Oh God, The Humanity, The Carnage; The Clive and his Bema2Gold

What a fall. Remember when everyone thought that the Clive and crew were immortal, that they could create shareholder value even at $12/oz gold. That they could keep on taking out loans to buy out projects and everything would be peachy, that they could release almost 1 billion shares (yes...that's what I said 1 fucking billion shares) and everything would be nice and rosy. That everyone would join hands and dance around in a circle.

I suppose if you bought at 25 cents you are still happy, but still. The market has left even our greatest, most infallible heroes sunken and trodden upon. And yes, the Clive was a hero of mine. But how the great have fallen. Market sucks, gold price sucks..yes, we all know, but BTO did weather the storm quite well for a while. I think people are getting cold feet by the amount of paper being printed for projects who PEAs have been a bit underwhelming in the past (*cough* Gramalot *cough*)

There is no reason or point to this post, and I recognize that...I just...don't know what to say. Only saving grace is that I don't own any BTO.

B2Gold Announces their "Positive" PEA for their Colombia Project

Well, a positive PEA for a project named Gram-A-Lot(e)...yea...who are you kidding.

 -- Open pit gold mine with an initial life of mine ("LOM") of 14 years based 
      on Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources. 
 
   -- Average annual gold production LOM of 317,500 ounces at US$664 direct 
      cash cost per ounce. 
 
   -- Average annual gold production of 373,300 ounces per year for the first 5 
      years of production. 
 
   -- LOM gold production of 4.445 million ounces. 
 
   -- Average LOM total operating costs (including sustaining capital) of $736 
      per ounce of gold 
 
   -- Annual processing rate of 16 million tonnes per year. 
 
   -- Average LOM gold recovery of 95% from conventional milling, flotation and 
      cyanide leach of the flotation concentrate. 
 
   -- Estimated pre-production capital cost of $1,176 million. 
 
   -- LOM pre-tax net cash flow of $1,521 million, and after tax net cash flow 
      of $990 million at a gold price of $1,351 per ounce. 
 
   -- Net present value ("NPV") pre-tax of $714 million and after-tax of $398 
      million at a 5.06% discount rate and gold price of $1,351 per ounce 
      generating an after-tax internal rate of return ("IRR") of 11.5%. 
 
   -- Project payback of 4.8 years. 

yea....

Kinda low grade and a very low pay back rate but whatever, they have other good projects, and I mean, really, they are only into at 49% anyways....

Stock is up on the day though.


Update: The Clive stated in his Q2 conference call that they would be ready to shelf the project if mine economics call for it. Took it as a way of saying that the results of the PEA were not as "positive" as its own title states.

Truth being told is that the payback period is very long and the grade is no where near impressive. They have other projects that are better and this isn't a 100% BTO project. We will see how it goes. Stragely enough, the market seemed to like the PEA. The stock went down following the Q2 reports...which I felt was at least a bette release from a share holders point of view than the PEA. 


To be honest, I have yet to actually look at any of the technical reports for the Gramalote project with any depth so I can't say to much.

CXB JV with BTO

Not that it was really a surprise as decision needed to be made yesterday, but Calibre has granted further opportunity for BTO to earn in on their Primavera project and surrounding borosi concessions.


Will be nice to see this thing drilled out a bit more. After those last trenching results there is a lot of anticipation from those following this story.