OK let's move on and look at some of NST's other mines.
Jundee has proven and probable ore reserves of 12.97Mt at 4.1g/t for 1.593Mozs , that's only 53.1 0f Syama's UG mine reserves.
NST has recently grouped its Kalgoorlie gold mines into one all encompassing operation including EKJV, Kundana Gold project NST 100%, KB, Carbine Project and South Kalgoorlie projects. The reporting of the performance of each of these individual projects has become very opaque even when it comes to reserve reporting as the breakdown from individual mines/deposits has been lost. For example the EKJV consists of the mining of 4 more or less seperate UG deposits from two surface assess points but reserves are quoted in total for these four deposits and possibly also statellite ore (who would know with style of reporting). In anycase let's run through the reserves of all these various projects.
EKJV = 3.131Mt at 6.2 g/t for 0.629Mozs (NST's 51% share) so 1.233Mozs total remaining ore reserves in these four deposits which is which is 41% of Syama UG ore reserves.
Kundana Gold project (NST 100% share) = 5.163Mt at 3.9 g/t for 0.641Mozs which from memory exist in two seperate aged UG mines with seperate surface access (would need to check). These deposits have 21.4% of Syama UG current reserves.
KB = 7.508Mt at 2.8 g/t for 0.67Mozs which are probably located in deep extensions to the Kanowna Bell mine and the deep parallel ore body discovered a few years back called Velvet??. This ore reserve is 22.3% of the UG ore reserve at Syama.
Then we have Carbine and South Kalgoorlie which really don't deserve a mention in the context of this discussion which together have reserves of 0.35Mozs.
So the total of Jundee and Kalgoorlie ore resrves, including the 49% share of the EKJV ore reserves that belongs to TBR/RND = 2.984Moz which is approximately the same as the current UG ore reserves at Syama. I haven't looked at Jundee lately to know how many surface accesses there are into that depoist but just at a guess they might have two, so all up the above ore reserve is being accessed by 5 or 6 declines. Syama will be accessed from two!! Anyone who has a brain can see which operation is more efficient. Don't forget that these resrves alone without Pogo were being valued at about $4 to $5 billion by the market. I think I'd prefer to pay ~$700 million for one efficient deposit that will be mines from two declines than 8 or 9 (it's actually more than this) accessed by 5 or 6 declines.
Syama UG proves to be far better than any of NST's individual deposits based on published reserve size. Simply a better asset than anything NST own on this measure.
Let's look at mine life fro Jundee and Kalgoorlie.
As I said NST has moved to very opaque reporting of its resrves and also its mine lives and AISC. Their current mine life visibility for Jundee and Kalgoorlie groups all these mines. There are no individual breakdowns of the mine lives of mine AISC for the individual mines which is a departure from how the company previously reported. This says to me buyer be ware....there could be snakes in the grass.
The mine plan for Jundee, Kalgoorlie, Paulsens and Tanami operations combined (shown in slide 16 of the annual general meeting presentation) shows a mine life out to 2025 based on resrves and 2028 based on as yet unkown resource conversion. The company in this slide does no provide average AISC guidance for there mine plans out to 2025. Again its buyer be aware. Syama UG based on current feasibilty and resrves has a mine life out to 2032 at US$746/oz. The have published the average AISC out to 2032 (believe the or not). You can not find published average forward cost projections for SAR, SBM or NST, at least as far as I can find. Maybe someone else can supply them? Esh
(20min delay)
