Novagold will need 4 to 5 billion to build their alaska deposit, a monster sum. When you are talking about 400 to 500 million, if you have a good deposit, that is doable for sure....but very few companies in the world are gonna want to shell out 5 billion dollars, or have that kind of money, and right now the deposit is joint ventured with Barrack as I recall, plus it is up there in Freezing to death alaska, in the middle of nowwheres ville mountains, and very expensive to operate. I think when gold hits 2000, at which time platinum will be far higher than gold, Barrick will try to buy them out for a song. Where will novagold get 2.5 billion dollars? not a bank that is for sure.....
No project in the west remotely compares to platreef, where ivanhoe owns 65%.
Plus getting a permit in america is a disaster. At last count you needed 17 separate permits approximately to start diggin a mine in the continental u.s, which legal process takes countless years, and then they can screw you in the end. before you can put a shovel in the ground...
Another much smaller company, with a genuinely good deposit, all gold, good grades, the best by far in North America in terms of a new deposit, since gold deposits that are any good now are RARE, but it is in the Artic, btw, very strange, has worked years to get approval from the federal authorities, working closely with all the native tribes in an area that is dying for jobs, just like the rest of the U.S..The company is Sabina Gold..............A month ago they had the final hearing and were denied a permit. company sabina gold. INCREDIBLE.....THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES SAID THE NATIVE AMERICANS WERE CONCERNED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED BY THE MINE.............yep, I cannot make this stuff up.....the delay cost them at least a year, and maybe many more years. It is like the indians either made up a BS excuse, a small minority that spooked the others, or that small minority of indians really do have "a hunch" that when built in 3 years, it will destroy the ozone, with no scientific proof whatsoever that a modern, state of the art, gold mine would have any impact at all. A couple of them just had "a hunch it might," so they told the feds who immediately shut down the project.
Another company, a Moly producer, GMO, doing business in nevada went through the same thing, thinking their long awaited state permit was "in the bag" as nevada had almost nevered denied their water rights final permit (of course the tree hugers were in court on appeal contesting their already gained federal approval permit); the state engineer does a 3 day hearing, takes 80,000 pages of testimoney, and issues an approval, subject to them filing the typical mitigation plan, which is routine. Then the Nevada Supreme court reverses fifty years of caselaw and overrules the State Engineer, kicks it back to his office to have another hearing, and then that office, simply revokes the license altogether.......crushing the stock price.....That is another u.s. mine that may never ever be built, and they have tried to get their final state permit for 4 years now.
Then there is the Pebble project, another alaska gold copper project, very low grades indeed, a 5 billion dollar plus price tag for sure, a real headache to tell the truth, low grades but massive...and the Governor and a couple influential politicans who own a fishing lodge ten miles away, step in and refuse to even take the company's application seriously, and deny them almost out of hand. 8 years of work down the drain. North America is a disaster to do business in....The great news for Ivanhoe is none of these projects will ever be built in the next 5 years, if they are indeed ever built, not even STARTED to be built, making sure the precious metals and copper shortage come on like gangbusters. PS: china does more damage to the OZONE in several weeks, than the u.s. does in a entire year, probably several days...lol
Mines are currently being built and expanded all over the world, but not in america, which at one time was the primary source of mining in the entire world. NOW that jurisdiction is almost foreclosed from new development....
AI
