Santana Minerals Limited

Started by Basil, Jul 29, 2024, 11:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

BlackPeter

Quote from: Basil on Oct 06, 2024, 04:56 PMSantana made the cut for fast track approvals process.  Page 7 item 2 in the PDF included in this article.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/livestream-government-to-make-fast-track-approvals-announcement/EJ4QKFMPTRD3RGHT2ZBUF4Z5F4/

Will be interesting to see, whether the next government will honour these fast track approvals ... if they get approved by that time anyway.

According to Dr. Google:

QuoteGold mining is one of the most destructive industries in the world. It can displace communities, contaminate drinking water, hurt workers, and destroy pristine environments. It pollutes water and land with mercury and cyanide, endangering the health of people and ecosystems.

Clearly an activity highly suitable to a fast tracking process without sufficient investigation.

Interesting as well to see whether the company needs to stamp up a sufficiently sized bonds / securities - just in case something goes not to plan. Sh*t happens, and in gold mining it seems to happen particularly frequently.

Basil

#31
Since its made the initial cut, the process now is a panel of environmental and planning experts has about 6 months to approve or decline the application so if approved it will be well before any prospect of an unholy alliance between the Māori party, Greens and Labour get into office.

A good friend of mine designed the water treatment plant for the Waihi gold mine and told me recently that technology has improved a lot in the last few decades, and they can now treat the discharged water to a very good standard.  I think its an exciting project and will provide a substantial number of highly paid employment opportunities in Otago. 

Announced on Friday.  https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/439492/attachment/428931/439492-428931.pdf

BlackPeter

#32
Quote from: Basil on Oct 06, 2024, 06:22 PMSince its made the initial cut, the process now is a panel of environmental and planning experts has about 6 months to approve or decline the application so if approved it will be well before any prospect of an unholy alliance between the Māori party, Greens and Labour get into office.

A good friend of mine designed the water treatment plant for the Waihi gold mine and told me recently that technology has improved a lot in the last few decades, and they can now treat the discharged water to a very good standard.  I think its an exciting project and will provide a substantial number of highly paid employment opportunities in Otago. 

Announced on Friday.  https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/439492/attachment/428931/439492-428931.pdf

I share your views on the "unholy alliance" - its just, deciding between them and the current lot feels like the ancient shippers choice whether to sacrifice their crew to the sea monster Scylla or their ship to the sea monster Charybdis ...

But back to Santana: I am sure that your friend is correct that the technology has improved. It always does. So has the technology to keep nuclear plants safe, and accidents are still happening. The thing is - both humans and nature (Earthquakes, storms, floodings) tend to throw curve balls, and history shows that we are again and again "surprised" when the next earthquake or the next deluge is a bit stronger than "expected". Artificially reducing the checks by prioritizing commercial interest over safety and scrutiny is a recipe for disaster. It always was - and I remember a poster telling us that history is the best guide for the future.

Remember - Pike River Coal was as well "scrutinised" by a government deciding to throw out the Health and Safety Requirements for Mining and criminally under-resourcing Work safe inspections. Actually - a National /NZF government as well. Cheers to Bolger / Shipley and Winston First, and their respective parties have now another opportunity to further reduce our environmental and safety standards. Well, ask the people of Greymouth and the shareholders of PRC how well that went last time.

While I am sure the PRC shareholders enjoyed the opportunity to build their mine on the cheap, I doubt they enjoyed the total loss of their capital. Scylla and Charybdis?

Obviously - I know, that a coal mine and a gold mine have quite different risks, but if you have the same reckless government removing all safety stops, its not hard to predict the outcome. Only difference is - coalmines without proper oversight "just" kill the staff (as tragic as this was for anybody involved), while gold mines without proper oversight can make large landscapes uninhabitable and poison rivers and groundwater for generations. Choose your monster - I know which one I would prefer.

Basil

With all due respect BP, you're drawing a long bow comparing Pike river coal mining with gold mining and "rather conveniently" choose not to compare the proposed Santana project to other successful gold mines like Waihi that have been providing hugely beneficial economic gains and hundreds of high paying jobs for decades without any major environmental calamity.

Yes, I realize as a country we can continue to rely on agriculture, tourism and other safer environmental endeavors and that probably means we continue down the track of "enjoying" a much lower standard of living than Australians who take the approach, if there's valuable materials in the ground, lets dig them up.

Which is the right approach is something people have been debating for generations and won't be resolved on here so it's probably better we accept we have different viewpoints on this and leave it at that.

