Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[basserdan]

*** Gold related post (BGO) ***

Hi ml,
Fyi,

Date : October 21, 2003

Kupol Gold Project In Chukotka Is Key To The Future Of Bema Gold.


Bema Gold, a mid-tier gold producer in Canada came quietly onto AIM a couple of weeks ago. Quietly, apart from a shindig at Claridges to announce that the secondary listing had been achieved by way of introduction. No money was raised as it is well funded, but this has meant that the amount of information available to UK investors was limited. It also meant that liquidity in London was comparatively small, though the company trades huge amounts of shares daily in Toronto. The object of the listing was not money, but to raise the profile of Bema among European investors according to Clive Johnson, Bema’s chief executive.

As a first step Tim Hoare, the redoubtable boss of its London brokers Canaccord , suggested to Mr Johnson that a presentation be given at the next Minesite Mining Forum in November. An invitation had, in fact, been sent to him a couple of weeks earlier, but no answer had been received. He seemed in favour and at his suggestion another letter was sent, but with the same result. In the meantime Minews had, on advice, adopted a fall-back position in case Mr Johnson could not make it. Contact had been made with Bema’s man, or rather men, in London, so that if necessary one of them should step into the breach. Bema, after all, is establishing an office in South Kensington from which its UK/European PR/IR campaign can be operated.

Memories went back to when Henry Clive did a similar job for John Jones of Troy Resources at the 11th Minesite Mining Forum in June. Henry used to be a stockbroker and it is to his credit that Troy now has over 30 per cent of its equity in UK hands without bothering with an AIM listing. Whisper it quietly, lest it get to Australia, but he did a job as good as, if not better , than his boss. Unfortunately things did not go so smoothly with Bema. Mr Johnson, according to his London team, has to attend to family matters in November so cannot make the next Forum. He does not want either of his two representatives to take his place , so the next time it may be possible for him to appear is February.

Mr Johnson is a good promoter. No doubt about that, and a string of fundings has been completed to prove it. At Claridges he managed to give a very upbeat talk without once mentioning the Petrex acquisition in South Africa which cost his company C$67 million about a year ago. For this it purchased the Golden Reefs mines on the Witwatersrand as well as eight production shafts and a mill which produced 146,000 ounces of gold in the year to end June 2002 at a cash cost of US$194/ounce according to Canadian stockbrokers Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon. Based on an independently audited 10 year mine plan, the mine is projected to produce an average of 185,000 ounces of gold per year with operating cash costs estimated at approximately US$185 per ounce. With some expansion here and there, plus mining slightly higher grade material , it is now expected to be producing at a rate of 200,000 ounces/annum by the end of this year.

Then was then and now is now and there seems little doubt that the strength of the rand in the intervening period has injected a bit of pain into the proceedings, currency put options notwithstanding.. Nevertheless the additional production means that Bema has been able to forecast 300,000 ozs for next year from South Africa and the Julietta gold mine in Russia at an average price of US$200/oz. In addition to this there is the Refugio mine in Chile which is jointly owned with Kinross. This may be restarted towards the end of 2004 and it would add a further 115,000 ounces to Bema’s annual production, but at a high cost. The same goes for the Cerro Casale deposit in Chile where Bema has a 24 per cent interest. If Placer Dome decides to go ahead with it, more high cost ounces will be added to Bema’s production portfolio.

This is the crux of the matter. Bema has to decide if it wants to be a high cost, or a low cost producer which is where the Kupol gold project comes into play. A 75 per cent interest was acquired shortly after the South African deal and it is up in Chukotka near Julietta. Kupol hosts a large epithermal gold and silver vein system that is up to 30 metres wide with significant values over a true width of up to 15 metres and Canaccord believes that it has all the earmarks of a world class deposit. The latest drilling results confirmed the continuing high grade gold mineralization over 3.1 kilometres of drilled strike length and to a depth of at least 300 metres. Grades as high as 35.56 g/t gold and 865.51 g/t silver over 9.6 metres were encountered.

Opinion is hardening that this may be a 10 million ounce deposit. More will be known in January when an initial resource estimate is published. It would then be possible to move to pre-feasibility in short order and on to a bankable feasibility study within 12 months. Obviously it will be a low cost open pit operation and Clive Johnson has said that that it could be in production by 2007 at a rate of between 700,000 and 1 million ozs of gold a year. This would mean mining around 900,000 tonnes/annum of the high grade ore in the North Zone and Big Bend regions and the capital cost of developing the mine would be around US$200 million. The amazing thing is that net of silver credits the gold would be produced at a cost of virtually zero. It is difficult to find a simpler and better story than that, so more is the pity that Mr Johnson chose not to let his London team explain it to the Minesite audience. It would have also given them a chance to introduce themselves.

http://www.minesite.com/archives/news_archive/2003/oct-2003/bema211003.htm