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Gold/Mining/Energy : SOUTH AFRICAN MINING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Pearson who wrote (316)	10/4/1998 2:34:00 PM
From: sea_urchin	Respond to of 472

Bonjour James : Long time no hear. Trust you are keeping well. That is a question which, I believe, you should address to Polarbear who is an expert on the Rangy operation and, I presume, also Durban. As far as I know, most of Rangy's operations are in very preliminary stages and so labor is not a significant cost. Furthermore, I don't think Rangy has any South African gold mines and so the labor problems, if any, will be applicable to those other African countries where it has mines. Re Durban and Mr Kebble, frankly, I am amazed how he has been able to reduce costs in these old mines by as much as he has. Bear in mind, all the mines in the Durban stable had either ceased operation or were as close to it as makes no difference. Along comes Roger baby, and in the face of labor troubles, the likes of which the country has not seen before, he is able to slash costs and bring those mines back from the dead. Not only bring them back from the dead but he now proclaims that his ambition for Durban is to be the "world's largest, best, growth oriented, low grade gold producer". Why he doesn't have problems with labor is completely beyond me! Maybe he has some COSATU or ANC officials in his pocket who look after his interests --- I just don't know. In fact, in his recent report, he makes no particular mention of labour whatsoever. Yet, it was mainly because of labor that AngloAmerican and Goldfields/Gencor virtually threw away all their marginal operations. Blyvoor and Buffels were both disposed of, for a song, by Goldfields/Gencor. And, Rand Mines disposed of ERPM in the same way, although some years before. Yet, these are the mines which Mr Kebble regards as the core holdings of his major, new operation. To me, something is wrong somewhere. Either the mining houses in South Africa know nothing (or very little) about mining, which is clearly not so --- or Mr Kebble is a genius who is using methods of mining as yet unheard of. Which, as far as I am concerned, is also most unlikely. Some Durban shareholder should ask Mr Kebble, on his future roadshow to the US, how he does it. Kind regards.