$8 billion to lend, page-6

I am NOT saying that IGR will not be able to raise loans and prosper. IGR say that they hope to be a producer by June 2010 - this is highly ambitous (and I feel over ambitous). In the case of ALD they had a BFS in early 2005 and only got around to formally getting the finance in place in April 05. It then took them until Feb 06 to get the money (about $80m) in place (via capital raisings and debt). The contract for work was March 06 and then it took until December 07 to build the plant (albeit in PNG) - like IGR some of the plant was reconditioned. The first gold pour was February 08 and it took at least 6 months for the plant to get up to name plate capacity (i.e 84 k ozs per year). It should be faster for IGR since they already have the plant and mining village. If the BFS is completed by June 09 (as they say) then to me they are unlikely to get finance until at least the end of 09. Even with a fair wind it will probably take them 12 months to recondition and erect the mill at Salt creek. They will also need to establish water, generating capacity, disposal of waste/tailings, remove overburden, rebuild the village, establish roads, purchase transport/ore delivery and many other things (i.e recruit work force/place mining contracts etc). On ALD's experience it will then take 3 months to commission the plant to the first gold pour (back to about March 2011) and then (based upon ALD's experience again) it may take them until October 2011 to get up to name plate capacity. I hope they can do it quicker but to me June 2010 looks very optimistic. In ALD's case they were in a romote location and as such Randells should be a whole lot easier to install equipment. I would be happer if they were using some of the money they have now to recondition the celebration mill, install the village and make roads so as to save elapsed time. One imponderable is that they have not (as far as I know) establish where they are going to get their water from. They also need to make sure (by at least the middle of this year) that they have the necessary approvals (production licences, native title, Environmental, safely etc) in place to start installing the mill on site (and also probably the roads).