PRU - Perseus Mining

[nunthewiser]

Caspian Oil & Gas sold 2,128,000 Perseus Mining shares worth $1,492,790 between September 8 and October 31, decreasing from 24,685,135 shares (14.16%) to 22,557,135 shares (12.91%).


Caspian Oil & Gas sold 5,925,000 Perseus Mining shares for $1,533,855 between November 5 and 19, decreasing from 22,557,135 shares (12.91%) to 16,632,135 shares (9.52%).

 

[prawn_86]

Could it be CIG are just strapped for cash? They are a micro cap and may prefer that money in the bank or exploration as opposed to losing value...

Is a bit suss with the joint directors though

 

[nunthewiser]

Could it be CIG are just strapped for cash? They are a micro cap and may prefer that money in the bank or exploration as opposed to losing value...

Is a bit suss with the joint directors though

might wanna take asquiz at the registered offices addresses too m8 , these directors are involved in a few bits and pieces linked to this same addy LOL even pay rent to themselves

i know nothing of anythoing else re PRU /CIG etc just was posting shareholder movements for those intrested here

 

[exgeo]

A 2-minute peruse of CIG's latest quarterly shows that they have $0.6m in the bank and spent $3.7m in the last qtr (and income close to zero). A glance at the annual report shows that PRU was spun off from CIG to hold their gold assets. Looks like forced selling to me; the equity markets will be unavailable to CIG, so where else they gonna get the cash to keep the lights on other than by selling assets?

 

[Miner]

A 2-minute peruse of CIG's latest quarterly shows that they have $0.6m in the bank and spent $3.7m in the last qtr (and income close to zero). A glance at the annual report shows that PRU was spun off from CIG to hold their gold assets. Looks like forced selling to me; the equity markets will be unavailable to CIG, so where else they gonna get the cash to keep the lights on other than by selling assets?

I had almost 40 minutes discussion over phone with the Investor Relations Manager after I posted in this forum in the moring

What he said echoed your writing Exgeo

Apparently CIG is desperate for cash and even they have common directors they could not get the cash from fund managers due to their lack of assets. The major asset of CIG has been investment in PRU and so they sold it.

Logic seems to be reasonable.

PRU is actively seeking fund and their project in Ivory Cost going as per plan. WHich is a good sign out of all wood.

Disclosure : I hold PRU

 

[Sean K]

Nice initial resource with seemingly much more to come.

Might be one of the goldies to recover well with market sentiment, or a scrap for M&A.

Have done no research on this.

How's it's mc to oz au, other tennaments, any other info from holders?

Chart wise 40 looks a hurdle.

Initial Gold Resource at Sissingue
Tengrela Project (Ivory Coast)

Highlights
• Indicated and Inferred resources total 970,000 ounces at 1.9g/t Au using 1g/t cut-off (15.7
million tonnes at 1.9g/t).
• The high grade component is 5.1 million tonnes at 3.1g/t Au for about 500,000 ounces.
• The resource has been estimated on only 1km of the 5.6km soil anomaly, where broadspaced drilling has to date confirmed significant gold mineralisation over a 4km strike length and widths of up to 750m.
• Metallurgical testwork is continuing, with initial very high recoveries indicating fresh and weathered rock is free milling.
• Sissingue is the first of the nine strong anomalies to be resource drilled, highlighting the potential for the Tengrela project to host a multi-million ounce gold endowment. Wide spaced RAB drilling has identified significant gold mineralisation on the 4 other anomalies drilled to date.
• Sissingue is located 8km south of the Tabakoroni deposit (0.7Moz), 40km south of Syama (6.5Moz), 80km NW of the Tongon deposit (4.3Moz) and 150km SSE of Morila (7.0Moz).

