further expansion, page-4

hi stumpy and reiner,

hmmm, bit hard to comment here - but.

Stumpy this can only be imo - I honestly don't have any information from inside the company - so it is more or less guesswork.

I think you are on the right track - but I suspect you might be on the wrong tram.

I certainly hope you are wrong with anything to do with JV's -- imo unless a JV is a pretty simple thing - say a solid company doing an earn in with a very small company or individual - then imo JV can be a worse nightmare than going on a prepaid holiday to a small resort and finding your ex. there with you ex best mate. :)

Seriously, I don't like them at all.

I said back about 6 or 9 months that by the end of this cal. year we would have piles of dirt all over the goldfields - and that looks like being true.
We have opened up so much and look able to open up loads more if we want to.

The key will be processing - end of story imo.

I suspect you are correct in Barnicoat - I don't know what that will do for Laverton as I don't know how the deal with the existing production will continue to go. Also we were/are led to believe that we would not be able to process cheaper even if we did it ourselves - so I have no idea how that will effect the costs.

That said - if we upgrade Barnicoat - will that mean that we can process the dirt that is problematic for Barrick? - if so, then I think there is 60k oz sitting there for the taking. Was talking to one of the boys the other day and in conversation there was talk about that dirt and whether or not Barrick not 'couldn't do it' but moreso 'wouldn't do it' because of policy. Don't know, just what was talked about.
Of course I am going on the assumption now that Barnicoat will stay in situ - seems likely now to me.

As to boosting the southern production ------????????? don't know. But to get to 500 there either has to be an ace up the sleeve for that or a completely new something that we haven't heard anything about.

Personally I think there has to be a plan - we have opened up so much at Coolgardie and we have so much we can open up - a blind man on a galloper can see that we are going to need more processing rapidly. Now I would be almost certain that we wouldn't build a new mill - so that comes down to either processing through someone elses mill or getting another one going. An upgrade to 3 mile would be good - but not for the sort of numbers we are now talking.

Also another mill would derisk a fair bit, so that would be good.

As to using/taking shk's ground - I don't know at all - but I do know this - no one is doing cartwheels over the quality of the ground - that suggests to me that if there is a deal and it involved the tenements - then it would just be, we are stuck with it sort of thing - I might be wrong, but I can't see that bit - unless it is just part of the deal.

Like I said before imo - right track but wrong tram - I hope.

have a great arvo

Pinto