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2012

Mar 2012 - Epithermal Deposits

Epithermal deposits appear to extend much deeper...

...than previously perceived. As part of our/ERA visit to Extorre (XG)'s Cerro Moro and Mariana's Las Calandrias projects in September 2011, we also visited Anglogold Ashanti's Cerro Vanguardia (CVSA JV). All of these projects and operations are located near Puerto Deseado in the Deseado Massif of Santa Cruz Province in Argentina's Patagonian region.

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Mar 2012 - BITE!!!

So you realise that you have been bitten...

...now what do you do ? That was the dilemma I faced in early November 2011 in China. It is so easy in hindsight as to what I should have done, but at the time there was little available guidance.

The following is based on personal experience and there may be other solutions.

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Apr 2012 - TSX ??

Are you sure you want to join the TSX

This report is based on observations that we have made, in that many non-Canadian companies have joined the TSX (Toronto Stock Exchange) for access to funding and potential rerating of their stocks. However, for many it has been a share price blip, while acquiring the NI (National Instrument) 43-101's "ball and chain", and additional or replaced reporting.

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Jun 2012 - Broken Hill

From Broken Hill's Wild West

More than 550 delegates attended this year's Symposium's Annual Resource and Energy Symposium (t : #RES2012) held in Broken Hill, NSW from 21 to 23 May 2012. Aside from their own transport, delegates arrived by regular Rex regional flights from Sydney, charter flight from Adelaide, flights from Melbourne to Mildura and then a 3 hour drive to Broken Hill (a direct flight is expected to be scheduled for next year, and possibly even one from Perth), the Connie Super Constellation, train, or a 2-day coach ride from Sydney.

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Aug 2012 - DeGrussa Jewellery

Mining the DeGrussa Jewellery Box

We visited Sandfire's DeGrussa mine ~900km north of Perth in WA, ahead of Diggers 'n Dealers 2012 as part of a group of about 76 people (~6 were SFR personnel) on a 100-seater Cobham aircraft that flew to the new airstrip in about 1.5hours.

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Aug 2012 - Transform Focus P1

The Transformation of Focus - part 1

After Diggers 2012, we visited Focus Minerals' (FML's) operations spending 3 days at each of its Coolgardie and Laverton operations. Over the past year, Focus has integrated the Crescent Gold (CRE) operations into Focus Laverton gradually replacing the board and management - why,  because Crescent resembles something reminiscent of a column by Trevor Sykes' Pierpont.

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Sep 2012 - Enter The Dragon

 Enter the Dragon

The placement of 4.55bn shares in Focus Minerals (FML) to Shandong Gold International at 5c per share, raising $227.5m, marks a further advance by a Chinese gold company taking a different kind of position in an Australian gold producer.

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Oct 2012 - Transform Focus P2

The transformation of Focus - part 2

When we wrote "the transformation of Focus - part 1" that was contained in last month's (October 2012) issue of Paydirt, we had not anticipated Focus announcing on 20 September 2012, a $227.5m placement of 4.55bn shares @ $0.05 to Shandong Gold International (a 65% subsidiary of Shandong Gold Ltd, which owns 56.4% of Shandong Gold Mines that produces >700,000ozpa with a market cap of  ~$9bn). 

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Nov 2012 - Sirius "Sandfire" ?

Sirius - Another "Sandfire" ?

It is often stated that Australia has been "well-picked-over" and everything major has already been discovered, but yet two very different orebodies have been discovered that are completely different to anything we have encountered before in Australia and other parts of the world, being Sandfire's DeGrussa mine in copper mineralisation and now Sirius' Nova discovery in nickel mineralisation, both in WA.

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Dec 2012 - Hunting Grounds

Prime Hunting Ground

As one of the ~8000 delegates, we attended the China Mining Conference held in Tianjin again this year in early November 2012, and visited the booths of the top four Chinese gold companies that all claim to be China's highest gold producer, and were clustered around the Australian booth - which they classified as ideal (prime hunting ground) to acquire gold mines and prospects.

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