and i thought 32 was good buying, page-14

candlecnd,

Thanks for the detailed reply - appreciated. Rational counter/negative viewpoints are useful to form balanced opinions.

My 2 pestos for what they are worth is that as with a lot of industries the medium-sized players are the ones that get squeezed the most. A business either needs scale & volume, e.g. NCM, or be niche/boutique and high-margin i.e. high-grade, low cost.

It's interesting to note that nearly 25% of NCM production comes from a high-grade/low tonnage operation at Gosowong and look at the on-going issues keeping the Telfer ship moving!

I think you are right that a significant amount of consolidation is required - at both ends of the size scale. "Peak Gold" has been passed, reserves are not replacing production, perhaps as with the oil producers/explorers where acquisitions are starting to occur, this will start within the gold sector - it's been mooted for sometime now!

I was only idly and wildly speculating to myself this morning that a JV/merger between say BDG and HEG to share their experience/potential, allowing some geographic diversification would be interesting. They might then be a good candidate to be another 'Gosowong' for a big, high volume operator to add diversity to their operation. Maybe the caffeine hadn't kicked in and I was just wishful thinking ;-)

But, obviously NGF have made their move for BMM to spread their operational risk.

Perhaps, the market is shaking out the weak holders - sound explorers with good grades and tonnage such as IGR are being put to the sword at the moment. I feel a bit like a rabbit in the headlights myself at the moment!