 

[vegemite]

December 22, 2008
Perseus Livens Christmas Spirits

By Our Man In Oz

If Mark Calderwood finds nothing under his Christmas tree on Thursday morning he will not be complaining. As chief executive of the Australian-based, African-focused gold exploration company, Perseus Mining, Calderwood thinks Christmas might have come early in the form of “very forgiving” ore at the Ayanfuri project in Ghana. Sounding appropriately Christian in the festive season, “forgiving” ore liberates its gold easily. So easily in the case of Ayanfuri that Calderwood and his team are spending the holiday season crunching numbers to discover exactly how much they will save in processing costs, starting with a much smaller crushing mill, less electricity, fewer consumables and the elimination of entire sections of a conventional gold plant. From a per-ounce production cost in the US$430 range the new back-of-the envelope estimate is in the low US$300 range.

In Australian slang terms, even a legendary character known as Blind Freddie (and his dog) could see that saving around US$100/ounce on production costs has a dramatic effect on financial calculations, not to mention the potential impact on a company’s share price. “We’re certainly looking at some major benefits,” Calderwood said when Minesite’s Man in Oz spoke with him a few days before Christmas. “Precisely how much we’re likely to save should be known in a few weeks, but a starting point in the exercise is that we’re likely to need a much smaller mill, and use far less electricity.”

For newcomers to Perseus it is a company which has discovered a number of very promising gold lodes in Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast. Ayanfuri, near the Atlantic Coast in the central Ashanti gold belt, will be the first cab off the company’s rank. After that, subject to ongoing exploration, will come the Tengrela prospect in the north of Ivory Coast, close to substantial goldmines in that country and neighboring Mali. Interesting as Tengrela is likely to be in the future the action today is at Ayanfuri where Perseus has pinpointed an initial resource of 1.9 million ounces of gold, the major part of a total west African resource of 4.7 million ounces in the assorted classification which make up gold-in-the ground estimates.

In early October, Calderwood said the first pass of a definitive feasibility study had produced a base case for a mine at Ayanfuri yielding 196,000 ounces of gold in each of the first five years of a 10 year campaign, and 162,000 ounces in each of the final five years. The estimated capital cost was US$175 million, based on a mill processing 4.5 million tonnes of ore a year, to produce gold at around US$430 an ounce. But, having produced numbers which are reasonably attractive in a financial climate where gold is selling for around $830 an ounce Perseus has been lured back to the drawing board courtesy of Ayanfuri’s forgiving ore, a development delay which appears to have annoyed some investors who have failed to spot a change for the good. They’re the bunnies who dumped Perseus at A20 cents a share late last month and missed the bounce to A36.5 cents late last week., which is still well short of the stock’s 12-month high of A$1.60 though the trend in this case could definitely be your friend given the outlook for the gold price.

“Our plans are changing because the process route has been changed,” Calderwood said. “Basically, we’re getting some major benefits in processing. Even though it’s a classic free-milling carbon-in-leach (CIL) circuit we can still improve it dramatically.” Calderwood said guidance for the market on exactly what is being achieved should be released in the next few weeks. “All we can say at this stage is that we’re dealing with massive changes in capital and operating costs,” he said.

An early guide to what Calderwood is pointing to is a benefit to be gained from the ore releasing its gold very easily. “What we found is that during a flash floatation test we got much better recovery than we expected,” he said. “What that boils down to is that we can double the grind size, get a higher recovery, and have a throw-away tails having extracted 97 per cent of the gold. That means you reduce the size of the ball mill and crushing circuit, get rid of the back end of the mill, and produce a 3 per cent concentrate which is 40 to 80 grams a tonne, and just treat that as free milling concentrate and save a fortune on power, ball milling, cyanide, and all sorts of other stuff.”

As Calderwood explains the latest events at Ayanfuri it occurs to Minesite’s Man in Oz that what he’s really talking about is the equivalent of a significant “above ground” discovery. It’s the same orebody, but it’s just got a lot more profitable, leading to this logical question: what are the likely savings in costs? “We’re still doing the numbers,” is Calderwood’s answer. But, it is substantial?, asks Minesite. “Very substantial,” he said. “We hope for some indicative numbers in a few weeks, but we’re still pushing the grind size. We’ve done flotation work at 212 and 1000 micron and we think it’s somewhere between where the action is. We’re still playing with it, but as a general rule, every time we increase the grind size it makes a huge difference.”

