Planet Drilling Results - Sidace Lake Project Thursday September 11, 8:30 am ET
TSX-VEN: PXI CALGARY, Sept. 11 /CNW/ - Planet Exploration Inc. (TSX-VEN: PXI) is pleased to report the latest drill results from its Sidace Lake property, located in Red Lake, Ontario. The exploration is being funded by Goldcorp Inc. (GG:NYSE - G:TSX), under an agreement where by Goldcorp Inc. can earn an initial 50% interest in the property. Diamond drilling continues to define and expand the previously intersected gold mineralization, and to test the on strike extensions indicated by geophysics.
Golden Eagle Breaks All Monthly Processing and Gold Production Records in August
Friday September 12, 1:15 pm ET
Company Developing Techniques for Targeting High-Grade Paystreaks
SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2003--Golden Eagle International Inc. (OTCBB: MYNG - News) announced today that it established new records for ore processing and gold production at its Cangalli mine during the month of August. Golden Eagle's Bolivian operation mined 107,500 tons of material during 28 days of mining, averaging 3,839 tons per day. Open pit mining began in a new area at the mouth of the El Capitan canyon. Through the use of in-pit testing in its open pit, the operation excluded colluvial and alluvial overburden that anciently had either sloughed in, or had been washed in, onto the ore from the adjacent canyon. That 26,500 tons of overburden stripped from the new open pit, which left the higher-grade ore exposed, was directly deposited to waste. A total of 81,000 tons of ore was presented to the plant for processing from open pit and underground operations during the month.
The Cangalli operation recovered 25,891 grams, or 832 troy ounces, of gold in its processing plant during the month. The average grade was .640 grams per cubic meter, or .320 grams per ton, of ore processed.
Tons of ore processed exceeded the previous highest monthly average from the fourth quarter of 2002 by 262 percent, while the number of troy ounces of gold recovered exceeded the previous high monthly average, also from the fourth quarter of 2002, by 177 percent.
"We saw our ore grades dropping off from record highs during the month in our new open pit until our in-pit testing program began to indicate that we were presenting extremely low-grade overburden to our processing plant," stated Terry C. Turner, Golden Eagle's CEO. "During this past year of operation we have gathered an incredible amount of information regarding both our open pit and underground mine ore. We intend to use what we have learned to more precisely target high-grade paystreaks through the implementation of an approach we are calling 'Targeted Planar Subsidence' or 'TPS.' These paystreaks have proven to be much richer in gold content than the surrounding material."
Since the formal paystreaks have characteristics similar to coal seams or mantles, the company's technical team began examining techniques for bulk production used in coal mining known as "long walling." Executives, including Dr. Ronald Atwood, VP for development, Giovanni Viscarra, Cangalli Mine superintendent, and Turner visited consultants at Penn State University at the end of July 2003. Those executives and consultants also visited a local Pennsylvania coal mine in which long walling was being employed to mine 9 million tons of coal per year. While the traditional long walling technique is not directly applicable to mining in Golden Eagle's conglomerate ore, during this visit company executives studied the adaptability of certain concepts to mining the Cangalli high-grade paystreaks in high volumes, while continuing block caving in other areas of the mine, as well as open pit operations.
"By targeting high-grade paystreaks that are usually 2 to 3 meters thick and processing a horizontal plane of ore, rather than taking the entire vertical sections that conal subsidence block caving currently does, we expect to eliminate a great deal of dilution from lower grade ore. We estimate that we will be able to recover the same amount of gold as we would from our projected 11,000 tpd future expansion with less ore processed, which translates into much lower costs per ounce and increased potential capacity," stated Turner.
Long walling employs a set of shields, or hydraulically raised plates, to create a ceiling in the work area. Once an area has been mined out, the shields creating the artificial ceiling are lowered and advanced to create the ceiling for the next area to be mined. The area behind the shields is allowed to cave in, or subside. By avoiding the need to maintain the mine area open that has already been worked out, Golden Eagle anticipates that the costs of operation and other operating concerns should be significantly decreased.
"Targeted Planar Subsidence ('TPS'), increased ore quality control in the open pit, and other ideas that we are developing as we learn more about mining and processing our Cangalli ore, should help us improve our gold grade per ton and make our operation more efficient and cost-effective," stated Atwood.
Golden Eagle estimates that its pilot program for Targeted Planar Subsidence will cost approximately $250,000, which it intends to partially fund over the next two months from operations at Cangalli, Bolivia, and other financing alternatives that the company is considering. Development costs of $25,000 have already been funded through current operations.
Eagle E-mail Alerts: Over 2,300 investors have signed up to receive Eagle E-mail Alerts recently. If you are interested in receiving these alerts, please e-mail the company at: eaglealert@earthlink.net.
