Trade Wizard,

I have good news for you. The $150/oz at $650 gold doesn't come from a 1/4 of the price of the metal but from the average ALL in cost per ounce of gold, plus risk factors, and cost of capital. So what they are saying is that at $650 the most they were willing to pay was $150/oz so that they can pay off all those other costs and make a 'little' off the deal. I agree with you it has to be more then $140/oz now with gold being $910 but I think that even $200/oz is to low for the conservative floor valuation price.

Assuming that costs are not going up, and the the price of gold is, then we would be seeing $450/ounce valuations today. UNFORTUNATELY costs are going up (although Ecuador is recognized as a low cost environment) so $450/oz is a wild dream right now but the minimum will now be way over $200. It's just that we haven't had a real juicy takeover take over in the past couple of months to reset everyone’s numbers. As a result the analysts still throws around $150/oz valuations.

Except for the politics FDN has everything going for it you could ask for as a miner. High grades -- you have to move less rock to get a lot of gold and you can blend if you have to. High tonnage -- you get economies of scale not only in the mill but also when you mine making it cheaper per tonne to mine and process. Simple metallurgy -- good recoveries with well know technology. And, well ... everything else about it is pretty damn good as well.

Everyone in the industry knows that this will be a company maker and that they are just paying for the 'knows' and getting the potential (faulted zones, zones at depth, etc) for free. Whoever buys it will pay through the nose for it. It will get to where they are looking at not only what valuation they should be bidding but how much more than that they will have to pay to win.

In my first posting to this board I talked about how this will be like dropping a bleeding cow in a pool of piranhas. Once the first bid drops it will be a crazy ride until we have a winner. Just to add a little blood to the water I'll bet that ARU is continuously updating its resource estimate and its mining plan, and will release it after the first bid to drive the frenzy even more.

Nothing like holding the best available gold deposit in the world as everyone starts to realize that gold is going just starting to take off.

... Been There