change of director required, page-19

G'day, Dewe. Well, I just think that in this speculative, high-risk/high-reward end of the market, people should 'own' their investment decisions, and not seek to unfairly scapegoat individuals who (certainly in this instance) haven't greatly influenced the unfolding of events.

Looking at GTE's suite of projects, I'd maintain the decision to focus on Kazakhstan was and, as far as can be judged still is, resoundingly the correct one given the potential prize.

Doolgunna has the makings of a terrific project. (And in fact the Company HAS been working away there, in the background. Did you notice in the last Quarterly the identification of a NW-SE "regional structural corridor", or the quiet application for new areas that jig-saw perfectly with the emerging interpretation?) But Doolgunna is a "greenfields" project that is in its infancy and short of extraordinary good luck in discovery, has a very long way - and considerable dollars - to go.

Compare it, then to Spasskaya. Perhaps a silver lining of the past month has been to have revealed, by way of TKS' 'protocol' announcement, the inventory the Kazakhs evidently believe the project to contain (forgive the clunky Google-style translation):


"...Spasskaya Copper Ore Zone is situated in the Karaganda Province; its total area is 12,584.11 sq. km. Spasskaya Copper Ore Zone consists of 10 ore clusters; within their limits there are about 150 ore occurrences and 8 deposits.

In general, total forecast resources of copper in Spasskaya Copper Ore Zone are estimated to be 1,974.8 thousand tons by C2, P1 and P2 categories, comprising Burnak Ore Cluster – 400 thousand tons, Koktas Sharyktinsky Ore Cluster – 290 thousand tons, Spasskiy – 60 thousand tons, Kyzylshoky-Koktalskiy (Piramida Gornova, Chili-Uzek) – 256.0 thousand tons, Altyntobinskiy – 290 thousand tons, Khadzhikongan-Nurkazganskiy – 353.0 thousand tons, Shaytandinskiy – 170.8 thousand tons and Koktas-Zhartasskiy – 155.0 thousand tons.

Besides, exposure of epithermal gold and silver deposit is expected; evaluation of forecast resources – 10-15 tons of gold and 100-150 tons of silver by P3 category..."



Last weekend Duke posted a discussion of present and forecast prices for copper. Anyone wondering why management took us 'sideways' to Kazakhstan, should just do the sums on the in-ground value of 1,974,800 tons of Cu!

Is 50% of Spasskaya, earned for the cost of exploration and getting it into production (costs subsequently refundable, note), a prize worth sweating over?

You betcha!!! Even massively discounted for an over-optimistic inventory - and you'd have to say that to date, at the very least, surface work has upheld the promise.


Do bureaucratic fumbles in even arguably some of the best jurisdictions in the world sometimes hold up development projects? Well, just ask Woodside. Have a look at today's unfolding brouhaha over stuff-ups on compulsory acquisitions at James Price Point up in our own Northwest.

The best we can expect of our, GTE, management is that the Company always steps up efficiently & effectively to fulfil ITS side of the JV terms. I don't think we can fault the Company to date.