Golden Eagle International Inc. is a gold exploration and mining company located in Salt Lake City; and La Paz and Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The company is currently focusing its efforts on developing its mining rights on 74,000 acres in the Tipuani Gold Mining District located in western Bolivia, and continuing exploration on 127,500 acres in eastern Bolivia's Precambrian Shield. Golden Eagle is a mining company with a social conscience, having provided many humanitarian programs at its mine site, including the only hospital, doctor and nurse in Cangalli for the past seven years, as well as having provided for the educational needs of the students of the area. The company highly recommends that you review its disclosures, risk statements, previous press releases, annual reports, quarterly reports and current reports found at its Web site: www.geii.com.
The United States is turning protectionist. Or at least that’s the growing risk in this tough economic climate. America is now taking dead aim on the “China problem.” Legislation has been introduced in the US Congress that threatens to impose 27.5% across-the board tariffs on Chinese exports into the US if the RMB peg is not abandoned. In my opinion, this is a classic example of opportunistic politics leading to bad economics. Such an approach would have negative impacts on the US, China, and the broader global economy. It is right out of the script of the nightmares of the 1930s.
At present, the odds of this piece of legislation (S. 1586) being enacted are low. I would currently assign no higher than a one in five chance to such a possibility. Yet those odds will undoubtedly rise as the US political cycle heats up -- especially if America remains stuck in a jobless recovery. Perceptions of job and income security have long been the defining issue in US presidential campaigns. It’s hard to believe that it will be any different this time around, especially since America’s hiring shortfall -- some 4.2 million jobs and counting, by my reckoning -- is the worst in modern experience (see my 8 September dispatch, Traction, Multipliers, and Leakages). Significantly, this Congressional assault on China is bipartisan -- sponsored by three Democrats (Senators Schumer, Durbin, and Bayh) and three Republicans (Senators Bunning, L. Graham, and Dole). That underscores the breadth of support for the China assault -- an especially worrisome sign of more protectionist efforts to come. For that reason, it is hard to dismiss the real significance of S. 1596: It is a shot across the bow of America’s commitment to globalization.
The economic case for such a move is as weak as they come. Most obvious, is that China’s currency is pegged to the dollar -- it hasn’t changed one iota since 1994. That means there have been no currency-induced shifts in relative prices that can explain the deterioration of US-China trade deficit from $30 billion in 1994 to $103 billion in 2002. As I have noted previously, this trend is an unmistakable outgrowth of the US penchant for outsourcing and China’s rapidly emerging role as America’s outsourcing platform of choice (see my 14 July dispatch, The Scapegoating of China). While total Chinese exports have tripled over the past decade -- rising from $121 billion in 1994 to $365 billion in mid-2003 (annualized), fully 65% of that increase can be traceable to Chinese subsidiaries of Western multinationals and joint venture partners. China’s increasingly critical role in the global supply chain is not something it achieved unfairly. It is a conscious outgrowth of a voluntary surge of foreign direct investment from the developed world. Last year alone, $53 billion of FDI flowed into China, making it the largest destination of such investments anywhere in the world. The high-cost industrial world needs China for its competitive survival. That’s what outsourcing is all about.
But America’s needs are even more special. Never before has the United States suffered such an acute shortfall of domestic saving. America’s net national saving rate -- the combined saving of individuals, businesses, and the government sector adjusted for depreciation -- fell to 0.7% of GNP in the first half of 2003. Yet it is a given that saving must always equal investment. That means, lacking in domestically-generated saving, the US has no choice other than to import surplus saving from abroad in order to fund investment and economic growth. And so America must run massive current-account and trade deficits to attract that capital. In other words, trade deficits -- and large ones at that -- are a given for a saving-short US economy. If the US wasn’t trading with China, it would be forced to run trade deficits with other nations. The fact that our largest trade deficit is with the world’s low-cost producer is exactly the way the theory of comparative advantage is supposed to work. Yet by importing low-cost, high-quality goods from China, Americans are getting a break in purchasing power. Shifting our trade deficits elsewhere -- precisely what would have to occur for a saving-short US economy -- would only erode that windfall of purchasing power. Tariffs on China would, in fact, raise the cost of doing business for many American companies. For Wal-Mart, which reportedly sources some $15 billion of product in China, S. 1586 would result in the functional equivalent of a $4 billion tax hike.
Ironically, by pointing the finger at China, the US Congress is avoiding its fair share of responsibility for America’s conundrum. In recent years, the biggest swing factor in the plunge in national saving has been the extraordinary deterioration in the fiscal position of government units -- at the federal, as well as at the state and local levels. The combined government sector saving rate has swung from a surplus of about 3% of GNP in 2000 to a deficit of nearly 4% in mid-2003. Moreover, courtesy of Washington’s latest act of fiscal profligacy, the government shortfall is set to widen by another 1 to 1.5 percentage points over the next 12 months. Unless there is a spontaneous and lasting revival in private sector saving -- highly unlikely, in my view -- the national-saving-current-account dynamic is set to worsen significantly further. That, in turn, points to still larger trade deficits -- undoubtedly with China. Should China be blamed for Washington’s reckless fiscal adventures?
