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Could be the funniest joke of the year?

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barry_1
Super Contributor
Anglogold intends driling off the coast of New Zealand of all places in a hundres meters of water for GOLD!
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18 REPLIES 18
barry_1
Super Contributor
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Not applicable
Well it must be cheaper exploring the oceans depths than sending a team to the moon or mars....
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SimonPB
Valued Contributor
nah, my b-i-l has oil wells off the brazalian coast and in the north sea, huge costs .. and at least oil is under pressure so it self extracts .. and the other is diamonds, but they are on the surface of the ocean .. I am with barry on this one ..
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Wizard
Super Contributor
Drilling in the sea for gold..first time I hear of such thing. Logically it still has to probe the continental shelf!
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kwagga
Super Contributor
Almost as stupid as drilling 3km + below the service of the earth. In the bigger scheme of things 100m of water could offer fewer challenges than the first mentioned.
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jack12
Super Contributor
must be cheaper than going down 3000m massive heat and cooling plants etc.
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Not applicable
No one said they would sink a shaft in the ocean. They could approac from land if they know what direction to head and at what depth.
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Not applicable
merely doing the initial exploration is the least of their worries, and under da sea you got automatic aircon with the water dripping through the rocks creating a cooling tunnel....hmmmm now we start hitting the saftey problems with rockfalls (possible complete flooding).... eish I think Iwill stick to trading
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Wizard
Super Contributor
It's another EXO project in the making.u can still plot the graph and see what happened to them!!...and do scroll back to 2004!
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Not applicable
ugliest chart I seen in I dont know how long
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stores
Super Contributor
Jack you are right. Cleveland Potash mines its potash at shallow depths under the sea in NE England. I do not think that this is the funniest joke of the year. IMO there seems to be a misunderstanding in this forum about ANG (and also some of the other RSA gold companies). AngloGold mines about 40% of its gold in RSA with Rand exposure. The rest is mined offshore (excuse the pun) mostly via shallow open pits and mostly with dollar cost exposures.
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barry_1
Super Contributor
They are to drill about 80 boreholes.In exploration work its not uncommon to only have about 5% with results of any kind ,therefore expect the rest to be "dry boreholes" excuse the pun....Also why not drill off South America first ,there is a greater chance of success there as NZ is not known for its abundance of gold....The only one to really score is De Beers Marine as they have the contracts to supply the machines etc. The method to get any mineral out would be explosives to break up the rock.I hope that does not disturb marine life and eco systems too much....As Simon says it will be very expensive and some miners here estimate that the gold price would have to be in the region of R3000 to break even in such a venture....Talking of disturbing eco systems,there is still an abundance of most minerals in Antartica....Sooner or later they will have to let people mine there.
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Fredsed
Super Contributor
Don't those green-lipped mussels need gold in their diet, otherwise their lips will turn blue?
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Not applicable
Maybe funny and costly, but not impossible,remember Jules Verne?Anglo is already in joint venture off the Papua New Guinea coast exploring gold and copper deposits. Apparently the yield could be as high as 6gr gold per ton. The company have also been granted huge leases off the PNG coast.Anglo's sister company De Beers has been mining diamonds off the Namibian coast for years,using remotely operated vehicles.
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sasa
Regular Contributor
Barry, I am writing this from New Zealand where I am integrally involved in this project. There were some factual inaccuracies in the Reuters / Mining Weekly report. The targets are significantly shallower than 200m. Look at the history of gold mining along the west coast of South Island. Previous drilling in the sea in this area found gold with an extremely poor geological model - we are a lot more advanced than that project was. We have a sound environmental policy in place, as well as engagement with the local iwi (see www.seafieldresources.co.nz). There are several other targets lined up where concessions have been taken out and which will be explored over the next 3 years - there is a vast untapped resource. But yes, it has its challenges, and those are what we are also applying ourselves to.
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john_1
Super Contributor
Thanks SASA....it is always good to have some first hand info...keep us informed of the progress please... and if you hit jackpot..this is were we want to here it first...
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Not applicable
YIP, agreed. Good to get it from the source as opposed to the media angle. Tnx and like John says, remeber us.
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barry_1
Super Contributor
Thanks Sasa,great to have first hand knowledge,i should know as i live in a mining area as well....Do keep us informed,how ever ANG is i suppose the only mining company originally hailing from this neck of the woods that can undertake such a task.I am still uncertain that we are really running out of gold here and think it has just become too expensive to mine,which is the crux of the matter.Perhaps the other metals they hope to find will eventually make the effort worthwhile.
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