valuations not recommendations, page-4

I am as confused as probably anyone as to where Magma sits as far as being a real goer.

2Ic who I believe is a geologist posted what I thought was a real informative post on the potential and then I tried to get an update based on more recent drilling results.

2Ic are you listening ???



2Ic

I wonder if you wouldn't mind updating what I believe a valuable posting in the light of Magma's recent announcement (ie 3.4 km strike length).

Is it as simple as multiplying your estimate by a factor of 3?

tgwm



Had a closer look and at the risk of upsetting the faithful, my thoughts are as follows. I don't usually do this because I stand at a hiding to nothing but as PP asked nicely you got it.

Firstly we need to convert the Pt-Pd-Ni-Cu to a gold equivalent so that it is easily understood and comparable to numerous and well understood gold operations. At 50:50 Pt:Pd we are looking at a ratio of 1g/t Pt-Pd = 0.8g/t Au though it was 1:0.6 in Dec 08 but higher 12 months before that. The Ni-Cu credits are patchy from what I can see, many intersections have no/very low credits while some have 1% combined Ni-Cu. I will make a call that considering the lowish likely recoveries and low payability of the recovered Ni-Cu credits that for every 1g/t Pt-Pd that Ni-Cu credits are worth 0.2g/t Au. This means that every 1g/t Pt-Pd equates to 1g/t Au equivalent in a gold deposit of good primary rock recoveries. A round number with which to make a comparison.

What resource are we dealing with? The better grade sections look spaced between lower grade sections (? I don’t know but the best sections always go up in lights). I guess that the pipe like body has pods of higher grade ore with variable widths across section and along strike within a lower grade halo, surrounded by background sub-economic levels. Depending on the cut-off grade used to estimate the resource it will either be large and low grade, fairly continuous along strike, or small pods of higher grade accumulations. More infill drilling and variography to determine grade behaviour. What cut-off grade to use that will produce a potentially economic resource?

Open pit, hard rock gold deposits of this size and shape would not fly under 2g/t. A number of pits along strike that grade 3+g/t would be attractive given expensive digging, crushing and metal recoveries for hard rock. So at 2g/t cut-off and 3g/t average grade one could envision a number of 250m to 500m pits with good tonnage and low stripping ratios.

Underground is all about Ounces per vertical meter and ounces per horizontal meter of development. A much more difficult and expensive exercise, 4g/t Au is required to underpin an UG operation, even then it needs to be a robust and simple ore body to work with. By its poddy and variable higher grade distribution, TBN does not look all that attractive for UG mining. The higher grade zones seem to come and go along strike with no strong structural control that could be easily followed and extracted. UG mines are not good at pulling out ore from bodies that are highly variable in dimension (ore definition, mining style, ground support, association access development etc). The TBN ore bodies just don’t look like they would hang together very well at a 4g/t cut-off looking for +4g/t ore given the small tonnes per horizontal meter of development with large distances between higher grade ore blocks. I am going out on a limb and saying that TBN is not an UG proposition at current Pt-Pd prices.

So we are looking at a potentially open pitable resource with a 2g/t cutoff and say a 3g/t average ROM grade. The average dimensions that might fall into a pit for this grade seem to be around 30m wide by 40m deep average. Say they come up with 1000m of cumulative strike within a few pits, a specific gravity of 2.9, then the “recoverable resource” might be 3.5Mt at 3g/t Au equiv (3g/t Pt-Pd + Ni-Cu credits). That is 330,000 Ounces of well behaved Au equiv. That is small company stuff but could still make a dollar if they don’t have to build their own plant. Mining and processing wouldn’t be all that cheap given it’s hard rock, under a lake and transport costs high for toll treat but doable with a good strip ratio.

A cursory glance shows potential, but not certainty for a small mine and modest profitability if permits are granted. A number of years waiting to get the environmental approvals to drain the lake, if at all, capital raisings while waiting to do DFS, more exploration, capex etc. Just don’t see the TBN deposit running the share price past the $50M market cap as it stands. Feasibility risk, permitting risk, dilution and time means shares will probably stagnate as people chase better opportunities elsewhere. The downside price is supported by good cash levels and expanding resource but the Anglo 60c investment was made in a different world now long gone. Sep 08 was pre-Lehman fallout, pre-crash when some thought the falling metal prices was a short pull back in the supercycle and bargains were to be had in the June-Sep “correction”. MMB got lucky and Anglo stuffed it in hind sight, 60c was way overpriced given the fall out since.

IMHO the price has run up largely due to spec exploration potential of the VTEM target. A massive sulphide Voisey’s Bay style discovery is a game changer and the share price will rocket, a miss and it slumps back to mid 20s while the scoping study is conducted. Nothing wrong with punting but the time to buy was from high 20’s to 40c with the insiders, not at 45c+ after the announcement. The exploration upside has always been the attraction rather than what has been identified to date and nothing has really changed. Still plenty of ground to test and the resource is getting bigger all the time, if not more economic. It is also an option on long term Pt price upside the other side of the credit crunch if you believe things are turning around in a hurry.

Perhaps it’s just that to a jaded old geologist I’d rather be getting free company oppies and outrageous daily rate/salary/director fees to go looking than stumping up my hard earned. I was never lucky in exploration (or punting exploration plays for that matter) and as I was once told… you don’t want a good geologist, you want a lucky one!

Goodluck to all holders. DYOR, the above is all just speculation.