In case Minesite’s technical chat with Calderwood has lost less technically minded readers there is a simple explanation. Essentially, by increasing the grind size Perseus is planning to spend less time, effort and money on crushing the ore. “What we mean is that we relax the grind, it means a coarser grind. It means a small mill is likely to be required, less wear and tear, less power. Savings all round.”

Now for the Biblical bit to complete the Christmas message from Perseus. “You can say that the ore is very forgiving,” he said. It sounds like a rather Christian orebody is the tongue in cheek suggestion from Minesite. Ho Ho Ho!!!, is Calderwood’s reply, before switching back into technical mode to explain what it all means. “A forgiving orebody is one that doesn’t disappear on you when you mine it. Forgiving metallurgically means it doesn’t give you grief when you mill it.” To put all this into perspective Calderwood explains that a conventional gold mill reduces ore to a between 75 and 106 microns. “We’re looking at 212 microns, or more. It can save 30-to-40 per cent of your power bill, and cut back the use of grinding media.”

Financially, the benefits are huge. “We need to produce the exact numbers but basically we’ll go from a 26 per cent internal rate of return (IRR) double or treble that number, whi is what you have to do in this market,” he said. “The game is over for sub-30 per cent IRR.” Calderwood said in the early years of the project he was hopeful of dropping costs into the low US$300/oz range.

 

[jman2007]

Apparently CIG is desperate for cash and even they have common directors they could not get the cash from fund managers due to their lack of assets. The major asset of CIG has been investment in PRU and so they sold it.

That is more or less what I have been hearng Miner, I'm glad the forced sellng seems to be over. I'm not sure exactly how many common Directors are serving on both boards, but two seems to ring a bell. CIG holders might be sweating a bit, CIG must have suffered a substansial loss through this sell-off.

jman

 

[jman2007]

It would have been better if PRU could have held up around the $0.70 - $0.80mark. Instead it just crashed through and this places the impulsive count to the downside now on the cards. It is possible that the stock has completed either the wave (C) or (3). This will really depend on how it bounces if at all from here. Expect the $0.90 area to provide stern resistance for any move higher if it does eventuate.

This could be an interestng few weeks for PRU

It would be interesting to get some comments from some of the tech-dudes, such as Lachlan/kennas on the PRU resurgence over the last few weeks?

5.7M oz on the books so far, with another Resource update from Ayanfuri due out reasonably soon. A few points to note:

- All current pit optimizations based on $US 750/oz price, so using a $850 pit shell should increase the Resource base substansially...
- As per recent shareholder letter, scaled-down plant to provide substansial cost savings, and reduce capex.
- Next Resource update will probably include the newly discovered areas such as Mampon and the AF-gap....

I think conservatively we could see another 500k oz from Ayanfuri, but it could be anything up to another 1M oz imho.

jman

 

[jman2007]

Sentiment starting to look very bullish for PRU

Broke through 70c in early trading this morning and briefly touched on 74.5c before finishing up 11.5% on 67c... probably one of the few stocks going around atm that appears to be starting to live up to expectations....

Not much else to comment on today, we just need to sit tight and wait for the news to come out. Based on the trading behaviour we've seen recently, it should provide further triggers.

jman

 

[vegemite]

From Monday's Australian (Pure Speculation area)..

...Alarm bells went off at BGF Equities during the week when news arrived that Toronto-listed Red Back Mining, with a gold mine in Ghana, had raised $C150 million.

Analyst Warwick Grigor interprets this as Red Back preparing to make a bid for Perseus Mining (PRU), a junior now gearing up for production in Ghana. Perseus not only has a 4.7 million ounce resource in the country, with forecast first-year production cash costs of $US268 an ounce, but it raised $8.5 million last month.

Over the past week, Perseus shares have gone from 60c to 73.5c, helped by both the strong gold price and growing talk of a takeover. Trading activity could heat up as more punters get the sniff of a predator."

 

[flyboy77]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24993532-5005200,00.html

the link if anyone is interested....

:

 

[JTLP]

Well it seems MQG think like that as well...raising there stake in the company.

