Greatland Gold (LON: GGP) (OTCPK: GRLGF) shares are up just shy of 2% - so, essentially unchanged given the spread - today on the release of an update on Havieron. Yes, that's yet another update on Havieron there. We get so much news about the gold project and yet so little seems to happen to the GGP share price. The reason for this being that while we do get that constant floor of news none of the news is really all that important. The information we actually desire is when are they going to start mining that pile of gold? The answer being that there's considerable time to pass yet before that decision is made. In fact, considerable work to be done before that decision can be made. Greatland and Havieron is thus an ongoing story.
The announcement itself:”"We continue to be very pleased with the ongoing progress of the Havieron development which has now surpassed a total of more than 2,400 metres.
Our most recent drilling affirms the impressive widths and high grade nature of the South East Crescent. Particularly encouraging is confirmation of continuous mineralisation through the link zone which connects the South East Crescent with the Eastern Breccia. The Havieron team is focused on incorporating these impressive results into an optimised Feasibility Study."”
Well, there's a lot more detail there but that contains the essence of the message we should be receiving. Which is that this is a marginal update on a marginal issue. Which is why there's no great change in that share price.
Greatland Gold share price from London Stock Exchange
The point to be made here is that we know that there's gold in them thar' hills. We're also aware that it's of the sort of quantity and richness that some sort of mining is likely to be actually worthwhile. What we're waiting for - and this news release is another little brick in that wall of information - is exactly how much gold is there, therefore what will be the size of the mining operation and how much capital has to be put into it? Those bricks then all lead to the wall of information that we call the definitive feasibility study.
That DFS is the thing which triggers both the decision to mine - and how - and also justifies the capital raise to do it. But that's the next big decision point. And that might be as much as a year away. It is possible that Greatland finds some vast further deposit at Havieron, sure it's possible. Unlikely, but possible. But absent something astonishing this just is the time when they're accumulating endless details which then go to make up that overall report which defines the mining decision.