RE:RE:RE:financial results We agree Charni.
It has always been interesting to that bhuddist populations are so vulnerable to exploitation by autocratic leadership. Cambodia is the saddest example in the modern era?
In Mongolia I can't help but think the experience of Stalinist Soviet politics still has a grip on some part of people's thinking - the reluctance or inability to fully understand market economy vs planned budgets, the "grab what you can" mindset. The damage done to attracting foreign capital has been pretty bad in my estimation - OT was the poster child for opening up the mining business (which has incredible potential), and the earlier examples of nation-building in Canada, Australia, Chile, South Africa based in large part on mining are not all bad.
It's been frustrating to watch, but hopefully this consolidation of MPP power has put an end to some of the worst of the posturing and games. The messages out of UB in the past few months since the Presidential election have at least been on script and not self-contradictory or outright crazy.
My own suspicion is an agreement sufficient to initiate the undercut is quite close. Both parties are tight lipped and that probably means they realize there is a delicate final stage negotiation occurring. Mongolia has to make some commitments on power supply, Rio has a cushion on the management fees and financing that were perversely structured to reward cost overruns.
But the analysts, the market, very few people have followed this story closely enough or long enough to understand that it was a roaring exploration play that was shut down mid-stride by political considerations. The bar is set high on additional discoveries for two reasons - one, water supply constraint likely limits expansion of production, although mill production still has some expansion room, and two, to upvalue the project as a whole you either have to find higher grades, or cheaper ore to mine, to cut into the production schedule in the nearer term. Huge tonnage to be mined in 100 years won't so current equity holders much good if it can't be accellerated to production.
in ETG's last technical report it's interesting the consultants who had been speaking with OTLLC a about the JV lands, proposed two modest exploration programs - the first some shallow RC a drilling on a small number of targets to the South around Heruga - ie. looking to see if there are near-surface porphyry deposits that would be open-pitiable. The second is answering the question of the extent of the very valuable highest grades at HNE and whether they extend further North, perhaps doubling the strike length by another 700m or so ... which would make Lift 2 Underground a much bigger deal, and it would contribute significant NPV additions to TRQ and ETG for sure. As would a higher grade shallow discovery in the priority targets - they mentioned West Mag but recommend drilling exploratory shallow [500m) holes into Castle Rock, Bumbat Ulaan and the Southeast IP.
In addition, to try and resolve the long-standing exclusion of ETG from the IA framework, ETG has also offered up its Shivee West 100% landholdings that have numerous targets as well, to drop into the JV framework. The exploration there halted in 2011 ... and there are targets which would make prominent and promising explorations plays on their own out there, especially with regard to higher grade gold targets.
It's a long story. The public has no patience. In the meantime, some marijuana stocks, some Tesla or Apple, maybe some crypto ... in 20/20 hindsight I could parlay the money I have had tied up in plodding Mongolia about 1000X if I had been looking elsewhere for hot money.
cg