Well hello again. Happy Not-So-New Year.
We took a little Food Party! break after holidays to regroup and clean out. I like the Dry January idea, but didn’t hear about it till month’s end. It’s always good to change up ones eating and drinking habits – makes us appreciate, and be more aware of, what we usually just stuff into our body. Weekly, I celebrate Dry Monday and Tuesday among others, but with a Hawaii trip coming in a few weeks, my new two-piece swimmer will look a whole lot better with a few drinks left behind if you know what I mean. So Dry February it is.
Let’s start off Food Party! 2019 with your annual New Year reminder to please remove the little stickers off your produce, before transferring peels, skins and other fruit and vegetable discards to the compost. Turns out those innocent-looking squares and circles continue to muck up municipal compost systems, and until one of your smarty-pants chick-a-dees invent a bio-compostable version for their 8th grade science project, we are all required to keep them out of the food waste system.
The soil microbioto thank you.
Also, I want to invite you to join the new year of Edible Education, a public lecture series and for-credit class, offered at UC Berkeley, bringing thought-leaders together for a semester of classes on food system awareness. The 2019 theme is Take Action - let's transform the food system to one that is healthy, sustainable and just. Quite a good showing of speakers are in cue, including course inspiration Michael Pollen, who returns to teach one evening. Classes can be watched online, and even in person, on campus.
Week One brought Stone Barn Farm Director Jack Algiere to town from New York, speaking on A Call for Food System's Transformation. Jack is a deep thinker who speaks poetically about the connection between humans, animals and the land. "The thing we are trying to sustain is a life worth living."
Last week, on the heels of a recently published report about the connections between obesity, nutrition, and Climate Change, Urvashi Rangan PhD, demystified the food system's complicated and often opaque regulatory structure with The Power of Transparency.
See you online. Here’s to a new year of fabulous Food Parties!
It is not fair to pass this task off on the public. Those little sticky things are hard to remove and they are on every single piece of fruit. How about a little responsibility on the sellers. Ban the stickers like plastic bags and straws. There should also be a ban on single use plastic. It is hard enough being a conscientious recycler when so many people and companies do not do anything but make a profit.
I am getting tired of doing the right thing.
You Go Member! I agree. Can you believe that we chose material that never biodegrades to create single use items? What idiot thought of that?
Agreed, those produce stickers are maddening! It seems perverse that they are so durable and non-compostable, given that they come attached to perishable foods, often consumed in days.
They can be a further problem on thin-skinned produce like tomatoes, pears, peaches. Once the fruit is fully ripe its skin becomes very soft and fragile, and then you can't remove the sticker without tearing the fruit skin. There must be a better way to get the info to the cash-register clerk!
The produce stickers are plasticized to withstand moisture; grocers frequently spray produce with water to extend the appearance of freshness.
An alternative is to buy as much produce as possible at your local farmers market. In addition to avoiding produce stickers you are also supporting local farmers.
With certain exceptions like tropical fruit, the local farmers markets have a wide variety of produce.


Earlier this year driving back on Adams Boulevard after dim sum, we started to notice the signs. They were placed on nearly every corner from Stanford Avenue to Grand Avenue, usually painted fireman's coat yellow. They all highlighted two dishes, barbacoa and consomé -- braised meat and stock of lamb --and underneath those words, an arrow.
As mysterious as those arrows seemed, nothing quite prepared us for where they would lead. The taco truck was expected, but to find ourselves suddenly in a backyard staring down at a pot of consomé (not to be confused with the French consommé), bubbling like a dark oily potion, was a real test of our desire to try Mexico's answer to haggis, pancita. We also ended up a restaurant we've driven past hundreds of times and always ignored. Two yards away from an unmarked storefront, a young man scuttled up behind us carrying the sandwich board we were following and apologetically said, Ya se termino, "we are all out," and closed the door. It was only 2 p.m.
Nearly all the locations we visited along this stretch of Adams Boulevard proudly touted that their barbacoa was in the style of Capulhuac (pronouced "Cap-ol-Hu-ah.") Ricardo Garduño, the owner and cook of the taco truck, Lonchera Candy, is from this small town in the capital state of Mexico. "[In Capulhuac,] many families have dedicated themselves to making barbacoa," Garduño said. And being only about 36 miles from Mexico City, most of the barbacoa prepared in Capulhuac ends up at stands and restaurants throughout the capital city which is where Capulhuac's reputation as the barbacoa de borrego capital of Mexico has spread.
The families of Capulhuac all have their recipes for making barbacoa, which are then passed down, Garduño told us. Which is exactly what we discovered when going to location to location. What we tasted were all different in terms of spicing and even the cuts of lamb used. On our most recent visit to the area, we decided to get barbacoa and consomé from the house on Adams Boulevard near San Pedro Street, Lonchera Candy and the restaurant Taqueria D.F. to go, and try them side by side to decide which indeed was the best.
