues.. Haven't bothered contacting PB since selling the majority of my ST/LT shares. I have been accumulating under the 39 cent strike price and will trade CMM, until I see a leap of faith in the market's perception about management. Guess it will take an new CEO and some house cleaning for that to happen. JMHO.
I was told by Peter PP would close mid-Dec which probably means next week. So while this is annoying, it's not really too big a deal in the long run guys.
It's not the fact the PP will close mid-December that bothers me, it's that he changed his tune from when I had spoken with him 2 weeks ago and said it would close last week.
Update from PB today. PP is basically closed they have the money just waiting for Hayward to finish off. Production roughly 55% lamaque flats 45% BD right now. Grade roughly 2.5-3 for LF and 4-5.5 BD. Plan is for 760,000 tons for 2011 @ a consertive 3.6 grade. 18,000tpd avg H1 and 22,000 tpd H2. Long hole blasting has begun. North all coming on in January, initially @ 100tpd.
You probably meant to say 1,800 tpd avg in H1 (as oppose to 18,000 tpd) and 2,200 tpd avg in H2.
Using the 760,000 ore tonnage you quoted for 2011 (assuming 360 productive days and 5 days of downtime), and 95% recovery and the 3.6 g/t, the math works to around 83,500 ounces.
Great update! Nice to see BD grade coming in so high and already 45% of production. I've noticed the market makers have been blatantly trying to hold this down and painting the tape down the last week. Usually that precedes a major burst up. I think it's very likely we stumble along until around Dec 15th or so then close out the year strong from Dec 15th to January after news release update and PP closing. Also, any remaining tax-loss selling should be out of the way soon as well.
Whoops your right P05 though nice to dream eh. Yep they are targeting around 83/84 thousand ozs. perhaps more if things go right for once. Year end 2010 should come in around 18,000 ozs and San Jaun had record production in October.
Roxy, Thanks for the clarification. . . yes, irritating having to wait but all these minor delays the street will forgive when we achieve our production goals.
As an example as to what we can expect once things get going, Arian Silver set a "start of production" date for contract mining and were over 6 months late to hitting it with excuse after excuse and delay after a delay. They finally got it going and have more than quadrupled in price in the few months since. Everything forgiven.
It is very clear to me our mine development works are on track n getting better by the days. I thk Mr KH, being the 'reluctant' interim CEO, has done a fine job with the assiatance of management etc. Having gone tro so much trouble developing this Lamaque mine, I am sure the experience gained by the whole team is invaluable n should bode well for Lamaque going forward and will be of great help when it is time to shift attention to the development of San Juan.
Roxy you're absolutely right that the long-hole stoping commencing is definitely the most exciting news. That's a huge milestone accomplished in the ongoing development.
Very nice to see a day of 550 tpd coming out of Bedard alone as well. This is a very crude calculation, but if you put in the earlier statement about production being 45% BD and 55% Flats, that averages to almost 1250 tpd.
roxy, thanks for sharing the details of your conversation with PB. It is efforts like yours and others that makes the blog what it is - a place to share opinions and information for the benefit of your fellow shareholders.
I really don't know what to make of the new numbers that PB is throwing out. 760,000 tonnes for 2011? Based on 360 operating days, that's over 2,100 tpd on average for 2011. Where are we now? 1,000, 1,200? It was only 3 weeks ago in an official news release that we were told that "The Company anticipates reaching 1,500 TPD by the first quarter of 2011 and reaching a steady state production rate in excess of 2,100 TPD by the fourth quarter of 2011." Now PB is saying we will average over 2,100 in 2011. What changed in 3 weeks? To average 2,100, we are going to have to peak at a much higher number than 2,100 tpd in 2011.
I'd much rather the company under-promise and over-deliver for just once rather than raise expectations again that they might not meet.
You wrote: ``whats really excites me is they've begun long hole stoping``
If I may, I will try to interpret and expand on why you are espeically excited about this particular development.