I note yesterday Santana's rise and shine mine got fast track approval and a share split 3:1 is proceeding later this month.
Fast track approval https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/439505/attachment/428958/439505-428958.pdf
Share Split https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/439521/attachment/428967/439521-428967.pdf

BlackPeter

Quote from: Basil on Oct 07, 2024, 10:52 AMWith all due respect BP, you're drawing a long bow comparing Pike river coal mining with gold mining and "rather conveniently" choose not to compare the proposed Santana project to other successful gold mines like Waihi that have been providing hugely beneficial economic gains and hundreds of high paying jobs for decades without any major environmental calamity.

Yes, I realize as a country we can continue to rely on agriculture, tourism and other safer environmental endeavors and that probably means we continue down the track of "enjoying" a much lower standard of living than Australians who take the approach, if there's valuable materials in the ground, lets dig them up.

Which is the right approach is something people have been debating for generations and won't be resolved on here so it's probably better we accept we have different viewpoints on this and leave it at that.

I note yesterday Santana's rise and shine mine got fast track approval and a share split 3:1 is proceeding later this month.
Fast track approval https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/439505/attachment/428958/439505-428958.pdf
Share Split https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/439521/attachment/428967/439521-428967.pdf

Look Basil, I fully understand the differences between coal and gold mining. What the two examples have in common is that PRC was approved under a government which allowed all sorts of short cuts re environmental standards as well as re health and safety - and it looks like history is repeating itself with Santana.

I realise that Waihi has been allowed to extend ... but whether the risks the environmentalists highlighted will eventuate is a question we only can answer in another generation or two.

Always dangerous, if you solely listen to one side of the story (the one which is paid for by the company); Have a look at the other side:

https://www.oursnotmines.nz/situation

And don't forget, that Waihi at least had to go through the full approval process - i.e. whatever happens, it will have been better vetted than Santana ever will. Santana on the fast track is clearly the hope for profits over environmental or health and safety considerations.

PRC did show us, how this can work out.



Basil

#35
Santana's rise and shine proposed mine is not on DOC land.
This is the opening statement from Santan's Chairman in their recently released annual report.
He seems quite adamant that the fast-track approval process will have the same standards as a normal RMA approval process, just with a more focused approach.  I guess you either believe him or you don't.  I think we can all take it as read, you are deeply skeptical BP

QuoteDear Shareholders
It is with great pleasure I present you the Company's Annual Report for the year ending June 30, 2024.
The year has been one significant progress for the Company. Of particular note has been the completion of a
scoping study on our Rise & Shine (RAS) discovery within our overall Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project. This returned
extremely solid commercial outcomes and justified a rapid push through feasibility studies and the seeking of
development approvals.
Our continued resource definition drilling at RAS aimed at upgrading the Resource Categorisation from
predominantly Inferred to Indicated delivered some great intercepts and with it a more refined and predictable
resource model to plan from.
Whilst we have been and continue to meticulously collate baseline data and assessments to ensure our project
does not have any materially adverse impacts on the environment, a surprise unveiling of a newly proposed
Fast Track Consenting Bill by the new Luxon Coalition Government was greatly welcomed. Whilst the proposed
Bill offers us no shortcuts and maintains the high standards of the original RMA approvals process, it does
potentially provide a faster and prescribed timeframe for permitting.

This proposed elimination of sovereign risk that investors, and financiers of all future significant projects were
facing in development projects in NZ is well received

BlackPeter

#36
Quote from: Basil on Oct 07, 2024, 11:42 AMSantana's rise and shine proposed mine is not on DOC land.
This is the opening statement from Santan's Chairman in their recently released annual report.
He seems quite adamant that the fast-track approval process will have the same standards as a normal RMA approval process, just with a more focused approach.  I guess you either believe him or you don't.  I think we can all take it as read, you are deeply skeptical BP


Absolutely - I am sceptical. And lets face it - he would say that, wouldn't he? Normally we are both deeply sceptical when company chairs or CEO's make noises and promises like that - aren't we? Sure, it helps, if they have a longstanding history of keeping their promises, but does the Santana chair?

I guess the difference is - this time you are a holder and I am not. I am sure we agree that sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong ... and predicting in advance which is which is impossible ... so, its just a risk with a potentially fatal outcome.

Hard to see why a government with a long history of putting individual profit both over environmental concerns (they did happily oversee decades of environmental deterioration in NZ) and workers health (PRC, various logging companies, agriculture) should behave this turn differently. But hey - I guess time will tell and given that I didn't like the other bunch either (but for quite different reasons) is it hard to decide which evil to pick. Individual decision whether people prefer to be eaten by Scylla or drowned by Charybdis.