First we tried the consomé, the essence of barbacoa. Traditionally barbacoa is prepared in an oven carved out of the earth. Charcoal is lit on the bottom and a big pot, called a cazo, full of water, aromatics and spices is placed on top of the coals. Then sections of lamb are placed above cazo and the whole oven is sealed using the huge leaves of the maguey plant. As the lamb cooks, the drippings are captured by the cazo and the liquid that remains serves as the base of the consomé. Once prepared, rice and garbanzo beans are added to the consomé and it is served along side the tacos de barbacoa. A squeeze of lime, a sprinkling of cilantro and a bit of crumbled chile piquin added to the bowl, it becomes very apparent why consomé and barbacoa are considered morning foods, combined they wake up more than just the taste buds.
Despite the dark pot, the consomé at the Adams house was remarkably milky and almost delicate in its consistency. However the flavor was of pure lamb, so much so that it needed to be tamed by condiments more than the others. At Lonchera Candy, Garduño omits the rice and garbanzos as if he expects you to start sipping from the cup as you walk away with your order. Nevertheless, it is substantial and the taste complex, almost vegetal and bright on its own. Our favorite however was from Taqueria D.F.. It was the most balanced with whispers of roasted garlic and oregano. It tasted the most like a complete soup and we ate it without even thinking about the tacos.
Among the three locations, only Taqueria D.F. makes its own tortillas, so we bought just the meat and made fresh tacos at home. Taqueria D.F.'s barbacoa is a mixture of cuts, served in a minced taquero style. At the restaurant, with their fresh made tortilla, it made for one of the most tender tacos we've ever tasted. But for all that tenderness, we missed meaty texture and flavor of lamb. At the Adams house, the barbacoa is glossy trendrils of shredded loin. It was lean, yet deeply flavorful. Neverthless, it needed a good the dousing of salsa to bridge the flavors of toasty tortilla and grassy meat. Far and away, our favorite barbacoa was from Lonchera Candy because it was made up of mostly meat from from the head. Lamb cabeza is like meaty gossamer. It almost melts with the first chew, but retains the rich flavor of lamb.
By the end of our tasting, we were ready to run out and buy some more, however, it was already past 3 p.m. and all locations would have been closed by then. Even Taqueria D.F. are weekend-only operations. We had to wait another seven days to look for more arrows.
Lonchera Candy: Located on Main inbetween 23rd Street and Adams Boulevard open Saturday thru Sunday 7 a.m to 3 p.m.


A 30-year-old man remains in a critical condition after being kicked off his bike by another cyclist and crashing into a car.
The victim was cycling on Wallis Road, Hackney Wick, east London, at about 12.45pm on 10 March when another man caught him up and began to ride alongside him.
Scotland Yard said his attacker then kicked the victim off his bike before cycling away in the direction of Berkshire Road. The victim was taken by ambulance to an east London hospital.
The motive for the attack is not known, according to the police, who released CCTV images of the incident on Monday.
The suspect is described as a white male in his 20s or 30s. Police also want to hear from anyone who may have been threatened or assaulted by him in and around Hackney.
Officers are asking anyone who saw the incident to call Central East CID via 101 quoting CAD reference 3718/10MAR19.


Nearly 80pc of indigenous IT companies in Ireland plan to hire staff over the next three months but sourcing talent is still challenging 51pc of businesses, a new survey suggests.
The ISA Digital Technology Index (DTI) has probed the health and economic sentiment of Irish IT companies and also found that levels of confidence are up, with 63pc of respondents saying they are more confident about their business now, compared to three months ago.
Seventy-two per cent of survey respondents, in fact, expect revenues from international sales to increase over the coming year, and 27pc said they expect that increase to be substantial.
Eighty-five per cent of survey participants indicated that they see overall revenues increasing as a result of increased international business, as Irish IT companies continue to scale globally.
The DTI has been developed and managed by the Irish Software Association (ISA), in partnership with Tenego Partnering. The index involved a survey of 728 Irish CEOs and founders.
The ISA’s chair, Edel Creely, who is also managing director of Trilogy Technologies, said the DTI confirms that the indigenous IT sector in Ireland is flourishing.
“Between multinationals and Irish companies, the IT sector is generating more jobs than there are skilled Irish people to fill them,” Creely said.
To address this issue and build a strong indigenous export-led IT sector, Creely said Ireland needs to drive more graduates into IT-related college programmes, and adapt the education system as a whole, so it is responsive to the demands of the IT sector.
The DTI will track the health and economic sentiment among IT companies in Ireland’s indigenous software and digital sector each quarter.


BTG earnings call for the period ending December 31, 2018.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the B2Gold Corp.'s fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 financial results conference call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Clive Johnson, president and CEO. You may proceed, Mr.
Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining us to talk about the year-end result for 2018 and the fourth quarter. We had a tremendous year in 2018 and a little disappointing today to see some of the comments and focus on the fourth quarter.
