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Gold/Mining/Energy : Precious and Base Metal Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elizabeth Andrews who wrote (2511)	3/18/2002 3:14:59 PM
From: tyc:>	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 39344

Elizabeth, As I said in my PM... you could well be right...I haven't examined last year's financial statements primarily because they seem irrelevant to this year's performance which promises to be so much better; and also even more irrelevant to the central question which is about the meaning of terms used in the industry. Semantics, if you like. Does the term "cash cost" have the same implication for a "gold-in-concentrate" producer as for a dore producer? Or does the gold-in-concentrate producer include in "cash costs" only those cash expenses that are common to both types of producer. Does he leave the smelter charges and transportation charges etc. as "hidden costs" never to be revealed to investors except by study of the financial statements of past performance? (like you are doing). I am trying hard to state your position fairly. If the foregoing sentence fairly states the issue, then I find it difficult to accept your position. Nevertheless, as I stated in the PM you refer to, I researched the only sources I have available; Lassonde's Gold Book and the NGX prospectus. ..The prospectus states that smelter charges are included in "cash costs"...... do you accept that this is so ? Doesn't this subtraction of smelter charges produce the "net smelter return" that you are talking about ? .. Pierre Lassonde says "total costs ...include three elements, cash costs, depreciation, and admin plus exploration". He says nothing about some other element of cost. Was he talking only about d'ore producers ? Hardly! implicitly he required all cash deductions from market price to be included in cash costs. .. Surely you don't think that the categoric answer to this question is revealed by a study of NGX's last financial statement, do you ? Let me repeat, I am no expert and you may well be right. However, I reserve the right to rely on my own judgment. In jest, let me add this. A few weeks ago one of your compatriots cut me to the quick by calling my homeland "a nation of sheep". The arrogance ! Well here's a sheep that doesn't need a bell wether !