Relatively new holder in GBZ & fitted price range (cheap) for my dabble in gold. Missed some of the high end & mid market cap action but will hopefully get some small cap speccie action here as they are always last to benefit from market gains.
Have been going back through a lot of old posts on HC, reading annual reports & ASX announcements trying to become a little more informed about prospects of the company.
As stated entry was for the gold prospects after gains in gold price over this year.
However it seems GBZ has just as much or more interest in Copper which is unfortunate considering the downward trend in copper price over several years which made it hard to draw interest & funds required for exploration.
However copper has been consolidating lately & may be looking at finally turning around the downward trend. Not going to be an overnight thing but GBZ could be setting up if it does.
Why do i think this?
1. As stated in the last quarterly report.
Pan Pacific Copper/ Mitsui Farm-in Projects
The final year of the six year Farm-in Agreement with multinational companies Pan Pacific Copper
and Mitsui Corporation was completed during the March Quarter. Partners Pan Pacific Copper
have indicated that they wish to proceed to a formal joint venture to further progress the
exploration and development of the tenement areas, Mitsui have elected not to continue and will
withdraw from the project. PPC have indicated they wish GBM to continue as project managers
and a letter confirming agreement to extend the Stage 1 Farm In until arrangements are made for
the joint venture was signed by PPC and GBM during April.
Planning and budgets for the coming field season are currently under review and will be finalised in the June quarter.
So we have 6 years of exploration under the belt from a major player in Pan Pacific Copper & at completion they have decided to extend the stage 1 farm in until arrangements are made for joint venture. All this while copper has been heading downhill.
Sure Mitsui pulled out & maybe for good reason 6 years in still no rebound in price. Fair enough.
2. Moonmera project recently announed & extract below.
Australian resources company GBM Resources Limited (ASX: GBZ) (“GBM” or
“the Company”), is pleased to announce it has acquired from Rio Tinto
Exploration Pty Ltd (“Rio”) the Moonmera Cu-Mo porphyry project, located less
than 10 km from the Mount Morgan mine in Central Queensland, Australia.
The Moonmera Project is one of the largest known mineralised porphyry copper
systems in eastern Australia.
This prospect has not mentioned gold but will become part of the greater Mt Morgan Copper Gold project?
3. Lastly an extract from the annual report from 2015 Washington H Soul Pattison ASX (SOL) who recently completed mining operations for considerable loss because of copper prices in Cloncurry area & own both Copper Chem & Exco mentioned below.
CopperChem and Exco are copper and gold exploration companies which have plant that is capable of producing copper
sulphate, copper concentrate, and gold bullion.
The completion of the Mt Colin open-cut mine during the year realised production of 359,538 tonnes of ore at 2.59% copper,
producing 9,303 tonnes of copper in feed which was 13% above forecast.
The copper price received by CopperChem fell from US$7,104 per tonne in July 2014 to US$5,456 per tonne in July 2015,
a decrease of 23.2%. In response, the copper sulphate production from the solvent extraction (SX) and crystal plants at the
Cloncurry Operations has been wound down in preparation for being placed on care and maintenance.
The Cloncurry Operations’ copper concentrator remained on care-and-maintenance for the year. Both the copper concentrator
and SX/crystal plants remain valuable assets for processing copper ores in the Cloncurry region. CopperChem will review the
options of re-starting both facilities, including the option of moving them to one of its project areas, as additional copper
resources become available and subject to the prevailing copper price.
Exploration activity is set to ramp up with the drilling of a number of prospective targets in the Cloncurry region
Now how convenient is that a fully functional means of processing ready in the event of of an explorer having good data when & if prices turn around.
As stated in it for the gold but will take an early entry for copper if it turns
As always DYOR.
GBZ Price at posting:
1.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)