News

September 05, 2008

Day Two, And The Africa Downunder Conference Crawls To A Close

By Our Man in Oz

Dreary as they can be, there is a universal method for measuring the success, or otherwise, of mining conferences. It’s simple: how did the after-party go. On that score, it’s pleasing to report that new-found African and Australian friends partied strongly in Perth last night. Nothing too outrageous, at least nothing that Minesite’s Man in Oz saw, but four hours after the event officially closed its first day there were still at least 100 hard core revellers enjoying each other’s company in the Sheraton Hotel’s exhibition area. That’s the good news from Africa Downunder, the world’s second biggest mining and investment conference on Africa, held in Australia.

The bad news is that not much was said from the podium today that grabbed the ear of the audience. Most of the big guns were fired off yesterday. The pick of presentations on day two came from Resolute Mining, which reported a continued increase in gold production and an annual target of 450,000 ounces in sight. Also coming out strongly was Albidon, which reassured investors that it has been able to protect its revenue line through a strong hedging position, though the fact that a miner is...