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  • bee March 2014
  • Ted March 2014
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High Tech "Laser Fracking" for Gold Miners...Game changer?

From Ian Little of Global Trends:

"RBT (reef-boring technology) taps new ore from old areas. It drills directly into the gold veins, like a laser drill, and extracts the most valuable content without blasting the entire rock. RBT could be, at least for gold, the new "fracking", a concept we introduced to readers several years ago when most people thought we were just talking dirty. "South Africa is going to long outlive me and probably the next five CEOs of the company," says Anglo's main man. The boring machines, which AngloGold developed with its suppliers, can single out gold-bearing ore from the reef, replace it with cement and chemicals that stabilize the mining structure, and thus take in ore that used to be lost amongst the pillars that supported the structure. Using technology rather than manual labor means AngloGold can operate 24 hours a day. And it should please unions by giving workers less dangerous tasks to do instead. "Effectively, gold that is written off comes back into the books", he says. OK, so how will the books of gold miners change? Start with increased grades (read "margins"). We're talking about raising grades by as much as 15 times, from 6/10 grams per ton to 90 grams per ton. Then add in increased volumes, lower labour costs, reduced environmental impact, and greater extraction speed, and you've got, well, a gold mine."

global-thematic.com/eflyers/diary_cover.htm

AngloGold, up 54% YTD, still down 62% over 3 years. GDX holds 5% of AU, SGENX (First Eagle Global) holds 4%. SGIIX is the instituitonal class.

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