Back to Santana (and ignoring the common good). I guess from an investors perspective who happens to live far enough from the mine are any environmental risks just another financial risk to contemplate (as lack of Health and Safety turned with Pike River into a financial risk with quite negative outcome). I know the land and that no DOC land is concerned, but I don't know what happens if they leak accidentally cyanides or similar nasties into groundwater finding their way e.g. into the neighbours (animal or human) water supplies. But I guess its just money, its just the health or the life of some animals and possibly humans - and some hundred (or thousand) sq km of land which may or may not be destroyed for generations to come, so - who cares?

BlackPeter

Actually - there is one more risk I forgot ... and which this press article reminded me off:

https://www.thepress.co.nz/business/350442353/controversial-central-otago-gold-mine-designated-fast-track-project

(might be paywalled)

The area houses a lot of our top South Island wineries. Just imagine something goes wrong in the mine and some of the chemical nasties required for mining leak into the water supply of the wine yards.

We might need to work on some really good advertisement campaigns:

Otagoes wine is good for your health - Yeah Right!

or what about:

Otago Pinot Noir - do you want some cyanide with that?

We even could sell mixed cases from different yards with one out of the six bottles polluted - Otago roulette!

Why would anybody want a proper environmental application process which can be challenged in court given that our administration always gets it right? Hold on, does it?

Basil

#38
Let's just forget about the 250 well paid jobs the region desperately needs, dozens of contracting and engineering firms that benefit by hundreds of millions and the positive multiplier effect on the economy from all those firms and those employees extra spending.  Far better for the environment they just keep grazing sheep on the farm such that the sheep farmer can't even afford to shear the sheep as it costs more to do so than the wool is worth.

I accept that mining of any kind has some risks, but it also has substantial economic benefits for the country.  My good friend I have known for a very long time tells me the risks with water discharge are very low and treatment standards now are very good, and I am happy to take his word for it.

I get it we see things from a very different perspective and we're not going to find common ground on this issue.



BlackPeter

Quote from: lorraina on Oct 07, 2024, 06:20 PMhttps://stockhead.cmail20.com/t/d-l-eudmjl-yupddjlly-q/

It appears the author falls to a certain hype related to the development of the gold price.

Just wondering based on which assumptions the business case for this mine works?

I had a look at the last roughly 60 years of gold price trend, and while it went overall up, there are decades of flat lining between peaks, and there have been as well substantial drops in gold price after each of the peaks.

I hope the business case still works in case the gold price falls by 50% or so after the current peak?

After the 1980 peak gold dropped by 62% until the 2001 bottom (i.e. two decades down). A long time to lick ones wounds.

After the August 2011 peak gold dropped by 44% to the Nov 2015 bottom.

If I look at the chart ... looks like a new peak is looming, doesn't it? At some stage people notice that they can't eat gold, and given that we reached already peak human, the number of people who want to buy it for status will start to drop as well.

You cannot view this attachment.


Basil

#41
https://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/436488/attachment/425096/436488-425096.pdf
Base Case US$1,650 per ounce.

Please read this sad article BP.  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fears-mill-closures-could-create-ghost-towns-in-the-central-north-island/PNKCQT4YVNETJDRHLZUS55DELQ/
Of course, it goes without saying it's the exact opposite when a new employer creates 250 new jobs + all the contractor and engineering work.

BlackPeter

Quote from: Basil on Oct 08, 2024, 11:13 AMhttps://api.nzx.com/public/announcement/436488/attachment/425096/436488-425096.pdf
Base Case US$1,650 per ounce.

Please read this sad article BP.  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fears-mill-closures-could-create-ghost-towns-in-the-central-north-island/PNKCQT4YVNETJDRHLZUS55DELQ/
Of course, it goes without saying it's the exact opposite when a new employer creates 250 new jobs + all the contractor and engineering work.

Look - I am not principally against mining of essential minerals (which we all need for our modern life), and neither against gold mining (despite the latter hardly improving our lives ...). I am however for a thorough assessments of the risks and benefits of mining activities, given that they can cause terrible damage to the environment (and there are ample of examples for mining destroying livelihoods around).

The fast track process Santana hopes to use is unproven and clearly reduces the necessary scrutiny for such a venture. Greed over environment. Our kids and grandchildren are likely to pay the bill for this folly.

Did you ever consider how many Central Otago wine yards could be killed off if Santana's tailings start to leak? I am sure this would kill off tens of quite profitable companies and more than the 250 jobs you claim Santana might create.

Always important to look at both sides of the coin.

