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Gold/Mining/Energy : Naxos Resources (NAXOF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tim Hall who wrote (14849)	7/31/1998 5:16:00 PM
From: Ron Struthers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20681

Tim, I think we are on the same wave length on the time frame for leaching technology for gold. There is no doubt that without the leach technology there would be no gold industry in Nevada as we know it today. My main points about this is,the leach technology was necessary to exploit the fine gold deposits in Nevada. I did not become an active particapant in the play to around the mid 1980s when the rush was just in the early stages, Companies like Santa Fe, Newmont, Barrick, Franco and Euro Nevada made fortunes for shareholders with this new technology and the Carlin finds. My comparison to the desert stocks is that they to involve some kind of different minerilization. Just like the fine gold was different in the 1970s. Mining until then mainly involved mechanical seperation and the gold particles had to be big enough to seperate. There was simply no economic means of trying to seperate fine gold at grades of 0.01 to 0.04 opt until heap leaching was developed. Now these are some of the lowest cost gold mines in the world. Nevada fine gold was also controversial like the desert situation today. Old miners using the old mechanical methods would not believe that you could mine gold that you could not see and if you could these low grades could never be economic. Until the gold price broke loose in the mid 70s you were looking at grades of 1.0 opt or better for economic mines. As you stated the first leaching mine did not start until 1980. Show me and I will believe you is still the rule today. The big difference today is you have the internet that spews forth all the controversy as well as some good discussion. Back then you had to be close to the industry to hear some of the talk and doubts, although some of it did make it to the press. Unfortunate, I did not keep a scrap book but it could make interesting research. I imagine some old Nevada newspapers would be fruitful. As we know, Nevada became the biggest success story in gold mining in the last couple of decades. The Jury is still out on the desert story. If it does become a big success than we will probably read some history on the pioneers some day. In comparison to Nevada it looks like we are in the late 1970 to early 1980 period. I did think things would progress quite rapid, new technologies seem to develop faster these days than 10/20 years ago. However we are in an extreme Bear Market for gold and this is drying up exploration and venture capital. This will cause the progression to happen much slower. Ron