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Gold/Mining/Energy : SOUTHERNERA (t.SUF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: INFOMAN who wrote (1839)	7/28/1998 8:57:00 PM
From: Confluence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7235

Hellooooo Newwmannnn, or rather Hello Infoman and Gull, Its nice to have you folks back on the thread. Has De Beers not paid NGS its dough yet? I must admit, I thought at least one of you was from De Beers or Anglo, but this seems less likely now. Perhaps you are just speculators looking to continue undermining SUF. Since all others are ignoring you, I thought I'd try to respond to your queries: 1. If you have any questions, why not forward them on to SUF at 416-359-9282, and ask for Dr. Jennings or the person of your choice. Or try the website: southernera.com Or email: inbox@southernera.com They will try to be helpful and fully answer your questions. At least this has been my experience. 2. The comments about the excellence of Mr. Freeman's (and that of many other SUF people's) credentials are well placed. Many important SUF people formerly were employed with De Beers. And more still have impeccable academic and exploration credentials from other life experiences. Given the world mining community's recent problems, I agree with your implicit approval of the technical capabilities of the SUF team. More than any other reason, this is why I have owned SUF shares since early 1992. Life goes on, good and bad things happen, but the people at SUF have a reputation for exploration excellence, personal integrity and commitment to SUF's future. From time to time, short-term events have overtaken the long-term goals, but the quality work of the people of SUF has consistently returned value to shareholders, even with the odds stacked against SUF. 3. Questions about the M1 grade (implying problems with the in situ valuation) will be answered in time. Suffice to say that SUF conducted its exploration, follow-up drilling, sampling and valuation work last year. This was all filed with the proper government authorities and, of course, is available to the owners of the mineral rights. Since the mining permit has been issued, I suggest a local call to De Beers' Mr. Cumine or further up the ladder to determine why De Beers feels it unnecessary to conduct its own DD on the property. That SUF people would comment about using a grade of 225 cpht means they are comfortable with this as a conservative figure. It might be implied from your comments that De Beers has been less than forthcoming with comments regarding M1. While that is unfortunate, it is understandable, given their larger responsibilities elsewhere. Surely NGS, or perhaps De Beers other silent partner in RSA can provide you with better details. I'm quite confident that an esteemed firm such as De Beers would not have soiled its gloves in dealing with Marsfontein had they not known what was in the ground, and had a great deal of confidence in the reliability of the data. 4. The mining of M1 is a decision to be taken by the JV partners. Word from this part of the world is that this will begin shortly. Given the large expectations from SUF shareholders, I believe that caution will be exercised in detailing a firm start-up date for mining. Again, I implore you to contact De Beers and ask the same questions of them, and then to openly share them in this your chosen forum. As an aside, some SUF shareholders are quietly hoping that De Beers "forgets" about mining M1 quickly, which could provide SUF with a pre-Christmas treat. However, I believe that both JV partners will want to begin mining and processing of ore ASAP. 5. SUF people have talked about buying a smaller, moveable front-end plant that would allow them to process ore from the fissures, passes, blows and other possible locations around Klipspringer. The extra carats from such a plan would of course be marketed through the CSO, ensuring De Beers of an even greater volume of top quality gems from the site! Truly a win-win situation for both SUF and De Beers. In spite of the past bad blood, it just may turn out that SUF can become one of De Beers' top producing clients. SUF can find and mine diamonds, and De Beers gets to sell them! Surely the benefit accrues to the shareholders of both firms, along with the obvious benefit of increased economic activity in the region. More work, more jobs, more diamonds, more earnings, more development, more finds, more work, more diamonds, ... Who knows what tremendous potential SUF's future can hold? Regards, Confluence PS. If either of you imply anything more by your comments, please be more clear and detail your concerns so they can be openly addressed.