ERA

The reports and comments on this site are currently written by Keith Goode.

ERA’s reports mainly cover precious and base metals companies where anyone can see what the price of the product is, with the majority being gold companies, followed by nickel companies.

The reports are paid for by the company concerned and email distributed free. However, we only do them if we like the management (70%), project (20%) and country (10%) for which you need about 90% in each category.

Sites are visited in order to write a report, and typically a week is spent with a company and then it is written up in the following 2 to 3 weeks, with excel modeling where required slowing the report's timing. Report sizes are typically 6 to 12 pages.

Jan 2011 - China Stopping?

China is Not Going to Stop...

We have said it before and are repeating it here again, namely China is not going to stop. We made our annual visit to the China Mining Conference that was held last year (in November 2010) in Tainjin. We have visited the conference every year since 2004, and seen them gradually evolve to hosting over 3000 delegates.

Apr 2010 - 5g/t Rule of Thumb

Is it Time to Reduce the
“5g/t Rule of Thumb” ?

Underground mining has a number of “rules of thumb”, one of which that has stood the test of time, is that for most mines you need 5g/t in order to mine underground. And if it is refractory add 20% so it becomes 6g/t.

At 5g/t it meant that the mine should be able to achieve a capital return and return the invested money back, allowing for the odd occasional thing to go wrong – or in other words provide a reasonable margin for error.

Mar 2010 - Gold Mining Costs

Gold Mining Industry Facing Rising Costs

At the recent Paydirt Gold Conference in March 2010,delegates were surprised to hear that the cash costs of Gold Fields’ (GFI’s) South African operations were US$650/oz, with total costs of US$900/oz. And in response to a second question, that costs were expected to rise by 10% just on the doubling in power costs over the next 3 years.

Jan 2010 - The Lucky Break

The “Lucky Break”

Occasionally in underground mining, a company has a “lucky break”, unexpectedly intersecting mineralisation that completely transforms the geological understanding of the mine, the area, and its mineralisation.

It is usually more easier in an open-cut to see what the mineralisation has done based on looking at the walls or the floor, but underground it depends largely on development.