  | |
| |
 |
|
| ||
|
Great Basin a beckoning oasis Posted: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 [miningmx.com] -- IN a world where there's currently little value to be had for the investor, a company such as Great Basin Gold is a bit of a money oasis. What qualifies Great Basin in that regard is that gold is the metal of the moment, largely owing to its inflation-beating prospects and because tangible wealth is a darn sight better than paper (equities) wealth. The other good thing about Great Basin is that it's backed by Hunter Dickinson, the Canadian developer which brought Anooraq Resources to the JSE to some acclaim. It's solid and savvy and recognises in Great Basin a huge opportunity to develop South Africa's first new gold mine in a long time. At a time when gold mining shafts are being closed (Gold Fields) or liquidated (Pamodzi Gold) having solid assets is something to be treasured. The opportunity in Great Basin is its Burnstone mining development that (once owned by Gencor) is only 80km south-east of Johannesburg. But it also has offshore assets in Nevada's Carlin Trend. That's useful should Burnstone run into any trouble. Finally, management is key. Great Basin is headed by Ferdi Dippenaar, who is proving himself an able chief after serving for so long as midshipman to Bernard Swanepoel at Harmony Gold. As if you needed more proof, the company recently raised C$130m (R1bn) through the issue of 100m units at C$1,30 (R10) each. Including an over-allotment, the total capital raised came to C$149,5m (R1,16bn). Not bad in an economic crisis. OPPORTUNITIES * The current gold price has never been as high and newly mined gold supply is falling fast. RISKS * If Burnstone is such a good gold mine why wasn't it developed? Can management walk the talk?
| ||||
0% 
