Diggers & Dealers kicks off in Kalgoorlie next week with the biggest roll up in five years expected. The 2000-plus mining and finance types due to rock up are doing so with the hope of divining something they did not already know, thrown in with a liberal dose of bonhomie.
But the fun police at ASIC insist nowadays that companies release market sensitive information when it comes to hand.
So other than what can be garnered from some hard work around the bars at Kalgoorlie’s watering holes away from the ASIC spies, much of the “news” nowadays gets announced to one and all on the ASX platform before the bash gets underway.
And so it has been this week, the stand out example being Northern Star’s (NST) announcement that it had increased its gold reserves by 2.3m ounces at a knockdown cost of $A24 an ounce to 3.5m ounces.
Northern Star closed 4% higher at $4.67 in response, reflecting the fact that had it come in with an increase to 3m ounces, the market would have been disappointed, and had it come in 4m ounces, the market would have been ecstatic.
Mind you, there was a big hint in the announcement that while the increase to the mid-point of 3.5m ounces was impressive stuff, the market should really be looking to the stars with what could be a game-changing discovery called Zodiac at its Jundee operation.
Generated from a 3D seismic survey, the Zodiac discovery has the “potential to significantly expand the known parameters of the world-class Jundee gold deposit,’’ Northern Star reported.
“Early indications suggest it has significant potential to extend mine life further than known reserves and resources.” The discovery hole at Zodiac returned multiple mineralised intersections over a 200m downhole interval some 1km south of the Jundee mine.
Northern Star, chaired by Bill Beament, takes to the D&D stage on Monday at 3.45pm (Perth time). Expect those in the room to be hanging on every word on Zodiac which apart from anything else, goes to Beament’s long-time chant that Australia’s gold mines have a lot more gold to give up, it’s just that the gold will be in deeper underground locations and that the exploration effort has to be made to find it.
Plus, the whiff of a big find at Jundee, Geopacific starts re-rating on Kula success, Tawana set to fly through lithium’s open window and Slovakian gold hopeful to bang IPO drum in Kalgoorlie. Read more.
