RE:RE:RE:Share Price
It has never been in my contemplation, at least for the past 12 years, that the SP would rise high enough to tempt any sale into market except due to my own cash call needs.
I believe the price will be decided by our management, HCU/SSL, Mongolia, and of course Rio Tinto. Made the ETG hold kind of stress-free on the valuation side. But even then, with Rio's 16% not voting if they are the offeror, HCU and management only account for around half the remaining shares. Nobody knows where the rest of the paper lies - no major institutional blocks, what it looks like is over the years the paper has consolidated into long term retail holders. Most of us have an idea of additional value in the JV ground, especially HNE Lift 2.
We also have the extraordinary long accumulation and hold by management of all paper they have received. No insider sales for years. Not normal.
For all the shade that has been thrown on our management by disappointed and impatient shareholders, it is quite possible that the negotiating message to Rio Tinto has been no sale until we both have the benefit of additional drill data. We don't know what we have and we have a significant chain of deposits that suggest particularly there is something more going North and at depth, but also, as early as 2002, porphyry experts around the table were saying, with a large chain of such high grade porphyry emplacement fairly intact in place in the local country rocks, the possibilities and probabilities of shallower high grade precious metals deposits in a halo close around OT bears investigation.
The emplacement event was prolonged and high grades suggest above-average fluid pressures pushing mineralization. Immediately before the Earn-in was signed in 2004, ETG's consulting geologist had recommended an exploration target called the X-grid to the East of the main OT deposits, the target, a shallow gold showing from some early almost blind RC drilling. After the agreement the target was not followed up. Then IVN ran their Zeus survey all over the JV and RF was pumping the longevity and probability of a much greater resource indicated. Interesting that in ETG's last NR the Airport and Ulan Khud anomalous copper and gold drill results (not economic but mineralized showings) were tied back to the Zeus survey indicators and additional drilling was supposedly in the cards. One shallow deposit could mean a lot to ETG ... that bump from 20% deep to 30% shallow is a 50% lift in our interest, most interesting set-up.
Do you really want out before you know what we have? The long break from 2006 to 2022 with almost no drilling on the northern portion of the JV is really cramping our understanding now. All this time later and an offer would feel like Monty Hall asking if we wanted to keep the money ... or trade it for the huge box where Carol Merrill is standing. Let's Make a Deal! And Rio no doubt has some reluctance to sweeten an offer when they don't know exactly what they are getting either.
Picky, glad you decsided to hang around ... the next while will be interesting as there is definitely a reprice to a new level being pushed by buying pressure here. Looks like the $1.50 defences have fallen. No doubt given the thin trading there will be a push to retrace (the trading has felt "steered" for quite a while), but the last month's trend is great for longs ... long may it last.
Like you say, if gold and copper like the FED ringing the fire alarm and lowering rates, that'll be like shovelling some more coal under the boiler for commodities and we should see copper and gold loving it? Up we will go on that tide!?
Bull markets beat bear markets any day. It has been a long slog for the junior metals and the set-up for big money flows into the sector appears pretty good.
Just tell me when to grab my pile and run for my bunker! I don't want to suffer the financial equivalent of an exploding pager taking my nuts off.
cg