They hold a pretty hefty chunk already...could be interesting.

I once held PRU but got out when markets imploded...The massive resource is nice...but a bit of sovereign risk too

 

[Sean K]

Nice resource upgrade out.

Anyone have some comments on the grades?

Seem a little low for Ghana, but just a guess.

With that number of ounces no wonder they may be a TO prospect.

Not a bad recovery from 20c!

Another opportunity missed...

 

[jman2007]

Nice resource upgrade out.

Anyone have some comments on the grades?

Seem a little low for Ghana, but just a guess.

With that number of ounces no wonder they may be a TO prospect.

Not a bad recovery from 20c!

Another opportunity missed...

I thought it was a very nice upgrade too

It's good to see some of the long-suffering shareholders finally being rewarded through the fruits of PRU's comprehensive drillouts of '08. There has been a very large conversion of ounces from inferred to indcated, ... 85% or so.

Tbh kennas I have questioned the grades a couple of times myself, here's a comparison of grades in West Africa found in PRU's AGM presentation:

- Redback Mining: Chirano 1.58 g/t, strip ratio 2.7
- Lihir: Bonkiro 1.88 g/t, strip ratio 3.8

These are both approx. 1Moz deposits. Ayanfuri's lower grade (1.5'ish) should be compensated somewhat with the lower strip ratio of 1.8, according to the PRU presentation. The other thing to bear in mind is that a lot of Ayanfuri probably wont be free-digging as the mineralisation (from memory..) is mostly hosted below the transitional zone - so a lot of drill and blast mining. Generally I prefer companies to specify their resource base in terms of oxidsed, transitional and fresh, if applicable.

Still, this is one of the few stocks I had the kahunas to average down on...would have been a nice ride from 20c.

jman

 

[Sean K]

I thought it was a very nice upgrade too

It's good to see some of the long-suffering shareholders finally being rewarded through the fruits of PRU's comprehensive drillouts of '08. There has been a very large conversion of ounces from inferred to indcated, ... 85% or so.

Tbh kennas I have questioned the grades a couple of times myself, here's a comparison of grades in West Africa found in PRU's AGM presentation:

- Redback Mining: Chirano 1.58 g/t, strip ratio 2.7
- Lihir: Bonkiro 1.88 g/t, strip ratio 3.8

These are both approx. 1Moz deposits. Ayanfuri's lower grade (1.5'ish) should be compensated somewhat with the lower strip ratio of 1.8, according to the PRU presentation. The other thing to bear in mind is that a lot of Ayanfuri probably wont be free-digging as the mineralisation (from memory..) is mostly hosted below the transitional zone - so a lot of drill and blast mining. Generally I prefer companies to specify their resource base in terms of oxidsed, transitional and fresh, if applicable.

Still, this is one of the few stocks I had the kahunas to average down on...would have been a nice ride from 20c.

jman

Cheers jmann. Wish I had have been watching this more closely around the lower levels and had a better handle of their project. I've now tipped in for a few which will mean it falls over from here. Sorry other holders. Bloody hope my guess that POG is going to keep steady or up and that there's going to be some more consolidation occurring is close to the mark.

 

[Miner]

Cheers jmann. Wish I had have been watching this more closely around the lower levels and had a better handle of their project. I've now tipped in for a few which will mean it falls over from here. Sorry other holders. Bloody hope my guess that POG is going to keep steady or up and that there's going to be some more consolidation occurring is close to the mark.

Gurus Jman and Kennas

PRU has been desperately looking for cash and some take over
It has struck good luck now.
If you go back to its announcements you woudl find two more things :
Only couple of months back its promoters sold a large holding of PRU at a throw away price. From memory I raised it here. they must be biting their nails too . So whosoever not invested in this PRU have not lost any thing excepting paper.

Please have a look into Manas MSR as well . It was a spin off from PRU. Suddenly the price shot up by 44 % (without getting a ticket from ASX) and thinly traded.

Could there be some merger back or acquisition considering Goldman Sachs predicted POG to shoot to $1000 very soon ?

