People who reach the position of CEO after financial/investment...

People who reach the position of CEO after financial/investment careers, generally have good communication skills - and this includes the art of selling their portfolios. Dave certainly has good communication skills, and portrays the confidence that investors like.I remain fairly confident in him, but not as confident as earlier in the project.

In Oct 10th, with Q3 results, Dave is quoted
“Positively, the underlying ramp-up performance is highly encouraging including the process plant that has operated at above nameplate capacity with exceptional recoveries. The grade control-modelled grade also continues to reconcile well with the resource model and additional initiatives are being implemented to ensure this grade is reflected in the mill, paving the way for a strong December quarter”
On Oct 31 Investor Presentation, we learned that there are numbers of issues - water, grade control, blast control, etc.

The Oct 31st presentation that stressed that grade control drilling reconciled very well - versus the simultaneous 13% reduction in resource tonnage compared to the model appears to me to be a level of spin, or finely crafting your language - call it semantics if you will. This combined with discussion around better blast management now leads me to question the current 8 year mine life.

These issues could be readily rectified - it is highly probable that the ground around Klondyke at Warrawoona will yield substantial additional mine life, in addition to the probability that there will be more around Bluespec.

I understand the logic of additional high grade ore from Bluespec, in order to optimize output from given input tonnages - but it seems to me that developing this resource immediately adds additional risks (developing another mine site, grade control, transport, new circuits in Warrawoona).

I would be positively inclined towards seeing stable operations to nameplate, with the addition of Warrawoona regional open cut mine life to over ten years, before embarking on Bluespec. I realise that this is conservative, and would not deliver the outperformance that would come from successful delivery of Bluespec next year. It would, however, allow some performance based stability to develop, and market confidence to be rebuilt before adding to the risk profile immediately after stumbles on the first stage of production.

Looking forward to tomorrow's update - which I will watch more critically than I have on previous occasions.