We did extremely well around the year, and indeed, very well for three quarters. So the fourth quarter probably shouldn't have been a complete surprise perhaps, maybe we have to do things like update models every once in a while to get accuracy. At the end of the day, let's talk about the positives. We will talk about the fourth quarter as well.
But in terms of looking at, well, 2019 here, we've got a great couple of months here to start '19 in terms of performance, but also in terms of marketing. I'm talking to a lot of our shareholders at Indaba, BMO and PDAC. And I think we had a tremendous board of directors meeting yesterday where I can say that a lot of our shareholders are very happy with the performance of the company in 2018, and as is our board of directors. They seem able to see the forest, not just one tree.
So when you look at '18 and see what we actually accomplished in that year, it was really quite transformative and a remarkable year. And I guess, it's worth reminding people, when we use words like miss in analyst headlines, that triggers arguments, which is a disservice to both your clients, the company and the shareholders. So in 2018, a few of the things we did was increase our gold production by 51% to 950,000 ounces. We've almost doubled revenue -- did double revenue to $1.2 billion in 2018, and we almost tripled our cash from operations from $155 million in 2017 to $450 million in 2018.
We also repaid $220 million of debt, bringing our debt down to $480 million, which gives us one of the lowest debt-to-EBITDA ratios in the mining space. But we also -- because we continued to drill Fekola while we're building it, which is a bit unusual in our space, we were able to come up with a new resource in October that dramatically increased the size of the Fekola resource to 5.7 million ounces of indicated and 1.3 million ounces of inferred open, and that's still growing. We'll talk about 2019 in a little bit. Because of the way we fast tracked in this year, we were able to also complete an internal initial Fekola expansion study by the end of the year, which we are now optimizing and will release by the end of this month.
And it looks like it has very robust economics and pretty much a no-brainer that we'll grow ahead and expand Fekola, so we'll be talking about that. So overall, we had a tremendous year, and it was nice to see it starting to get reflected in the marketplace a bit in the fourth quarter and then to the first quarter as we outperformed the gold index and many of our competitors. So I think I'll leave it there. I'm going to pass it on to Mike to give you a little more detail on some of the financial summary numbers.
He will talk about the fourth quarter and also the year. And then we're going to talk a little bit about operations, and also, we'll talk about what we're doing in 2019 and our strategy dealing with that. Mike?
Thanks, Clive. So I'm going to take a walk through, I guess, the quarterly and year-to-date statements that are attached to the back of the press release. So firstly, just touching revenues for the fourth quarter. $272 million, almost $100 million higher than prior-year quarter, and of course, that is mainly due to having Fekola on and running full steam with commercial production for a full quarter in Q4 2018.
It came online -- as you'll recall, commercial production started December last year. On the production side, very close to budget consolidated basis, 232,000 ounces against the budget of 237,000. It's really the same story that we saw in the first three quarters. Fekola continued to bring its 105,000 ounces against the budget of our 91,000.
And Fekola continues to have higher throughput, I think Bill can to that a little bit later on. Higher recoveries, 94% against the budgeted under 93%, and slightly lower grade. Because we have higher throughput going through the mill, we were sourcing some of that extra material over budget from lower-grade stockpiles. So that's why we get slightly lower grade overall.
But in total, Fekola just continued to outperform. Otjikoto, 45,000 ounces, almost on budget of 47,000. Masbate, 52,000 ounces. That's 6,000 ounces higher than budget.
And even though we mined out Colorado vein at the end of Q3, we have some material in stockpile there and we continue to see the benefit of that, just more work than we originally anticipated and more oxide content, which improved our recoveries there. Offsetting those positives were -- Libertad and Limon continued to underperform in the fourth quarter. Libertad, the main reason in Q4 is that we didn't get into the Jabali Antenna open pit area as we budgeted. We have been chasing that permit for a while and pleased to say that we have made some very positive developments there.
We've been up to public consultation now, and that process has completed, and now we're confident that we'll see the permit for Jabali Antenna being granted at a time for us to bring it into the mine plan for the second half of 2019, which is what we budgeted. And Limon, Limon is 12,000 ounces against a budget of 15,000, so 3,000 under. And Limon continued to be impacted, just a knock-on effect from some of those blockades that were in the country earlier in the year. The impact of some of the supplies and getting the permits impacted Limon's production, as I pointed, in Q4.
But by the end of the quarter, Limon was up and running as we anticipated. So it's come sort of back to steady state. And again, I think Bill Lytle can talk a little bit more about the impact of Limon Central on '19 and beyond as we look forward. So if you take that and you translate it into cash costs, the consolidated cash costs for the quarter were $523, just a little bit back around budget of $519 per ounce.
And same outperformance with Fekola, $386 an ounce, almost $30 lower than budget, again, just due to that higher production in the period. Otjikoto, $471 an ounce, which is a little above budget, and that's mainly due to higher-than-budgeted fuel and explosive and tire costs in Q4. Overall, when we talk about Otjikoto, for the year, you'll see that we were right on track in terms of our guidance there, but slightly higher in Q4. Then Masbate, $594 an ounce.
