for the record i am not making any accusations of any wrong doing by any party associated with the four mile uranium project. it's not for me to say what is for example fair or unfair.
quite a lot of ags management bashing here.
would people be bashing ags if quasar resources sold the four mile jv uranium?
i am perplexed as to why (during our four mile jv) quasar resources did not appear to be proactive on the uranium marketing and sales front.
other smaller producers with far inferior resources managed to secure everything from forward sales through to term contracts.
the spot market is always active with volumes of less than 100,000 lbs traded on a regular basis.
interesting sentiment from mr frydenberg over in perth yesterday:
"Mr Frydenberg warned that Australia risked missing out on international investment dollars if it didn’t have the right regulatory regime in place."
FMG chair Andrew Forrest with Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg yesterday. Picture: Colin Murty
Fortescue Metals Group would have struggled to achieve what it has were it subject to the new crackdown on forward-looking statements that has sent angst through the junior resources industry, says Fortescue’s billionaire chairman Andrew Forrest.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Mining and Investment Companies convention in Perth yesterday, Mr Forrest said the ability to pitch a vision to investors during the early days of Fortescue had been critical to the company’s success.
“To restrict a company from saying ‘it’s my plan to build a railway and it’s my plan to build a port, my plan to build a series of mines even though I haven’t yet discovered iron ore’, would deprive investors who are prepared to take a bet on leadership as opposed to empirical facts in the ground,” Mr Forrest said.
“At Fortescue, we placed our objectives our way, way before we had the empirical evidence that we could achieve the objective. If something is over the horizon it doesn’t mean it can’t exist and Fortescue exists because we were able to gather enough people with us to believe we could build a railway line or a port or a series of mines in order to bring the company to reality.”
Mr Forrest’s comments made him the highest-profile executive to weigh in on the debate over the controversial forward-looking statement guidelines issued recently by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission.
The guidelines restrict the ability of small exploration companies to make forecasts about the potential of their early stage projects, and their enforcement by the ASX has seen several companies suspended and others forced to retract or clarify their announcements.
Federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg, who has previously pledged to tackle the issue should the government be returned at next month’s election, told The Australianyesterday that he had already started conversations with ASIC and his ministerial colleagues about resolving the issue.
“We understand the need for accurate and reasonable information, but at the same time you don’t want to inhibit the ability of companies to raise the necessary capital to develop their projects,” Mr Frydenberg said.
“You’ve got to give retail investors an opportunity to understand the potential of the resource that’s in place.”
Mr Frydenberg warned that Australia risked missing out on international investment dollars if it didn’t have the right regulatory regime in place.
The forward-looking statements issue has become a hot topic in the junior resources sector, taking some of the shine off an improving industry backdrop.
The gold sector is enjoying some of its best conditions in history, speculative investors have been rushing into lithium and prices for other metals have been stabilising. Equity raisings in the resources space are also up significantly from a year ago.
Jake Klein, executive chairman of mid-tier goldminer Evolution Mining, said he expected the good times to continue for Australian gold miners for the next few years. “Australia had absurdly high costs three years ago. Our costs are only just normalising and we’re becoming a great mining destination again,” Mr Klein said.
“If you couple that with the fact that more and more generalist investors are starting to get interested in gold again, you’ve seen George Soros take an equity stake in Barrick, you’ve seen gold become a more interesting asset class for investors who have really been absent from the sector for the last three years, then I think it’s a favourable environment to be a gold miner, and an Australian gold miner is even better.”
Mr Forrest said there were clear signs the mining industry was moving through the worst of the downturn in recent years.
“I feel a quivering sense of excitement still in this industry which I say to you strongly is neither dying nor negative trend,” Mr Forrest said
“It might be taking a breather, but you can see in the strength of the share prices recovering, you can see it in demand starting to build again, and you can see it in the common sense of our leaders to allocate capital on value for shareholders, not on market share, that we will move towards a really great industry again.”
AGS Price at posting:
3.9¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
