Novo: Email From a Reader

Erik,

You recently posted a quote from a 2017 article by Keith Barron on Novo. In looking at the original article the following jumped out at me (underline added by me):

There are tens of thousands of alluvial mines in operation around the world today.  Such deposits are very forgiving because the costs of extraction are so damned low!  It’s well known that in the California Tertiary placers worked by the ‘49ers only a mere handful of men struck it rich.  This is because the rich gold lies in pay streaks or leads, usually on the bedrock.  Years later when the dredges chomped through the alluvials, guts, feathers and all, there were monstrous fortunes made because they could employ economies of scale and cheap bulk mining to take the low grade as well as the remnants of high grade left.

Your recent articles on Egina have put hard math to what Keith was saying above. Yet many will still not get it until the day finally arrives where audited financials reveal what we intuitively get and was best described by Rob: (paraphrasing) margins trump grade any and every day of the week!

Given a choice between being an investor in a company swinging for the fences looking for a homerun paystreak or one set on being a profitable operator grinding out a profit month after month I’ll take the latter and never look back. The old timers with their dredges and claims to land with combinations of low and smaller bits of high grade were on to something, time proved them to be the sharpest players of their time.  I see Novo with sorters and claims on land vetted with GPR as the modern day equivalent. Its clear as day and yet it never ceases to amaze me how few get this unbelievably simple concept. To each their own.

Best Wishes