That was almost $50 lower than budget, and it just continues to benefit from that higher production. And it has higher production with the operating costs, which were pretty much flat compared to budget, so the benefit of that is lower cost per ounce. Libertad and Limon were both over budget, and that's a function of them underperforming on the production side for the period. Then on the all-in sustaining cost side, consolidated for the period, it was $814 against the budget of $752.
And I think you're going to remember there that we were under we were pretty much on budget, sorry, on consolidated basis for operating cash costs, and the remainder of that difference really is timing and capex. Some of the capex that we had incurred earlier in the year, we incurred in Q4. And so when that all rolled through, we were slightly over budget for the quarter. But again, I'll talk to the year.
Performance for the annual fee, we actually beat our all-in sustaining cost guidance. So that's the ops for the quarter. Just walking through statement of operations to highlight a few other things. G&A costs for the quarter were about $2 million -- or $2.5 million higher than last year, and that's mainly salaries.
Just higher staff costs across the organization, a little bit of bonus, and then just some additional bodies through the whole organization, especially with Fekola now being online fully for the full year. We did have an impairment loss of $34 million, a charge that we took in the quarter, that relates to Nicaragua in Libertad. We did take a smaller impairment earlier in the year for Libertad. And with the -- once we completed the budgets for the year end and also we're able to assess the impact of that delay in getting into Jabali Antenna, we pulled that through a new mine plan and we took a further impairment of $34 million.
We got just under $9 million as well for some write-offs of some exploration properties that related to both Nicaragua and Namibia. Further down the income statement, just talk a little bit about realized gains and losses on derivatives. So we have realized gains of just over $1 million, and that's fuel gains of $3 million realized for the quarter, offset by some Namibian gold forward losses of $2 million. And those Namibian gold forwards have all been delivered into now, so we won't be seeing those again.
They related to an older version of our revolving credit facility. On the unrealized losses, we have $13 million, and that is mainly on the outstanding fuel contracts. Now that's really just a reversal of previous gains that we've booked. Those fuel contracts are pretty flat overall.
And the current mark-to-market is pretty closed to the forward -- or the current pricing that we have on those contracts is pretty close to kind of forward price. So they're pretty flat overall. But some of the gains that we picked up over the course of the last 18 months reversed in Q4 as fuel prices fell. The other thing I'd comment is our taxes, mainly current.
And just to remind, I know there was a little bit of confusion for some people as to the amount of taxes, what's in them and what the cash payment timing of those taxes are. So first thing on the current income taxes, $20 million for the period, mainly Fekola. $11 million in current income taxes for Fekola, but remember that we're also treating that priority dividend for Fekola as a tax because it's a payment that's due to government that's been -- and it's a right that's conveyed by law. So it's similar in nature to a tax, so that's how we account for it.
So that's $3 million. And just for your models, just to remind you to build that into your tax expense as you look forward. Then Masbate also, $3 million current tax has been treated. And remember, Masbate wasn't a taxable until the middle of last year, but it's now not taxable.
And then there's also Nicaragua. There's $1 million of current taxes there. Even though we didn't generate taxable income per say in the country during the quarter, there are alternate minimum taxes that must be paid. So the result is a small component of Nicaraguan current taxes.
And I'd ask you as well -- you can ask questions later, but in the MD&A, we also laid out what the components of the tax charge are and what our expected payment timing is for cash taxes for '19. Remember that Fekola, it's our first full year of commercial production for Fekola, and most of those taxes are only accrued during the year but won't be paid until the end of the first quarter, start of second quarter of '19. In addition, we'll have to take our 2019 cash tax installment. So we've laid it out for you in the MD&A.
The accrued taxes at year-end 2018 were $67 million, most of which will get paid at the end of Q1, start of Q2. In addition, our cash taxes installments for '19 above and beyond paying off those accruals will be about $65 million. So hopefully, that helps you with your models. And if you've got any questions, please ask them later.
Overall, factoring some of those numbers in, we came in with net income -- net loss for the period of just under $50 million. Once you adjust out the significant noncash items, adjusted earnings is $13.6 million or $0.01 per share adjusted EPS. And I think consensus was $0.02 per share. But remind you that, as we said, Nicaragua underperformed a bit in the quarter, so we saw some of that impact to earnings.
We had budgeted slightly higher cash cost per ounce for Q4 than for earlier in the year, so that would have impacted some people's view of earnings. And then just to remind you as well that those Fekola dividends, priority dividends are included in taxes at the income statement, they were $3 million for the period. Just to comment maybe on performance year to date. First, on the revenue side.
We reported revenues of just under $1.2 billion. We're almost double our reported revenues last year. I think Clive mentioned that already. On the ounce side, I think we had great a performance there.
953,000 ounces, so 26,000 ounces higher than our budget. And it came in above our original guidance of 910,000 to 950,000 and still at the high end of our reguided range of 920,000 to 960,000 ounces. The standout performance in there of Fekola of 439,000, original budget was 401,000. We'd guided 400,000 to 410,000, so it came in almost 10% higher.
