Ann: Diggers & Dealers Presentation 2023, page-4

African discount

Over in Burkina Faso, West Africa, West African Resources (ASX:WAF) are planning to do the same, boosting production around twice over to 400,000ozpa with the construction of its Kiaka gold mine down the road from its Sanbrado asset.

Despite the fact it spat out $80 million of free cash in the last quarter, Australian miners without operating experience there continue to be gunshy about moving into the region.

Evolution’s Klein for his part said Africa’s rule of law risks and influence and competition from China made it unappealing.

Hyde, however, said WAF was remarkably undervalued, noting few operations in WA had succeeded to the extent of its Sanbrado mine.

“There’s a bunch of investors who associate, I guess, investment risk with jurisdiction risk, where it really should be project risk,” he said.

“If you can’t get the cash flow of the project first, then it doesn’t really matter where you invest.

“And history will show you that in Western Australia, probably six or seven of the last 10 developments have failed, at least once. Some of them multiple times.”

As for gold in general, Hyde says it continues to shine against competition from crypto and battery metals.

“At the peak of the market, the crypto market, it was worth like nearly half of all the gold ever mined in the world, which fits into two Olympic-sized swimming pools, just crazy sort of stats like that,” he said.DYOR please.