Six, eight, ....twelve??Looking at the new March 2010 Atna presentation, on slide 11, they speculate that gold production from the Briggs mine will total 6,000, 8,000, 12,000, and 11,000 ouncesquarterly production in 2010. For 2011, they forecast a bit of a production dip in Briggs, with roughly 8,000 ounces in quarterly production.
In 2011 they also speculate that over 20,000 ounces of gold will be produced from Reward in 2011. But the construction timeline for Reward is 15 months, starting in March 2010. Given the way things go at Atna, I don't see how they get 20,000 ounces from Reward in 2011. (I think less than 5,000 ounces, if any, production from Reward in 2011). So while they will be hiring more employees to build Reward, Briggs won't get 40,000 ounces produced in 2011. I am becoming increasingly skepitcal about any "producer re-rating" for Atna stock.
(Looking back at the Briggs mine, in the years 1998 thru 2001, they mined roughly 11 million tons and produced 85,000 ounces of gold annually with an employee headcount of 203 in 1998, 150 in 1999, 125 in 2000, and 131 in 2001. In 2009 they didn't even mine 5 million tons, containing about 25,000 ounces of gold, and the current headcount is129. I wasn't expecting the restart numbers to duplicate the "historic' numbers at Briggs, but so far it is very dissappointing. And now they need to hire 75-80 more employees for Reward. Again, the "producer re-rating" looks like a pipe dream to me. More management "rose colored glasses" baloney).