Hi all, Simon gave a presentation at the EGM on 21 September...

Hi all,

Simon gave a presentation at the EGM on 21 September 2016 about “Southern Gold in South Korea”. It can be downloaded from the SAU website.
Simon and his team had been in South Korea 10 days earlier, so what he was reporting was fresh in his mind. His style was not excitable, laid back in fact, and just seemed to tell it as it is. Other people in the room were more excitable.
Simon made the point that South Korea is largely geologically unexplored and has not had a lot of surveying done with modern methods and is largely untouched by major mining companies. The reason for the lack of major company interest is that it is very difficult to get mining leases in South Korea, and SAU is very lucky to have as many as it has.
SAU has 17 project areas, but the presentation only focussed on 6 of them. Even so on slide 5 it shows the Foreign Estimates to be 500,000oz to 1.5Moz of gold. (When I did my calculations on the 500,000oz it indicated to me that this looked like at least 16 times current MC of SAU). I made a comment that to the meeting that this was worth many times the current size of the company, Greg Boulton agreed and Simon indicated that he thought this was conservative, and that he was only basing it on 6 of the 17 project areas.
***ong seemed to be the biggest mine, and it had not been mined using modern techniques.
In one of the mines (I think Weolyu South) Simon mentioned that the historical mining that had been undertaken, did not seem to be the sort of mining that a geologist would have planned/managed, and there was still lots there to be exploited.
Simon and the team seemed to be excited about Hampyeong. They were familiar with the rock formations at the surface, being similar to others encountered elsewhere eg Ballarat. These rock formations are low in gold, but seem to indicate good results would be obtained by drilling to 80 – 100 metres.
Other takeaways from the presentation include:
The KORES sponsored drilling is funded by the government to 70% of the cost, however because it is government, the results of the drilling will be slow in coming out for release. Simon said in an aside, that he would rather take the 70% funding even if it meant slower results.
Simon mentioned that South Korea has a large manufacturing base, and as a consequence it should be easy to source drilling rigs and mining plant…they make them for export.
Simon said you could just about set your watch by the sabre rattling of North Korea. It usually happens in March and September when the Americans and South Korea hold military exercises, and North Korea feels obliged to respond.
Simon expects that because of the higher grades of ore, the refining plants will be smaller, cheaper and more efficient. He expects the cost of recovering the gold will be around the $US900 mark. All the mines are close to sealed roads and electricity.
Overall it seems SAU has very good potential to become really really big and we are in for exciting times.
The only negative I picked up was in response to a question, when Simon seemed to indicate the possibility of future capital raisings even after the Canon monies are taken into account.
I hope my recollections are accurate and they help people.
Good luck to us all