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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jackjc who wrote (18725)	8/19/2006 4:33:21 AM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 78415

The mines are there. I figure they can be worked. I figured out something. In 1945 the average underground gold mine operated at one ton per man per day. Average salary then was 1500 dollars per year, or 6.00 a day. Average grade of such a mine was 0.25 opt of which was paid $38.50 per ounce by the EGMA. or 9.62 per man-ton per day. Potential profit was $3.62 per man ton day, which is worth $38.01 today. Now today the average gold mine output is 5 tons per man per day, where at 0.25 ounces the production is worth 0.25 X 650 X 1.13 = 183.62 ... The average salary of the man today is 250 dollars, for 50 dollars per ton-man-day cost. The profit therefrom a man's labour per ton is $133.62, which is divided by our figure above of $39.01, coming to a factor of 3.51 times the ton-man-day money of the mine of yesteryear -- with inflation considered. As well, since the energy-machine power is always cheaper by a large factor than labour and always was, we can say that the factorial advantage of the attendant machine production today would improve the figure (capex and thruput-wise) yet again.. What I am saying is the machine ton is faster so its energy advantage and capex advantage is there. Capex wastes by the dollar time-unit of interest, and energy fixed cost of air, drilling, haulage, lights and heat, is less per ton as capacity rises. We are at least 3.51 times better off today mining underground on labour alone. If we increase the man's salary of 1945 to $3800 per year we are still 1.75 times better off. It would take an average salary of 500 dollars a day for each and every mine employee today to bring us to parity. Since many mines operate today at 10 tons per man per day, not even that salary level would prejudice the undeground mine of today. The gold ounces are obviously not safe from mining production... Splitting nickels with a borrowed hatchet is the job of the mining engineer, if we can do it with a stone axe, so much the better.. no sense wasting money.. When you factor in the attendant energy advantages of greater machine dependance we also see advantages.... the cost of electrical power in 1945 was roughly 3 times greater in constant dollars than it was in 1990 ... so the much ballyhooed bogeyman of increased energy costs is in fact not operative. Although we have seen scary increases in energy cost of fossil fuels this has not yet translated into electricity rate hikes to the industrial user in Canada. Underground trackless ops dependent on fossil fuels don't make a lot of sense today.. we are back to the Loki and the track machines as most efficient.. until we get fuel cells into play.. even $20,000 for a fuel cell is easy to bear with a potential 70% efficiency.. it would even pay a fixed installation or captive industrial facility to install super efficient (3 times advantage) non-fossil fuel hydroxy K type kettering.edu -- 46 year old proven tech. What is impractical for national consumer rolling stock is wildy efficient for an industrial site. EC<:-}

To: jackjc who wrote (18725)	8/19/2006 12:41:31 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78415

Jack I am trying to perform the perhaps impossible task of managing two stables of holdings -- one in energy, one in mining, each with 30-35 stocks. (Plus there is another set made up of blue chip/dividend stocks, but I build that up mostly through DRIPs and it requires little of my attention to maintain.) I only got into the active investing game early in 2005, and was lucky enough to start out by making a pile in energy last year and redistributing the profits to the mining sector starting late last year. So far this year I am up only a bit overall but have concentrated on setting myself up to benefit from runs in either, I hope both, of the commodity-based parts of my PF. My energy holdings have held up well as the oil price dipped down to $70 recently, but what I really need is for ng to get the big push, whether it's through a hurricane or a cold winter or a warm summer. I'm trying to maintain a months to years time frame even in the face of Rocket Red style short term temptations. LC