Otjikoto, 167,000 ounces, came in right in the middle of its range or sort of mid- to higher end of its 160,000 to 170,000 range that we'd given. Masbate, 216,000 ounces. It just had a standout year, as we've talked about a number of times, the trifecta of higher recoveries, higher grades and higher throughput. I just wanted to say trifecta before Bill said it even though he made it up.
Masbate, we originally guided well below 200,000, and then we reguided between 200,000 and 210,000, and we came in even above the high end of that reguidance range. So Fekola is a standout operation, and Otjikoto continues to perform well, but we can't forget how well, for a lower-grade operation, Masbate has done over the last few years. Then Libertad came in 81,000 ounces. So it was below our reguided range of 90,000 to 100,000 for the reasons I gave earlier.
And Limon came in just under 50,000 ounces. So really right at the low end of our reguided range of between 50,000, and 60,000 ounces for the year. Cash costs consolidated basis, $495 an ounce. That's really below the low end.
We guided $505 to $550. With the excellent cost performance at Fekola and Masbate and right in the middle of the range for Otjikoto, we more than offset any downside in Nicaragua to come in below the consolidated guidance -- low end of our consolidated guidance range. And then all-in sustaining costs, same story. $758 an ounce, again, we guided $780 to $830, so well below that range, reflecting mainly the outperformance on the cash cost side and a little bit – or some timing differences, I think, with capex, the main one being at La Libertad where we didn't incur as much capex on Jabali Antenna open pit as we thought we would because of the permit delays.
Just translating that, if you look at earnings for the year -- maybe I'll just touch on a couple of things in the 12-month P&L. Again, G&A, it's about $12 million higher than the prior year. Remember, Fekola is in there now. G&A costs for Fekola, $4 million.
Last year, all those Fekola G&A costs were capitalized when we were building the mine. Now that hits the P&L. We had some differences in salaries and bonus timing of about $3 million in there. Prior year, we also had some accrual reversals of about $2 million that hit that account going into this year.
And then just about $3 million in extra salaries across the group because we just have more bodies in some places and then some salary differentials across our expanded group with five mines in four countries. Moving down the income statement, again, the taxes, $109 million. So most of that's Fekola, $77 million. So $59 million of that's current, $18 million of that's priority dividends, just to remind you of that again.
Masbate is $18 million and Libertad is $5 million. Overall, GAAP earnings of $45 million at $0.03 a share. When you take out those noncash items, adjusted earnings of $162 million or $0.16 a share, which I think is right on consensus. So although we previously reported our three quarters and some of the analysts here reported a mess on Q4 earnings per share adjusted, we did hit consensus for the year.
I'd like to move on and talk a little bit about some of the items in the cash flow statement. So just a comment on the quarter. $74 million for operating cash flows. The operating cash flows in the quarter impacted little bit, as mentioned before, by slightly higher budgeted operating costs for Q4 than for the prior three quarters of the year.
Some underperformance on the Nicaraguan site that didn't generate as much cash flow as we expected particular from La Libertad. And then also to point out that in Q4, we made a voluntary prepayment of our Fekola taxes of $20 million. All of those taxes for Fekola -- or most of them weren't due until Q1 or Q2 of '19, but we made the $20 million prepayment because we've already generated the liability in country, and so their cost of revenue, it's already -- we made that payment. So that impacted operating cash flow for the quarter.
For the year, operating cash flow was $451 million, so almost triple what we reported on the prior-year net. So on a per share basis, for the quarter, it's $0.07 a share, and for the 12 months, it's $0.46 a share, which we think is -- again, is right on consensus. On the financing side, just a couple of things to comment on in the queue. On October 1, we did repay the convertible notes that were outstanding of $258 million, and that's really the main component of our debt reduction for the year.
We started the year with total debt of $700 million, including revolver, converts and various equivalent loans and leases, and we finished the year with approximately $480 million. So a reduction of $220 million overall, most of which is reflected in that convert repayment. On the investing side, $60 million for the quarter and $273 million for the year, and that's almost exactly on budget overall. We're about $3 million under our total budget, including all capex and sites and exploration costs.
The main under -- the item where we were under on the budget was that we were under by just under $12 million for La Libertad related to Jabali Antenna. And as we mentioned, we expect those costs to be incurred now in 2019 as we get the permit for Antenna and start mining there. I should also mention Gramalote project. There was $6 million expended for the full year on Gramalote.
That was basically our whole budget, our share of the whole budget for 2018 as we just continued to evaluate what we're going to go there. Now with subsequent developments at year-end in Gramalote and new models being developed in early '19, we have for anything other than our whole budget and 2019's budget at this point in time. But by end of March or certainly end of the second quarter, we expect to be able to come out with potentially some -- a revised economic model or our thoughts on what Gramalote might look forward going forward with some new geological interpretations built into the model. And then you may see us increase our budget for Gramalote in '19 as I think we'll likely look to do some more drilling to further define the resource there.
