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Strategies & Market Trends : Winter in the Great White North -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: teevee who wrote (7813)	12/2/2012 11:52:34 AM
From: IngotWeTrust	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8273

>>>Projecting trends over the last ten years towards mining lower grades and greater depths, the data suggests than in 10 years, assuming flat global growth, mining companies will have to...<<< Saw that, but here're MY 2 PROBLEMS with that narrow interpolation: 1) It has ALWAYS been true mining companies have pursued lower grade ores during periods of higher end product prices. This is because the increased mining costs of going deeper or, opening new lower-grade deposits' "layers" if you please can be adequately covered while still maintaining reasonable if not IMPROVED profit margins during the high price cycle. Doesn't mean the higher grade ore isn't mined. It does mean it is more likely stockpiled for lower pricing inevitably on the come due to the cyclic nature of S/D pricing inherent in a commodity production model as witnessed over decades of pursuing gold extraction. 2) The mining of lower grades at greater depths--an experience all too painfully revealed by the Oppenheimer-Wittersrand reef mining business model--has been made possible by the dramatic reduction in costs of heap leaching via cyanide than incorporating ANY other method of gold values' harvesting. Those involved in pricing vs finding any commodity will always be "talking their book" in these matters, such as the Australian's hosted convention in Sydney a few months back. Knowing where the gold is is job one. Knowing how to cheaply extract it is job two. Proclaiming "peak gold" is job three it would appear. Look how well "peak oil" has played in the pricing of THAT commodity. Yes, I strongly suspect "book talking" in order to influence pricing going forward by these speakers........ Fascinating that Canada has already recently been the site of an elephant deposit (Red Lake)...and now a new one is being defined at Barkerville up north. Doesn't suggest like much "peak gold threat" to me. Especially in light of the "fairly recent" Carlin trend ultra low yield deposit over gazillion acres currently being successful mined...another elephant deposit if you will. Thanks, teevee. Your post helped me crystallize and organize my own thoughts/observations on the material you presented. Always good to listen to what "others" are stating/claiming, and re-examine one's own immediate response before factoring in irrefutable "more recent anecdotal evidence even" from the last 10 years' time frame put forward in Sydney 2012. Must be the skeptical gold recycler frame of reference I've intently observed from which has encompassed the last 22 years, you s'pose? -g-