Century is not allowed to perform long-hole stoping on the property prior to being granted the long-hole stope mining permit by the government. This is not a simple permit to get, as it requires extensive 3rd party geotechnical tests and evaluations.
If Century has now truly began long-hole mining at the Bedard Dyke then it would imply the following:
1) Century has been granted the long-hole mining permit.
2) Century has reached the mineralized Bedard Dyke targeted long-hole zone and have completed sufficient crosscuts to initiate long-hole mining. The long-hole method of mining these types of mineralized structures is typically very cost effective. Hopefully it will represent a somewhat reasonable counter balance to Room and Pillar mining in the low grade Lamaque Flats.
3) North Wall is now permitted for long-hole mining also (the long-hole permit authorizes long-hole mining on both the BD and NW locations - an additional permit is not required).
Prod05 'if Century has now truly begun long-hole mining at the Bedard Dyke..' You give me the impression you are not entirely comfortable with the claim that Century has indeed truly begun long-hole mining at BD. Am I right? Further, what confirmation(s) do we need to establish the exact status/claims of this important development? Wish to have your views.
From what I am hearing, they got a verbal approval only to begin the long hole stoping at the BD. They do not have the actual permit in hand. They are going ahead with the LHS at BD based on this verbal approval. I actually have some pictures from the BD after they blasted. If anyone is interested in seeing these, send me a PM thru Stockhouse or Agoracom with your email and I will send them to you.
I think it`s just a situation where my wording did not come across quite right. I apologize for that. I am always comfortable with info that Roxy14 provides.
Sometimes I prefer to use the word ``if`` until the company announces the development via an official NR. Sometimes terms can have different meanings (or get lost in translation) and can be open to different interpretations (long-hole stope mining is somewhat black or white in terms of what it allows the company to do, especially from a government standpoint, but you never know for sure if there are any loopholes, hence the use of the word ``if``).
It would be good if the company issues a separate NR to the market once they do have the permit in hand (if it comes before the mid-late December update NR), as it would represent an important (and positive) development.
Production05 your right they do not have the permit yet but Peter said they were told they are allowed to mine the entire complex up to 1200 ft for now
Prod05 Get your points with tks yet there is no need to apologise for anything really. Will take it they have verbal OK to do long hole at BD for now. It would be nice if Co may issue a NR to establish/clearify this matter Cheers
My guess is the 1,200 ft limitation might have something to do with water levels. I recall the high point being around 1,200 ft. That`s alright though as many of our current 43-101 ounces are located within 1,000 ft of the surface. The company has stated that we will be mining these near surface ounces for at least the next 5 years (using only the 3 declines). They said there is no need for deep production and refurbishment of the shafts until beyond 5 years.
Though, I imagine, with huge cash flows in a couple of years, they will likely refurbish one of the shafts early in order to launch a deep drill exploration program within the mine. There are plenty of deep ounces waiting to be discovered within the mine, especially from 3500 ft to 6000 ft on the Lamaque half (including bulk mining ounces in the Lamaque Main plug - same plug where Teck Cominco had huge success - the plug is still open (there is a belief that the deep Lamaque Main Plug, combined with the deep West Plug, could still host 2 million ounces alone)). The Lamaque mineralized system at Lamaque is a mesothermal system. As such, the grades should go higher with depth.
In terms of mid-term, as Mr. McNutt mentioned on the last conf. call, they may consider dewatering the mine down just a little bit in order to provide access to additional (easily reachable) ounces. In terms of mid-term, I can probably see them dewatering from maybe 1200 ft to about 2000 ft. The Lamaque no. 2 ramps appears to go down to about 2000 ft. It would be a nice match and a low hanging fruit (and no need to involve any shafts).
It sounds like the dewatering permit can be available as early as 120 days (4 months) after the long-hole (a.k.a. Sigma 2000 Permit), but only if they have chosen to do the work towards this of course. I think it`s a nice to have, as oppose to being a priority.
