hybridbloke wrote:tandarra results announced today very satisfying.

i think a nice cold beer is justified while looking at the pretty pictures.

....“Underground gold mining in Victoria has been a challenge in recent times because of the requirement to locate and selectively mine erratically distributed high grade pods around and under historic mines,” commented Mr McDermott. “We believe that an open pit project in a previously un-mined area may prove more successful because the reduced cost structure of open pit mining, as compared to underground mining, allows extraction to commence on the basis of lower costs and lower break-even gold grades. Such an approach at Tandarra could potentially enable the high grade gold to be recovered within the broader zones of gold mineralisation, without the challenges of developing deeper underground mines and navigating around old workings that are often poorly documented.”

“This is the beauty of drilling on virgin ground, targeting shallow reefs identified by modern geophysical techniques and confirmed by relatively inexpensive air core and RC drilling.”...

LionGold's eureka moment

Singapore group LionGold is making a play for the historic goldfields near the site of the Eureka Stockade rebellion. THE historic goldfields that gave rise to the Eureka Stockade could become part of a major international gold play, after a Singaporean group swooped on its second Australian junior in the space of six months.

Highly acquisitive Singaporean company LionGold Corp has vowed to create a global, mid-tier force in the gold sector, by collecting junior companies such as ASX-listed Castlemaine Goldfields.

LionGold yesterday offered two of its own shares for every nine Castlemaine shares, under a takeover bid that values Castlemaine at close to $55 million. The takeover bid complements a $4 million share placement deal, and means LionGold would take control of Castlemaine's suite of gold assets around the Victorian city of Ballarat.

Those assets include a struggling underground mine that runs directly beneath Sovereign Hill and within a kilometre of the site where the Eureka Stockade rebellion took place in 1854.

The bid for Castlemaine comes after LionGold recently took a controlling stake in ASX-listed Signature Metals, and LionGold chief operating officer Errol Smart said further acquisitions were likely. ''Who knows where the next one will be, it could be anywhere in the world, but we are acquisitive,'' he said. ''At the moment there seems to be an ability to move quicker on some of these Australian companies just because of where the market is at the moment.''

Mr Smart said Asian markets held a more optimistic view of gold at the moment, and his group wanted to fill the mid-tier gap below the major gold miners. ''Our view is that there are too many single-play resource companies out there without any diversification whatsoever, so we are not trying to create a conglomerate as such, but we are doing a consolidation play to become a significant mid-cap player,'' he said.

The Castlemaine share price has been in the doldrums since November, when poor rates of gold production forced the company to cut back mining barely six weeks after its relaunch.

Despite a lack of confidence from Australian investors, Mr Smart said he believed Castlemaine was trading at a big discount to its peers and could deliver on its promise to access the most prospective sections of the struggling mine. He said the business could be further de-risked by giving management more capital to develop its other assets around Ballarat.

The Castlemaine play is the latest in a series of ructions in the Victorian gold sector, with mines in Stawell, Fosterville and Bendigo all changing hands in the past six months.

Shares in Castlemaine Goldfields closed 3¢ higher at 15¢ last night, but the stock is still well below its August high of 59¢.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/liongold ... z1sFCkIxf6

NML and Castlemaine Goldfields Limited (ASX: CGT) are pleased to announce that they have agreed terms for two Farm‐in Agreements covering Castlemaine’s prospective Raydarra and Sebastian Gold Projects near Bendigo in Victoria. ....