It sounds like Newcrest are having bad ground problems in the...

It sounds like Newcrest are having bad ground problems in the Havieron decline, at its present depth. The are declining down through the thick Permian glacial cover.

Ground problems mean two things: 1. cost blowouts (unanticipated costs spent on rock bolts, shotcrete, mesh and other ground support), and 2. development delays (installing all these between successive rounds of drill-and-blast slows things down terribly and must be seriously impacting the rate of advance of the decline. Plus there is always the risk of a collapse, which then has to be recovered or diverted around. That's my experience of declining in bad ground anyway. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It's like war.

But Havieron's problems do work in our favour. How much better are we in the position of Antipa at Minyari-WACA, where there is virtually no Permian cover; what there is, is going to be removed in the pre-strip at the start of the open pit; the gold deposit will then be open-pit mined from the surface; and an eventual underground decline access will start from a stable portal that is tunneled into the solid Proterozoic basement rock of the lower pit wall, not into an overlying 400-metre thickness of Permian glacial crud.

So which deposit is more likely to be putting gold ore through the Telfer Mill first?

My guess: it would be Minyari!

So my money is on Antipa!