In tough economic times, politicians always need a scapegoat. That’s what this wave of China bashing is really all about. It has little to do with economics and everything to do with the blame game. Yet this politically-inspired foray is symptomatic of a much deeper macro problem that now confronts an unbalanced world. The world’s sole growth engine is encumbered with the largest current account deficit in recorded history. Not only does that reflect the inherent pitfalls of a saving-short US economy but it also is a by-product of an utter lack of autonomous domestic demand growth elsewhere in the world. As America pulls the world economy along for the ride, it goes deeper and deeper into the quagmire of trade deficits, budget gaps, saving shortfalls, and excess debt accumulation. This is hardly a sustainable outcome for the US or for the rest of the world. It speaks of a worrisome and dangerous build-up of tensions in the global macro environment. Like steam in a teapot, ultimately these pressures need to be vented. Two options are available -- the economics of a US current-account adjustment or the politics of trade frictions and protectionism. The interplay between America’s jobless recovery and the presidential election cycle is shifting the odds from the economic to the political remedy. Right now those odds are low. But the risk is that they will rise.
In 1930, Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley jointly sponsored legislation that significantly raised the level of US tariffs. Courtesy of a recently popped equity bubble, the US economy was in recession, and a Republican administration favored the protectionist remedy as a means to provide relief for hard-pressed American workers. President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law in June 1930. Global trade retaliation quickly followed, as did a downward spiral of world trade. Many believe that was the decisive trigger for the Great Depression that was soon to follow. Such painful lessons should not be ignored in today’s post-bubble era. Yet that’s precisely the risk as politics now comes face to face with stresses and strains of globalization. Are we forever doomed to repeat the mistakes of history?
Newmont Sells Majority of its Equity Interest in Kinross Gold
Friday September 12, 5:02 pm ET
DENVER, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE & ASX: NEM; TSX: NMC) today announced that its subsidiary, Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada Limited, has agreed to sell 28 million of the 43.2 million common shares of Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX: K - News; NYSE: KGC - News) owned by it and one of its affiliates to a group of investment dealers co-led by Griffiths McBurney & Partners and RBC Dominion Securities Inc., and including National Bank Financial Inc. and Westwind Partners Inc., for resale in Canada and on a private placement basis outside of Canada. Upon completion of the transaction, Newmont will indirectly own approximately 4.9% of Kinross Gold shares.
Newmont realized pre-tax cash proceeds of approximately $218 million, after transaction costs, from the sale of its 28 million Kinross Gold common shares. Newmont will record the transaction in the third quarter of 2003.
Newmont, based in Denver, is the world's premier gold mining company and the largest gold producer with significant assets on five continents.
Bema Gold, a Canadian gold mining company, is to float on the Aim market in London within the next two weeks with an expected market value of £460m.
The group, which is already listed in Canada and the US, will be the largest mining company on Aim and the third biggest company overall on the junior stock market.
The company is not intending to raise money at the time of listing, but the move will give Bema access to London's capital markets where mining projects are well understood.
Bema has extensive gold and silver mines in Russia, Chile, Canada and South Africa and is expected to produce 270,000 ounces of gold in 2003.
Unusually for a mining company, Bema has developed three of its mines from an exploration stage all the way through to production. Most mines are developed by major mining groups which buy into projects to fund the expensive development phase after the initial exploration work has been carried out by smaller companies.
Bema is currently developing the Julietta mine in Russia which is projected to be one of the lowest cost gold mines in the world. It is estimated to have resources of around 750,000 ounces of gold, though the exact reserves have yet to be fully assessed.
Last year Bema produced 109,000 ounces of gold at an average cost of $119 per ounce.
The group is the latest in a string of gold miners to float in London on the back of renewed investor interest in the metal. Over the past year the price of gold has risen by a third to $380 an ounce.
The newly floated companies, such as Highland Gold and Peter Hambro Mining, aim to fill a gap in the market between tiny, high-risk exploration companies and the huge diversified resources groups that do not allow investors to focus on a single commodity.
Bema says it intends to take advantage of the current high gold price to finance and develop new gold deposits. Its acquisition of the Julietta mine has given it a high profile in Russia where Bema is concentrating on exploration projects in the far east of the country.
Analysts say that Bema's geographic spread and focus on gold is likely to prove attractive to investors concerned about the political risks of operating in countries such as Russia and South Africa.
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