Some other comments on looking forward on capital for '19. We put our budgeted results out earlier in January, but just to remind people what's not in that budget. So firstly, on the Fekola mine, we're waiting for the sort of initial results from our optimized Fekola expansion study by the end of the quarter, first quarter of '19. And those expansions plans aren't built into the budget.
We were waiting to see what we thought they were and the timing of them before we reflected those in our cash flows going forward. We have already commented, we think the capex is somewhere sort of $50 million or slightly less for the whole project, but not all of those would be incurred in 2019. And we do expect to make that expansion decision and move forward certainly by the end of the first quarter and into the second quarter of '19. And so there should be some news flow on that fairly shortly.
Then on Limon mine, just to remind you as well, in the budget there, we did -- we released the results of Limon Central expansion case earlier in the year in 2018. The total capex for Limon expansion to sort of optimize the development and processing of the new Central discovery is $37 million, but we didn't comment to making that full expansion yet into 2019 budget. What we did put in the budget was $2 million for Limon to make some amendments to the current mill so it could process the slightly higher ore that we expect from Central. So that is in the budget, but the further $35 million to expand the mill from 500,000 tonnes a year to 600,000 tonnes a year is not in the current budget.
So with that in mind, just look at the cash at the end of the year. We had $102 million in the bank and $400 million drawn on our revolving credit facility. So that leaves us with a further $100 million of liquidity on the current revolver, plus a $100 million in the accordion feature that hasn't currently being taken up yet. So we think we're in good shape liquidity wise and cash flow wise, and we're confident, as well as we move to the Q1.
We budgeted at $1,200 an ounce for revenues for budget purposes for '19, and we've already seen in this quarter that our realized gold price result that we have managed over $1,300 an ounce. So we're already ahead than where we thought we'd be on the cash side, $50 million plus, I would say. So that's positive and helps liquidity. And so the goal going into '19 with this positive generation in cash flow would be, I guess, to balance, repay the revolver, which I think the intention is to do -- continue to pay that down as we did -- or pay down debt as we did in '18.
And balance that with whatever expansion needs that we think we have that I just mentioned. We have potential additional costs that we may want to fund for Fekola expansion, potentially for Limon and also see what we might want for 2019 for Gramalote. And then finally, just a reminder of what our guidance was for '19. On a production basis, 935,000 to 975,000 ounces.
So very close to, I think, where we came in this year. And then on the operating side, cash costs were $520 to $560, slightly higher than our range – marginally higher than our range for 2018, and that's really due to slightly higher fuel prices in the budget and slightly higher labor costs at a couple of locations. Then on the all-in cost side, we give a range for 2019 of between $835 and $875 an ounce. And when comparing that to the range of $780 to $830 that we had for '18, there's probably two main differences.
One is the slightly higher cash costs, which I just mentioned, and the second one is just the difference in treatment of all-in sustaining costs. So the World Gold Council put out some new guidelines just before the year end, really clarifying the sort of broader guideline -- guidance that they had before on how to view or determine what is sustaining capital versus non-sustaining capital. And the main item that impacted us was the new guidance that they had in the first year. Previously, if we were stripping an ore body and there were no ounces coming from that ore body into the current year's production, we'd have treated that as non-sustaining.
However, the new guidance now lays out that if you want to figure it as non-sustaining, firstly, the strip has to take more than a year to complete, and secondly, that strip has to benefit at least five years of future production. So in our case, the main area where we were impacted was Otjikoto where -- at the Otjikoto mine, we're currently pre-stripping the Wolfshag Pit for phase two and phase three of Wolfshag production. Now that will benefit, we think, between two and three years into the future, but it doesn't benefit five. So under the new guidance, which we will adopt, effective January 1, 2019, we can't -- well, we shouldn't -- we don't treat that as non-sustaining.
So that has an impact of about $35 an ounce overall on our total all-in sustaining guidance. So if you sort of adjust the guidance for that, we'd be in a very similar range to the guidance we gave last year for all-in sustaining cost. So I think with that, those are the main financial and operating items I wanted to highlight.
Sure. Thanks, Mike. We're going to turn it over to Bill to give us a update on just more operationally how we've started off the year quite well, talk about that, and then we'll ask Tom to talk a little bit about the exploration budget, specifically for Fekola, and what our plans are there. And I'll talk about '19 as well before we open up for questions.
Yes, sure. Thanks, Clive. I just want -- I'll just run through the operations real quick. Obviously, on the last call, we went into a bit more detail on the operational side.
Starting with Fekola, I just want everyone to remember that we've been operating now for basically five quarters, one quarter of commercial production and then four quarters of operations, at which time -- over that period, we've put an additional 90,000 ounces versus what we'd had in our budget. We have continued to outperform on the mill side. We've continued to outperform on recovery versus what we'd originally discussed. And we see that already happening in January as through February, we're already up approximately 10,000 ounces at Fekola, and that's primarily related to throughput.