Not saying it will happen, but I consider it reckless to just point to potential benefits without properly considering the risks. And what's worse - the potential benefits are all for the owners of Santana, while the potential risks are mainly carried by the neighbours and the environment. What's the benefit for a neighbouring wine yard or sheep farmer who carries the risk of ground water pollution through the mine? How are they reimbursed for taking this risk? Quite unhealthy balance and not good to see our government trying to avoid any scrutiny of these risks but rushing to approval. She'll be right? She rarely is ...


Basil

#43
Apart from a little bit of subsidence with Waihi, (which the company reimbursed owners for), there have been no effects on the environment that I am aware of from the Waihi mine which has been in operation using cyanide and other chemical extraction techniques since 1988.
https://www.waihigold.co.nz/environment/environmental-management/cyanide-and-acid-drainage/cyanide/
We need gold mines so you and billions of others can buy jewelry.  Yes there is some small risk that is ameliorated carefully with carefully designed water treatment systems and tailings ponds.

Okay its Friday so indulge me in some flippant comments please.
Shall we ban all cars because it's been proven beyond any doubt that just in a tiny country like N.Z., hundreds of people die every year, and thousands are injured?  Shall we ban oil and gas drilling because of its risks to the environment. Oh wait, the previous numpties in power did exactly that and now we are running out of gas.  Shall we ban growing sheep or cattle on that farm because of nitrogen run-off?
I know,... this is ultra safe for the environment. Maybe we could all go back to making baskets out of flax and collect the dole, how would that work out for the economy ?

Isn't the saying an apple a day keeps the doctor away...but wait, apple seeds contain cyanide so my goodness, how come we are still alive ?   
My dog likes the apple cores so I give him what's left of my apple after I have eaten the good bit each morning and he eats it seeds and all, how come he's still alive and wagging his tail happily ? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/20/fact-check-apple-seeds-have-cyanide-but-not-enough-kill/3359754001/
I am sure the integrity of the design of the tailing's ponds will come under really rigorous review.

 

BlackPeter

Quote from: Basil on Oct 11, 2024, 06:53 PMApart from a little bit of subsidence with Waihi, (which the company reimbursed owners for), there have been no effects on the environment that I am aware of from the Waihi mine which has been in operation using cyanide and other chemical extraction techniques since 1988.
https://www.waihigold.co.nz/environment/environmental-management/cyanide-and-acid-drainage/cyanide/
We need gold mines so you and billions of others can buy jewelry.  Yes there is some small risk that is ameliorated carefully with carefully designed water treatment systems and tailings ponds.

Okay its Friday so indulge me in some flippant comments please.
Shall we ban all cars because it's been proven beyond any doubt that just in a tiny country like N.Z., hundreds of people die every year, and thousands are injured?  Shall we ban oil and gas drilling because of its risks to the environment. Oh wait, the previous numpties in power did exactly that and now we are running out of gas.  Shall we ban growing sheep or cattle on that farm because of nitrogen run-off?
I know,... this is ultra safe for the environment. Maybe we could all go back to making baskets out of flax and collect the dole, how would that work out for the economy ?

Isn't the saying an apple a day keeps the doctor away...but wait, apple seeds contain cyanide so my goodness, how come we are still alive ?   
My dog likes the apple cores so I give him what's left of my apple after I have eaten the good bit each morning and he eats it seeds and all, how come he's still alive and wagging his tail happily ? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/20/fact-check-apple-seeds-have-cyanide-but-not-enough-kill/3359754001/
I am sure the integrity of the design of the tailing's ponds will come under really rigorous review.

 

Look Basil, you seem to invest a lot of time and words into misrepresenting my position and then leading your version of it to absurdum. Not an unusual method to quieten the other side, but not very constructive either.

Just for the record:
- I do accept and understand that mining is an essential activity to support our modern lifestyle.
- While gold mining is less essential than mining for many other minerals, I do see some benefits (like $$$ and jobs) coming even out of this activity, but there are as well significant risks which easily could (if not appropriately managed) weigh heavier than the benefits.
- Pointing to one other gold mining activity (Waihi) which by the way did go through a full consenting process (no fast track) and using this as evidence that nothing bad will happen if Santana gets fast tracked is quite below your usual argumentation standard. Its like saying: People are drink driving all the time and I know a pal who didn't had an accident despite driving under the influence, which clearly is evidence that drink driving is a safe activity.

So - I am not in principal opposed to another gold mine in New Zealand (or in Central Otago). I am however opposed to putting dangerous and not even essential activities on a fast track process to consent. Dangerous activities deserve full scrutiny - this is what I am saying and what I think we own our children.

Happy to continue the discussion, but please don't misrepresent my position again.