I did a little study a few weeks back on NGG as I've got a few shares, and on the downside I came up with the following; think I read some of this on SEDAR or somewhere:
through the winter and spring, excess rain meant the design of the leach pads didn't work well and had to be covered, then the pads had to be stirred up regularly to get the gold out of solution, and pictures of the site showed the tracks to be very muddy. In June 09 contractors removed C$2m worth of equipment from site and NGG is following this up through its lawyers. Sep 09, PNG has a new 'government' which intends to review mining laws, and will audit at least three mining firms inc anglo ashanti.
I've seen chnages in mining law devastate share prices of more than one investment of mine, so I'm quite wary of that. This happened big time in Equador recently.
On the positive side, gold could be 1moz to potential 5moz, which means $20 mcap per oz in ground or less, and production costs of c200/oz. plus the recent high grades.
NGG seems to have the production and finances under control, just need to up production. My big worry and risk is a new government (or greedy junta?) could take or destroy what industry there is, esp gold mines.
Any comments on this?