Anyway, specifics for the dewatering permit can be found in the Deustche Bank agreement on SEDAR (Jan. 14`10). Here are the details (for anyone interested in such info):
``Underground Dewatering CofA authorizing underground pumping of up to 3,000 gallons per minute for downstream discharge.
• Allows underground pumping of up to 3,000 gallons per minute for downstream discharge.
• Environmental dewatering impact study required - 98 days- Proposal received
• Dewatering technical engineering - 42 days
• Decantation basin design - 28 days
• Assuming above items are completed while the Sigma 2000 Permit is being reviewed and issued by the Ministry, expected permit issuance would be 120 days after Sigma 2000 permit issuance.
27 comments:
First we had Willian Sheridian exercising his warrants n now we have AM. Feel their decisions to do so bode well to the SP at this juncture. Believe insiders buyings are always positive as far as SP is concerned
Agreed. Any insider buying is good insider buying at this point.
This baby is just waiting for a pop. The announcement of the close of the second PP should give us a nice kick.
Doesn't look like we'll see an announcement before Wednesday at the earliest though. They need to push it out IMO by Wednesday at the latest to avoid a sagging shareprice. We need to continue this little run.
It's abundantly clear that the $5 million PP won't close until the market finishes buying the shares that one or more of the PP placees are selling into the market to finance the PP. It is also clear that the over-allotment won't be exercised which to me is a good thing. The less dilution at 39 cents with warrants the better.
When I see the end of TD dumping large blocks at the bid, then I'll know that the PP has closed. The previous PP closed when Scotia stopped dumping blocks at the bid.
What is unacceptable is IR telling callers last week that the PP was closed. Either he was lying or mis-informed. The history of lack of credibility continues.
Carib,,, What is unacceptable is IR telling callers last week that the PP was closed. Either he was lying or mis-informed. The history of lack of credibility continues..
Haven't bothered contacting PB since selling the majority of my ST/LT shares. I have been accumulating under the 39 cent strike price and will trade CMM, until I see a leap of faith in the market's perception about management. Guess it will take an new CEO and some house cleaning for that to happen. JMHO.
PB has been saying for almost 2 weeks now that the PP was closed and the hold up was just due to "legal paperwork".
So Carib is probably right to say Pete was either lying or misinformed (probably the latter).
Or, Century REALLY needs to get some new lawyers cause these ones clearly suck.
I was told by Peter PP would close mid-Dec which probably means next week. So while this is annoying, it's not really too big a deal in the long run guys.
RE
It's not the fact the PP will close mid-December that bothers me, it's that he changed his tune from when I had spoken with him 2 weeks ago and said it would close last week.
Update from PB today.
PP is basically closed they have the money just waiting for Hayward to finish off.
Production roughly 55% lamaque flats 45% BD right now. Grade roughly
2.5-3 for LF and 4-5.5 BD.
Plan is for 760,000 tons for 2011
@ a consertive 3.6 grade. 18,000tpd avg H1 and 22,000 tpd H2.
Long hole blasting has begun.
North all coming on in January, initially @ 100tpd.
Cheers
Some quick math for Q3 using the low end of those grade projections (2.5 g/t for LF; 4 g/t for BD):
Assuming they averaged 1000 tpd for Q3:
1000 tpd x 3.4 g/t x 3 months x 96% recovery = 300,288 g / 31 = 9,686 ounces for Q3.
At an 1100 tpd avg the total ounces rises to 10,665oz.
If they can meet those 2011 projections that works out to approx. 84,000 oz. Conservative grade estiamtes indeed though.
Hi Roxy14,
Thanks for the update.
You probably meant to say 1,800 tpd avg in H1 (as oppose to 18,000 tpd) and 2,200 tpd avg in H2.
Using the 760,000 ore tonnage you quoted for 2011 (assuming 360 productive days and 5 days of downtime), and 95% recovery and the 3.6 g/t, the math works to around 83,500 ounces.
