Ja its Techies vs fundementals..."Looking ahead The strength of the Rand continues to impact on revenues, the performance of the US$ gold price notwithstanding. I have said previously, and I remain of the view, that businesses should in the medium term be able to perform sustainably at a gold price of R250 000/kg.With the increases proposed by Eskom, of 45% per year for the next three years, electricity as a percentage of total costs will increase from around 19% to just over 30% by 2012. This means that margins will remain under pressure until we see further increases in the gold price. Our assets, and our strategic direction of greater exposure to surface assets are starting to demonstrate greater resilience against the risks that have become typical of deep-level mining in South Africa namely: volume and grade volatility, labour efficiency and costs, especially electricity costs. In times like these, for assets where the exposure to these risks is higher, the appropriate countermeasure remains reducing fixed overhead costs.This must be coupled with optimising the efficiencies of those assets with less exposure. Reducing Blyvoor's fixed overhead costs further through the current restructuring consultations and optimising ErgoGold to steady state will accordingly remain our near-term focus. Niël Pretorius Chief Executive Officer 22 October 2009"