Hi All, and good to see that RED remains in a TH, as I was concerned it might announce something relevant whilst I was out of contact, now I will be around from time to time over the next couple of days.
Wow, the thread has got a few more posters, and that is encouraging although I agree that we should be trying to keep RED as the main topic of the thread, after all this is our RED Club! (Lol!).
I have read all the previous posts, and related to ParleVousFrancais last question regarding geopolitical risk of the Philippines and RED, and how the market treats it. I will make some general and specific comments as it might help your understanding of how RED has evolved, as I have observed and understand it (you may disagree with me or not!):
I agree with Anderbond, that in the case of the Philippines, there has always been a concern about country risk, and that has resulted in a discount by the ASX market for most companies operating there, EXCEPT that some exploration companies have been able to use the perception of "elephant potential" for the country to market their particular projects - I do recall back about 12 years ago and prior to the debacle in Indonesia related to the Busang project, how many explorers, in particular Canadian but also some Australians, moved into Philippines in a big way, hoping to find the next Busang in the same sort of geological environment as Indonesia, but plagued by the administrative delays in the Phils in getting legitimate title (primarily as MPSA'a). Once Busang was uncovered as a scam the whole of the region was painted with the same brush, as a region to be beware of, and aided by the administrative delays in Phils and therefore with limited positive results from high exploration costs the market got a bad impression of Phils. Prior to that Indonesia had developed some respectability by some very significant exploration projects being turned into mines, such as Batu Hijau, Mt Muro, etc but in the case of Philippines nothing of significance was developed despite some very large resources being delineated, the biggest being Tampakan. (Separately the extremely large high grade epithermal gold of Diwalwal was being mined by co-operatives in an environmental disaster, but not by international miners, more by locals in such co-ops). And the small Lafayette disaster polymetallic project in Rapu Rapu didn't help matters for new miners in the country with its failure basically related to the environmental issues and small resources.
Come today, how things have changed, we have got MML now operating the old historic Co-o mine, after a merging with a small Australian group, and CGA eventually developed the Masbate project which had been pursued as a development on a smaller scale by an offshoot of a UK based group. Both of those projects have demonstrated that mining in Phils is very possible, despite the general hindrances that affect start ups related to title, and environmental issues, assumed related to PHils. Both those projects lie in areas with a mining mentality (similar to Siana) and provide RED shareholders with the same assurance that mining can occur once the approvals are received. In the meantime Didipio (now with Oceanic) was being looked at as a big gold/copper play but it has been a long hard road to production for that company, but getting closer to an end game on that project finally! it has been affected by the local community as part of the issue, unlike Co-o, and Siana.
AND now we have got RED, a small Perth based explorer which acquired the Siana MPSA back in about 2002 (not sure if the year is correct and I don't have the time to confirm that now), and has been through all sorts of dilemmas related to finally completing the feasibility study. It has been a long hard and rocky road, as while the project was previously a mining operation by Suricon in the late 80's, it had no resource to speak of at the time of RED acquiring it, but with the potential to develop into the JORC compliant resource/reserves we have today. BUT that timeframe for completing the technical studies was not delivered, as RED management early on promised much and under-delivered, time and time again, the most notable issues were the resources estimation of Siana, both the open pit resources, then subsequently the underground resources that were required as part of the Soc Gen financial offer made a few years ago. And the granting of MPSA title for Mapawa, oh how that became a promise never delivered. Then there was also the Anglo deal that promised much, esp whilst Boyongan exploration project was humming along up the road, but ended with nothing much to talk about at all - although it could become a considerable new gold porphyry development in time via Philex. All these past events have heavily affected the credibility of RED management to ever conclude all the issues and get a project ever into development.
That past history has been the primary reason for the huge discount of RED share price, not only geopolitical risk (but it had a hand in making things more difficult of course). It is the reason why RED has been much more severely discounted than MML - but even with MML early on you must realise that MML had its own problems, with its own project that was subject to litigation and only when MML took on the neighbouring Co-o project did it resurrect itself as well.
Now times have changed for the better, for RED now has a completed feasibility study, all the govt approvals as necessary to develop the project, from mining through to environmental, to community etc. That feasibility study, completed by industry competent professionals, highly regarded in the mining industy confirms that Siana is a very attractive mining project, with considerable economic value based on the US$800/oz optimisation study done earlier on, with cash costs around US$350/oz, for more than 850,000 ozs, plus some bonus silver. And now we are on the brink of getting the final financial package the provides the cash to unlock the gold!
Completely separate up the road, we now know that RED has got the goods in the LSY prospect to a potential gold-copper porphyry of significant grade and tonnage.
I suggest that with the production start up at Siana the whole profile of RED will change for the better, that will finally lay to rest once and for all the chequered past and develop the company as a respectable mid-tier gold mining company, based in the Philippines. And with a considerable swag of major insto's as shareholders.
Anderbonds comments about Sprott Asset Mgt are very interesting, with their prior involvement with MML - do you think they will assume to make a quick buck out of RED, or possibly pursue the chance for developing the next MML - I think the latter!
I'm excited about the future for RED, as a reasonably big shareholder (for a retail investor), enough to blow my trumpet long and hard, and Atomic I have no qualms getting on the RED thread lots of times when I'm able to, to blow loud and with complete conviction!
I also agree with Fatsohs analogy, re Kingsgate in Thailand, that RED has the potential to build itself intoa respectable Phils miner, and it has got MML and CGA to show the way!
What I do know, is that whatever price RED re-opens up on resumption, its not going to be a high as it will finally be once the insto's are ready to move it up! We are just invited to go along for the ride, if you decide to get off early, then at least you have experienced some of the action, but I really think you should think longer term to really take advantage of what the insto's will deliver us in due course! Thats my view anyway.