At Otjikoto, I think in the press release, we talked about the fact that right at the end of the year, we had two high-grade blocks that we didn't get to. We got to one, but didn't get to the second one. But we did end up, as Mike said, above the midpoint of our guidance. In that high-grade block, we've already seen it come through in January.
So at Otjikoto, through February, we're up more than 2,400 ounces. That's related to the higher-grade block and basically throughput recovery remains as projected. Masbate, everyone is aware that we expanded the mill. That was commissioned early in 2019.
We're currently running it at the designed throughput or higher at 8 million tonnes per annum. We have seen that that expansion operates beautifully. We have seen higher grades and higher recoveries coming out of the Masbate mine. And so as of the end of February, we're up approximately 4,000 ounces.
In Nicaragua, at Libertad, Mike has already discussed the fact that we have in fact now gone through public consultation for the Jabali Antenna zone. And so while in January, we were down slightly, we're starting to catch up. The throughput remains very good, and the grade is for February, basically, on track. So we see we're moving in the right direction there in the second half of the year with Jabali Antenna, and we don't see any issues.
Limon, with the Limon Mine, with Limon Central coming on right at the end of last year, we're in a prestrip mode right now for Limon Central, but we are pulling some ounces out of some small pits there. We basically remain on budget at this point, slightly under budget, but materially on budget for that project with both throughput, grades and recoveries. So those are the five major operations, Clive.
OK, Thanks, Bill. Tom, can you talk a little bit about -- I know a lot of people are very interested in the exploration, and understandably so, particularly with us and what we've been doing, not just in Fekola, but in other places. But maybe you can talk a little bit about the 2019 Fekola exploration budget? I mentioned before the dramatic increase in the resource, and then Tom could talk about how we're going to -- what's happening in the filling with what, and also where else we're drilling and why is Fekola preferred?
Absolutely. The plan for Malian Fekola, in general, is to spend $17.5 million at exploration, which will include both 46,000 meters of RC drilling and 28,000 meters of diamond drilling. There's also a significant amount of air core RAB drilling going to be done this year also. The main focus of that exploration, certainly, for the first half of the year is to complete the infill drilling on the portion of the resource that we believe is going to be within a pit as part of this expansion study that's going on right now.
That drilling will be done sometime in June. Additional targets that we will be working on in Fekola for the back half of the year will be the extension of Fekola's charter to the north. It remains open. If you recall, and certainly in talking to some people, our 1,400 resource pit actually went to the edge of the data.
So we actually don't know how big our resource pit could get because it topped basically everything that was in the resource model. So the exploration will continue to the north. In addition to that, if you were at the PDAC, you saw the long section that the boys were developing a theory on, some shoots that are just below the main Fekola shoot that surfaced to the south of the pit, some of which is already within our resource, and it is in our mine plan for later in the life. So we'll be doing more drilling on these proposed shoots that are just underneath the main Fekola shoot that surfaced to the south end of Fekola.
In addition to that, immediately west of Fekola pit, late last year, we hit on three separate vein structures, certainly not as big as Fekola but of interest given the rig beside the Fekola Pit. We had drill intersections of up to 24 meters of 2.5 grams, 10 meters of 4.8 grams in separate structures west of Fekola. So that's the Cardinal Zone, and we'll be doing exploration work on that. And in our Anaconda or snake zones, we didn't do a lot of exploration drilling on it last year, largely because we were focused on expanding the resource to the north of Fekola.
We'll get back at that fairly hard later in the year to follow up on some sulphide hits that we have below the Fekola -- or sorry, below the snake's saprolite resource. We'll look at expanding the saprolite resource. And we just picked up our new license that adjoins the snakes to the north, and we'll be following that up with an exploration, maybe auger and air core drilling, to see if the saprolite resource and the underlying sulfide style mineralization extends to the north. So that will be the plan for Fekola.
But you can see from my discussion, from the different targets, there's a heck of a lot going on there outside the Fekola deposit, and we're still very, very optimistic to potentially expand resources at Fekola property. The Fekola property in the region is very, very good.
Great. Thanks, Tom. So looking forward to what other milestones, I think, is going to happen in 2019. Obviously, we're going to continue to optimize our production on all sites, and we've got a good start to the year already.
We're going to focus on our pipeline of internal growth. So as we talked about quite a bit on the release and touched on today, we've already completed our initial Fekola expansion study by the end of the year, and that was extremely positive, with the initial view of the economics of that very robust. We will come up with details of that by the end of March. And in talking about the impact on production and based on our conversation with our board yesterday, we're very confident that we will make a decision to go ahead and expand Fekola starting at the end of March, with the expansion program that could probably take somewhere around 12 to 15 months.
In terms of Gramalote, there's been some interesting potential positives there. Late last year, AngloGold Ashanti, our joint venture partner, came to us with some new modeling that they've done on their old prefeasibility model from some years ago. They may have seemed to be coming up with some better grade, potentially some better economics of the project. So they asked us to review that.