You guys do lot of research - what do you think ?
MSR Price from ASX

05 Feb 2009 0.065 44.44% 0.065 0.063 28,620
06 Jan 2009 0.045 0% 0.045 0.045 10,000
26 Nov 2008 0.045 0% 0.045 0.045 3,247
24 Nov 2008 0.045 0% 0.045 0.045 6,753
21 Nov 2008 0.045 12.5% 0.045 0.045 4,747

 

[Sean K]

You guys do lot of research - what do you think ?
MSR Price from ASX

MSR looks really interesting Miner. Miniscule MC with some very good drill results. Initial resource due next quarter. Hmmm, maybe we should start a thread for it? Cheers, kennas

 

[flyboy77]

MSR looks really interesting Miner. Miniscule MC with some very good drill results. Initial resource due next quarter. Hmmm, maybe we should start a thread for it? Cheers, kennas

I reckon the Shambesai resource number could be out quite soon! Remember PRU retains effective control of Manas in the event that Manas stumbles upon a serious deposit....

 

[Sean K]

Crikey, Grigor likes this:

on 12 Jan:

Investment Perspective: We have previously identified
Perseus Mining Ltd (“PRU”) as one of the most compelling
new gold companies, based on two multi-million ounce gold
projects in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Our enthusiasm has
been based on the long life and outstanding fundamentals of
the project economics of the Ayanfuri project in Ghana, whilst
having a strong conviction that a takeover bid will be
forthcoming, prior to any gold being poured.

http://perseus.auroracms.com/aurora/assets/user_content/File/BGF Equities Research PRU Jan 09.pdf

That was before the resource upgrade.

Then, in regard to Tengrela:

Tengrela is the Next Multi-Million Ounce Project
In addition to the Ghana projects, PRU is in the early
stages of assessing what appears to be another multimillion
ounce gold opportunity in the Ivory Coast. The
Tengrela Project covers a 5.6 km mineralised system with
three main zones having been drilled so far. Gold is
associated with quartz veining and alteration within a
porphyry style system that has recently returned huge
intercepts that include 142m at 1.8 gpt (including 68 m at
2.7 gpt from a depth of 76m) and 105m at 1.9 gpt
(including 77m at 2.4 gpt from 54m). The grade of the
system is generally 1.5 to 2 gpt, but there are also
bonanza grade zones.

The first resource statement was made on 27 November
2008, quoting 970,000 oz at a grade of 1.9 gpt (15.7 mt at
1.9 gpt). This included a high-grade component of 5.1 mt
at 3.1 gpt, for 500,000 oz (indicated and inferred).
This resource was calculated from only 1 km of a 5.6 km
strike on the Sissingue prospect. Broad spaced drilling
has been conducted over a 4 km strike with width up to
750m.

Metallurgical test work has shown high gold recoveries
from free milling ore in the oxide and primary zones. A
scoping study is expected within a month or two.


The economics of this are pretty compelling if POG stays anywhere near it is over the next few years.

DECEMBER 2008 QUARTERLY ACTIVITY REPORT

• On 12 January 2009 a progress update on ongoing Definitive Feasibility Study (“DFS”) work
was released, with highlights of the significantly improved projections including:
o Processing rate of 4.5Mtpa flotation-CIL and up to 1.4Mtpa heap leach.
o Average gold production of 206,000ozpa for the first 8 years of full production, including a
total of 493,000ozs in the first 2 years.
o Estimated cash cost of US$268 per oz in year 1 and US$355 per oz average over 10 years.
o Total gross operating cash surplus (before depreciation, financing costs and tax but after
royalties) of US$830M over 10 years at a US$850 gold price, including US$212M in
the first two years of full production
o The capital cost estimate is down 23% to US$134M from the previous estimate, with heap
leach production and income to commence after capital expenditure of about US$60M
on the heap leach and flotation-CIL circuits.
o Project payback takes about one year from completion of the float-CIL capital works,
and the estimated Internal Rate of Return (“IRR”) is 71% from the commencement of
heap leaching.


I've only taken a small bite here, but on any weakness I'd have to be considering adding based on these funnymentals.