Good summary as usual , Neville .Igr's position is both enviable...

Good summary as usual , Neville .
Igr's position is both enviable and uneviable .
Enviable --where grade is king , it has a high grade open pit long life resource , with a ton of ground and a geological team par excellence , and the more it finds , the better it looks .
Unenviable --as it soon needs to push the button on development decisions and raise capital and either "go it alone", or toll treat .

However, by its own exploration success , its become a marked target in the Eastern Goldfields , already oversupplied with Gold plants and undersupplied with quality resource supply .

AVO set the time clock ticking with its initial bid for DIO , and one hopes that the counterbid by RMS now pre-occupies DIO/AVO/RMS long enough to enable IGR to further , and rapidly , expand its resource.
But what was a marathon , has now turned into a very competitive end run home.
Whilst it can be certain that CC WILL get the best result for shareholders that he can get whichever way this pans out , it will be a crying shame if the key to unlocking the total "camp" of gold deposits on IGR'S ground that CC is looking for , is not found by the existing Board / Management/shareholders .
Long term and faithful shareholders will rightfully feel "cheated" if that was to occur --but thats exploration companies.
Looks also to me , that this ultimate "end game" is akin to the whitebait/ snapper/shark analogy.
Circling RMS/DIO/ AVO/IGR , maybe SLR and others will be the likes of Northgate Minerals who might just wait until the mini rationalisation is done before chomping the lot .
The latest Northgate presentation is worth a look at
http://www.northgateminerals.com/InvestorInfo/Presentations/default.aspx
If nothing else , if their turnaround of Fosterville and Stawell ( ex Victorian based listed ASX gold companies)is as good as presented , they would have not looked at DIO and surrounding Eastern Goldfields players without good reason . I suspect they will surface again , as this good bull market expands , as you have outlined , into 2010.
We need a little luck , a little time and the continued good management and guile of CC to all aline to get the full bang for our buck in IGR .
C'mon Chris -just keep drilling the crap out and around Salt Creek!
Cheers