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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (68531)	5/1/2001 1:42:05 PM
From: goldsheet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116762

<Does this portend the beginning of the beginning of less gold production? > They will have to focus on optimizing current operations, and may continue to find themselves in the catch-22 of having to increase production to reduce unit costs. Short-term, it means they will expand around their current operations to make the best use of capital equipment, which might (probably, IMHO) mean more production: "Two new mines, Deep Post and La Quinua, go into production this year. Deep Post is expected to reach an annual steady state production of 380,000 ounces at less than $150 per ounce in 2003. Development of the La Quinua open pit mine and associated agglomeration crushing plant at Yanacocha in Peru is progressing steadily. Start up is estimated for the fourth quarter. La Quinua's average annual production will be about 1 million ounces at a total cash cost of approximately $125 per ounce" Long-term, they are just depleting assets, which is no way to run a business. They will eventually need to explore, acquire, or get acquired. Meanwhile, they are just treading water near breakeven, and doing the obvious stuff like closing offices, deferring some projects, eliminating a few jobs (5%), and restructuring debt. Looks like a fox in a trap chewing off its own leg ;(