ann: abu hits 3000 oz target, page-24

Ever since I bought into ABU there have been doubts about many aspects of OP. Initially it was doubts about the average grades, doubts about whether using no upper cut might be appropriate. There were some big doubts about the low capex estimates in the scoping study (which have been cut much lower since). There were even some odd ones like doubts about the native title holders being on side despite Darren maintaining that they have always been behind the project. It's normal for doubts to come into investors minds when a sp is falling. Those doubts are quickly forgotten while the price is rising. For now the price has been under pressure not because of any company specific reason but simply because investors have been selling out of gold stocks generally for nearly two years now.
Time after time Darren has shown himself to be conservative, pointing out all potential risks, under promising and consistently over delivering. I can understand why there are doubts about how much gold is in circuit because it seems unusually high but then how many gravity plants are investors familiar with where the average feed grade is assayed at 19g/t with almost all of that (if not all) being free gold? There is nothing normal about this deposit so maybe we shouldn’t expect any of the usual numbers. The final numbers will reveal all and the only doubt I have right now is about being disappointed with the overall final results. As Nabaru pointed out, even if there is less than the expected amount of gold in circuit, the overall grades will still be very high. They have already passed their target of 3000oz and they have another 1000t to process. That is beyond doubt and there will be no doubt that there will be a substantial amount of gold in circuit. Take a look at the chart provided yesterday (below). There was a significant feed grade over the first 20 shifts with almost no gold at all
coming out of the plant. Almost no gold for the first 20 shifts. For those 20 shifts it is quite clear that around 90-95% of the gold was trapped in circuit. Based on that I don’t see why 33% gold in circuit is difficult to comprehend for this mine. Yesterday Darren said that they expect “to have in excess of 1000 ounces of gold in circuit which will be recovered at the end of the trial mining process.” Based on that the total gold in circuit would be 25% rather than 33% however the chart shows the expected amount of gold in circuit may be as high as 2000oz or more. Once again Darren appears to be under promising and will probably over deliver.
With 1000oz we would have a total of 4,000oz so far and with another 1000t of ore to process we should be close to 4400oz by the end of the processing. If the chart estimate is accurate then the total gold produced will be closer to 5,500oz. Even the 4400oz will be an excellent outcome.