Great update! Nice to see BD grade coming in so high and already 45% of production. I've noticed the market makers have been blatantly trying to hold this down and painting the tape down the last week. Usually that precedes a major burst up. I think it's very likely we stumble along until around Dec 15th or so then close out the year strong from Dec 15th to January after news release update and PP closing. Also, any remaining tax-loss selling should be out of the way soon as well.
Whoops your right P05 though nice to dream eh.
Yep they are targeting around 83/84
thousand ozs. perhaps more if things go right for once.
Year end 2010 should come in around 18,000 ozs and San Jaun had
record production in October.
One last thing. Peter told me to tell the "boys" to expect an update
between Dec 15 - 24th so don't get
all worked up if it doesn't come on the 15th.
Roxy,
Thanks for the clarification. . . yes, irritating having to wait but all these minor delays the street will forgive when we achieve our production goals.
As an example as to what we can expect once things get going, Arian Silver set a "start of production" date for contract mining and were over 6 months late to hitting it with excuse after excuse and delay after a delay. They finally got it going and have more than quadrupled in price in the few months since. Everything forgiven.
RE
Roxy,
Thanks for the update. Did PB mention anything about tpd averages?
Thanks.
It is very clear to me our mine development works are on track n getting better by the days. I thk Mr KH, being the 'reluctant' interim CEO, has done a fine job with the assiatance of management etc. Having gone tro so much trouble developing this Lamaque mine, I am sure the experience gained by the whole team is invaluable n should bode well for Lamaque going forward and will be of great help when it is time to shift attention to the development of San Juan.
No Bullionbull but he did say that
yesterday they pulled 550tons from
Bedard alone and whats really excites me is they've begun long
hole stoping.
Roxy you're absolutely right that the long-hole stoping commencing is definitely the most exciting news. That's a huge milestone accomplished in the ongoing development.
Very nice to see a day of 550 tpd coming out of Bedard alone as well. This is a very crude calculation, but if you put in the earlier statement about production being 45% BD and 55% Flats, that averages to almost 1250 tpd.
roxy, thanks for sharing the details of your conversation with PB. It is efforts like yours and others that makes the blog what it is - a place to share opinions and information for the benefit of your fellow shareholders.
I really don't know what to make of the new numbers that PB is throwing out. 760,000 tonnes for 2011? Based on 360 operating days, that's over 2,100 tpd on average for 2011. Where are we now? 1,000, 1,200? It was only 3 weeks ago in an official news release that we were told that "The Company anticipates reaching 1,500 TPD by the first quarter of 2011 and reaching a steady state production rate in excess of 2,100 TPD by the fourth quarter of 2011." Now PB is saying we will average over 2,100 in 2011. What changed in 3 weeks? To average 2,100, we are going to have to peak at a much higher number than 2,100 tpd in 2011.
I'd much rather the company under-promise and over-deliver for just once rather than raise expectations again that they might not meet.
Hi Roxy14,
You wrote: ``whats really excites me is they've begun long hole stoping``
If I may, I will try to interpret and expand on why you are espeically excited about this particular development.
Century is not allowed to perform long-hole stoping on the property prior to being granted the long-hole stope mining permit by the government. This is not a simple permit to get, as it requires extensive 3rd party geotechnical tests and evaluations.
If Century has now truly began long-hole mining at the Bedard Dyke then it would imply the following:
1) Century has been granted the long-hole mining permit.
2) Century has reached the mineralized Bedard Dyke targeted long-hole zone and have completed sufficient crosscuts to initiate long-hole mining. The long-hole method of mining these types of mineralized structures is typically very cost effective. Hopefully it will represent a somewhat reasonable counter balance to Room and Pillar mining in the low grade Lamaque Flats.
3) North Wall is now permitted for long-hole mining also (the long-hole permit authorizes long-hole mining on both the BD and NW locations - an additional permit is not required).
