more from AGM1.Comparison between last year's AGM and this year's:
Carats 344 4049
Grade 7 14.5 cpht
Cash $7m $141 m
Largest Stone 3.5 ct 19.7 ct
Share price $1.30 $5.00
2.Steinmetz and Newmont are being called 'strategic parnters' which are investors, not 'partners' per se.
3. Overall grade of both LJF and EJF now stands at 15.8 cpht. 240 million tons EJF.
4. Coated diamonds: They have a battleship grey colour to them and are rough in texture. Some of these you can knock off the coating and get to a gem-quality stone underneath, some you can't. They do not have a good market value when found. Diavic has alot of these, Shore has none (or rare).
5. Outlook in diamond market is very good: the supply side is flat while demand is skyrocketing.
6. Shore now has 1288 diamonds > 0.5 carats, 70% are white. George's comment: the size distribution of the star is 'stunningly' good!
7. All exploration holes, except one, have intersected kimberlite. That hole was far to the south, by the SK river. Prefeasibility drill plan includes 100 m spacing in the vicinity of the shaft, and expanding to 200 m further east. The delineation drilling (both core and LDD) will extend out to Body 137, where George says the Pense feeder exists. He says the Pense feeder has the potential of having a very good grade of diamonds - he seemed quite excited about this older-aged kimberlite. There is also some suggestion that the grade increases in the Star kimberlite the deeper down the feeder you go.
8. 30 months is a conservative figure to get through pre-feasibility. Their working capital will take them through to the end of prefeasibility, and he said they are probably fully funded for feasibility as well.
9. Steinmetz saw, early on, tell-tale signs that the Star has a wonderful population of diamonds. The value of a diamond deposit lies in the large diamonds. At Diavik, 70% of value comes from the top 15% of large stones.
10. When asked about Shore's future intentions regarding selling out or going into production themselves Ken said, "I believe I speak for the entire board when I say that we would dearly love to see Shore Gold go into production. Huge profits are made (better than a good oil well) from a diamond mine. Shore has a large mining company on one side of them (Newmont) and a down-line marketing company on the other side (Steinmetz), and they are sitting in the middle with 100% marketing rights and no JV partner."
11. When asked about Newmont increasing their position from 9.9% to, say, 20 or 30%, Ken said, "It would be a logical assumption that Newmont will increase its holdings." A well-respected Newmont employee (Crocky - can you remember more about who this was?) and a group of others, also from Newmont, visited the site recently, and there was the suggestion that Newmont is very interested in getting into diamond mining.