Let me just say I completely agree with you about Ground Rush/Ripcord and Tanami Central.
It is very hard to not be impressed with these assets. Most shareholders would be unaware of the incredible value of the permitting for the existing Tanami Central Mill and camp, together with the extensive mining leases. There is an impressive 40km dual lane sealed highway between the camp/mill and GR/Ripcord together with an extensive road system between various satellite tonnages and high quality prospects. Most of the shear structure from Tanami Mill to Ground Rush is under 5-50m of sand cover and has never been drilled or sampled. As a stand alone asset with the current resource estimate, it is hard to see even a fire sale valuation less than $75M. TAM have done an outstanding job in taking the $22M and turning it into something of great real value that unfortunately is not reflected in the share price.
Because Newmont is not ASX listed, it does not make any disclosure with respect to "The Granites" mine which is 100km down the Tanami road from Tanami Central toward Alice. The plant and tailings dam at The Granites has just had a massive upgrade with a big future of 10M+ ounces. There are 2-3 jet flights per day and more than 500 workers. "The Granites" started life as a closed anticline saddle reef just like Coyote (and Kavanagh!). It was only when they got deeper and into the feeder veins that the big tonnage happened. Deep drilling at Coyote has failed to identify similar structures or the source granites below it, however perhaps they could be under Kavanagh as this remains untested. 100,000 inferred ounces is a very conservative resource estimate but it is enough to justify the business case.
With investment, the Tanami Mill with GR and the numerous other satellite tonnage could evolve to a similar operation to The Granites. There is massive potential for additional 1M+ ounce resources in unoxidised refractory gold. If you consider the advances in metallurgy being made, then a suitable mill could greatly advance the future prospects for low cost ounces. Tanami Central itself has the potential for 1M+ ounce from refractory ore from the historic open cut without even trying.
With all of the capital raising baggage behind them and when the dust settles over the next 6 months, the company may have the confidence to get some analysts on the ground at Central Tanami. It is hard to not be very impressed by the actual asset and the potential it has to be very very big.
TAM Price at posting:
10.9¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
