@Corgi mentioned about a
$1Billion take over offer, I find it a
distinct possibility (of course not at this stage) after researching about the similar deals in the same region.
As I mentioned about Alex and Fenix Gold above, I was very curious about how did he sold La Arena to Taho in
2015 for
$1.2Bn? Keeping in mind that Alex acquired the project for just
$12Million in
2010 and rapidly advance it into a
high output mine.La Arena has 2 types of mineralization, the oxide deposit hosts low grade gold-oxide mineralisation, while the sulphide deposit contains primary and secondary copper mineralisation along with gold.
When he sold it,
La Arena I project is estimated to contain gold oxdie of
980koz grading 0.39g/t Au, currently in production.
Probable sulphide reserves at
La Arena II are estimated to be
63.1Mt grading 0.31g/t Au, containing 579 million pounds (Mlb) of copper, not yet ready to be mined.
So
Ternera can be considered as
La Arena I, lets say we have
minimum of 1.5Moz grade of 1g/t. The rest of our reserves lie in
Toro Blanco, Toro Gordo, Buzzard and Drone Hill can be consideres as
La Arena II.What else made La Arena a $1.2Billion deal?
- Open pit, low cost (sounds like TSO)
- Very easy to be mined. Using conventional drill and blast method of mining, using shovel and dump trucks. (Again, Tso style)
- Because the mining process is too easy, their production output is spectacular: 230koz for 2015 alone.
So I can understand that instead of buying a 10Moz reserve but is very far from production. Taho bought a low grade 1Moz mine with high output so they can get back their money
FAST. And ofcourse they also La Arena II to develop.
I always wonder why Zeff did not start the campaign by drilling where CDE did and try to replicate that
outstanding high grade. He must have the same vision as Alex, to fast forward the project into production (MRE this year, PFS next year) rather than keep on drilling and announcing "high grade intercepts". He failed pumpology badly but surely will deliver value to us, long term SHs.
