offshore mining precedence for manganese?, page-10

Aussie Norm,

I respect the fact that you lived on Groote but it doesnt make you an expert on all things of minning in the area.

1.Mining the ocean areas would be totally uneconomic.

This is just plain incorrect and shows a lack of research. The resource can be dredged for a profit or a sea wall can be used as on Cocatoo Is for IO.

2.This is prime Tiger Prawn breeding/trawl ground.The inshore shallow water (15m) are fully protected " sea grass" areas,fish turtle and prawn juvinile growth habitate.This can be checked with N.T.Fisheries or NPF through ADFA in Canberra.

There are enviromentally sensitive areas on GEMCO current leases and they have been able to mine since the 1960's.
Look at the map in this PDF etc.

www.nt.gov.au/nreta/environment/.../pdf/26_grooteeylandt.pdf

It is an enviromentally sensitive area but we live in a Pro minning country and if there is that much resource value in the coastal area then there will be a way to mine it in an enviromental way. Besides GOT have such a large area and with a barge operation they would be able to rotate areas being dredged to reduce enviromental impact.

A very important point is the islands that GOT have in their licence area that should hold significant Mn. Its not all coastal.


3.These areas are also now classified as Traditional Fishing Grounds by the local indigious people ...check the "Blue Mud Bay" land/sea ruling.

Im sure as with GEMCO minning this can be overcome. Once again they have such a large land area that small areas may be effected at any one time.

4.Thus the environmental problems would be overwhelming.

The enviromental problems are far from overwelming for reasons mentioned above and we have Associate Professor Peter Waterman RFD
Principal Environmental Advisor. He is no slouch, check GOT website for his credentials.

5.There is no inferstructure.......EVERTHING is owned by BHP, everything is bought in
from Darwin by barge 700kls away. BHP will not give you as much as a drink of water let alone share there infostructure.

Well we dont have to build a railway now do we! GOT have two Islands, Whichelseea IS could be used with approval as a base etc similar to GEMCO on Groote.

6.If the aboriginal population could get rid of BHP they probably would.THey do not spend the the "royalty" cash they now get ,they keep the capital and only distribute the interest each year in July.The capital has been building sence the 1950s.Capital now estimated at$ 100s of millions.

Spoke to the company and there dealings with the local aborigines to date have been postive. There is definately work to do here but you cant just rite the project off on a feeling that the local aborigines would get rid of BHP if they could.


"ARM is light years ahead of GOT as an invetment and the possability of the project getting off the ground.I could go on and on re sacret sites etc."

I think that the market disagrees with this comment.

I hold GOT but as I stated in a post this morning on ARM, previous to your post on GOT/ARM, that I think both projects are good, and hope they both do well.

Perhaps some of the negative sentament towards GOT from some ARM holders is born out of the markets increased interest in GOT possibly at ARM's expense but dont stress that may change once ARM starts drilling.

Good luck to all, we are all in this game for the same reason.

Cheers

Retrac