Prod05
'if Century has now truly begun long-hole mining at the Bedard Dyke..' You give me the impression you are not entirely comfortable with the claim that Century has indeed truly begun long-hole mining at BD. Am I right? Further, what confirmation(s) do we need to establish the exact status/claims of this important development? Wish to have your views.
From what I am hearing, they got a verbal approval only to begin the long hole stoping at the BD. They do not have the actual permit in hand. They are going ahead with the LHS at BD based on this verbal approval. I actually have some pictures from the BD after they blasted. If anyone is interested in seeing these, send me a PM thru Stockhouse or Agoracom with your email and I will send them to you.
Hi Wingfong,
I think it`s just a situation where my wording did not come across quite right. I apologize for that. I am always comfortable with info that Roxy14 provides.
Sometimes I prefer to use the word ``if`` until the company announces the development via an official NR. Sometimes terms can have different meanings (or get lost in translation) and can be open to different interpretations (long-hole stope mining is somewhat black or white in terms of what it allows the company to do, especially from a government standpoint, but you never know for sure if there are any loopholes, hence the use of the word ``if``).
It would be good if the company issues a separate NR to the market once they do have the permit in hand (if it comes before the mid-late December update NR), as it would represent an important (and positive) development.
Production05 your right they do not
have the permit yet but Peter said
they were told they are allowed to
mine the entire complex up to 1200
ft for now
Prod05
Get your points with tks yet there is no need to apologise for anything really. Will take it they have verbal OK to do long hole at BD for now. It would be nice if Co may issue a NR to establish/clearify this matter
Cheers
Thanks again R14.
My guess is the 1,200 ft limitation might have something to do with water levels. I recall the high point being around 1,200 ft. That`s alright though as many of our current 43-101 ounces are located within 1,000 ft of the surface. The company has stated that we will be mining these near surface ounces for at least the next 5 years (using only the 3 declines). They said there is no need for deep production and refurbishment of the shafts until beyond 5 years.
Though, I imagine, with huge cash flows in a couple of years, they will likely refurbish one of the shafts early in order to launch a deep drill exploration program within the mine. There are plenty of deep ounces waiting to be discovered within the mine, especially from 3500 ft to 6000 ft on the Lamaque half (including bulk mining ounces in the Lamaque Main plug - same plug where Teck Cominco had huge success - the plug is still open (there is a belief that the deep Lamaque Main Plug, combined with the deep West Plug, could still host 2 million ounces alone)). The Lamaque mineralized system at Lamaque is a mesothermal system. As such, the grades should go higher with depth.
In terms of mid-term, as Mr. McNutt mentioned on the last conf. call, they may consider dewatering the mine down just a little bit in order to provide access to additional (easily reachable) ounces. In terms of mid-term, I can probably see them dewatering from maybe 1200 ft to about 2000 ft. The Lamaque no. 2 ramps appears to go down to about 2000 ft. It would be a nice match and a low hanging fruit (and no need to involve any shafts).
It sounds like the dewatering permit can be available as early as 120 days (4 months) after the long-hole (a.k.a. Sigma 2000 Permit), but only if they have chosen to do the work towards this of course. I think it`s a nice to have, as oppose to being a priority.
Anyway, specifics for the dewatering permit can be found in the Deustche Bank agreement on SEDAR (Jan. 14`10). Here are the details (for anyone interested in such info):
``Underground Dewatering CofA authorizing underground pumping of up to 3,000 gallons per minute for downstream discharge.
• Allows underground pumping of up to 3,000 gallons per minute for downstream discharge.
• Environmental dewatering impact study required - 98 days- Proposal received
• Dewatering technical engineering - 42 days
• Decantation basin design - 28 days
• Assuming above items are completed while the Sigma 2000 Permit is being reviewed and issued by the Ministry, expected permit issuance would be 120 days after Sigma 2000 permit issuance.
• Construction of Decantation basin - 60 days.``
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