Russ - Exploration Expenditure is higher than Word Gold Council thinks - what about placer? In particular, Mongolian placer exploration can get into production within 12 months - even less if proving new mineable reserves for an existing mine.
Last year Mongolia had 99 companies mining gold, producing a total of more than 10 tons - set to rise again 15-20% this year. With such short lead times, exploration and production costs tend to get merged.
Our database has 3,200 exploration licenses on it for Mongolia - up hugely in the last 12 months. The vast majority (90%?) are targetting placer gold prospects, with 200+ companies spending on placer exploration this season (my company being amongst them). Right now the placer sector is dominated by Mongolian and Russian companies, but recent entrants are from South Korea, Middle East, New Zealand, USA, UK and China.
Apart from the bizarre case of Java Gold (JVAG) none of these 200+ placer players are on stockmarkets - except for a handful on the Mongolian Stock Exchange, so western investors and the World Gold Council have very little information.
Robin Grayson
General Director of Eco-Minex International Co Ltd
For more info email me on Robin@piusme.nursat.kz
By the way, the press releases of the World Gold Council from time-to-time trumpet about the tons of gold purchased by the Mongolian Central Bank, but fail to mention that this is - from a world perspective - a SEASONAL phenomenon as the bulk of the Mongolian gold miners sell gold to the Mongolian Central Bank (Mongol Bank) and then - NEVER reported by the World Gold Council - the Mongol Bank sells the gold to other banks in the world to make a margin.
So,gold purchases by the Mongol Bank are a sign of PRODUCTION certainly not of CONSUMPTION of gold... |