We ran our own model, which wasn't quite as rosy as theirs but still quite interesting, and now we're applying some economics. We're working well with AGA to try and come up with a model that everyone agrees. We've had a bit of a difference of view for some years because we felt there was more drilling required on the resource to really understand Gramalote. They didn't share the same view.
So we now -- the point now is, over the next number of weeks, is to get with AGA, look to see if we can come up with a model that everyone agrees and then decide what we want to do going forward. The next steps would be, if we want to proceed to final feasibility, would be to do some -- in our view, some infill drilling to infill the 35% or whatever it is of the resource that is on the inferred category, infill drill that. And also, there's very low engineering to be done, and there's really no metallurgy to be done to final feasibility study. So we'll be discussing that with AGA, and we'll be able to come out, probably sometime in April, with our view and probably announcing a preliminary economic assessment from our point of view.
And they may announce a prefeasibility study because they're under a different jurisdiction of regulations than we are at the end of the day. So we'll see. Gramalote, these new economics that we've seen is very early, but they seem to be more encouraging than what we have before, so we'll keep you posted on that. Tom talked about exploration, and our focus will be continue doing our -- continue our financial discipline and look to repay debt as we move along as we did extremely successfully in 2018.
We get asked a lot recently about M&A. So maybe there'll be a question on that, but I'll probably hit it just to give you our thoughts now about that. Clearly, we want to find out what's in our pipeline. We think that we owe it to our shareholders to get out the news if we're going to expand Fekola and also if we're going to move forward on something like Gramalote.
So we're very focused over the next few months on what's on our pipeline. But I think the market has changed quite a bit. With the Barrick-Randgold deal with 0% premium and the 17% short-lived premium for the Newmont-Goldcorp deal, it seems that the goalposts have changed that the big boys aren't going to do any of the 30% to 40% premium deals that got them in so much trouble over the last several years by overpaying for assets which turned out to be inferior. At the end of the day, I think that there's a couple of positives for us out of all that.
Frankly, we're very keen to keep running this company, and I think the vast majority of our shareholders are happy with management. I don't think any big company is going to come and pay a 30% to 40% premium for anybody these days, and I don't think they're going to pay that for B2Gold. And I think most of our shareholders are very happy with management, so I don't think anybody offering a no premium offer for B2Gold, I can't imagine that would be of interest to our shareholders. We look to continue to grow this company and continue to do what we've done very well for 10 years.
In terms of looking at it the other way about M&A, what about us doing M&A? Well, I've said for four years that we weren't likely to do any major M&A until we were getting credit for Fekola. We aren't getting some credit for Fekola yet. And as we said, let's see what's in the pipeline, in expansion, etc. But if the same thing applies, looking down is looking up, where the big guys aren't going to be spending the big premiums anymore, then I don't think the shareholders of smaller companies than ours can expect the big premiums as well.
So certainly, there may be opportunities out there over the next -- later in the year or whatever, we'll always look forward to acquire something with little or no premium because there may be shareholders of smaller companies that would like to have B2Gold shares. So we'll be looking at that. Our rules of engagement have never changed in acquisitions. We'll never buy anything that needs a higher gold price and/or explorational success to justify the purchase price.
And we've always said the cheap sales are the ones you find. And we have an extraordinary track record, with Tom and this team, and we'll continue to focus on exploration. Bill talked we're on our own around our own mines and brownfields but also greenfields on our own but also greenfields in joint venture partnerships with junior exploration companies that have assets we like. But we won't be the operator.
Our team is that good. We want to spot the drill holes but -- and we think there is an interesting opportunity potentially in that regard as well. So we'll keep an eye on M&A. We'll continue to be very disciplined in due diligence as we always are.
There's nothing at the front burner at the moment. But I must say also that we did the heavy lifting here when very few were doing it. We're one of the very few gold mining companies to grow over the last five years. So we don't feel -- with that, and what we have in our pipeline, we don't feel any sense of urgency to go out and do a deal.
I think this might become a finance market as we look through this year. There are some assets that are going to come up, clearly, out of Newmont and Barrick. Yes, we'll look at them but, frankly speaking, there's other companies that need growth much more than we do. And we're not going to overpay, and those companies aren't going to give away assets.
So we'll see what's out there. But at the end of day, we may end up looking down a little more than up, down looking at other opportunities in smaller companies than ours and see how those pan out. So that's really most of what we wanted to tell you. We'll answer some questions now.
We had a fantastic year in 2018, and thank you for those of you who have supported us and those of you that got it, and we're very excited about 2019. So we'll open up now for questions.
[Operator instructions] And your first question comes from Michael Sroba from Macquarie Capital.
Clive and team, just a couple of questions in terms of the financials going forward. You've successfully paid off a large portion of the debt in 2018. Are you able to give us an idea of what to expect in a couple of years in terms of the magnitude of debt repayment?
Sure. Mike, do you want to answer?
Well, I guess, like I said before, we'll balance off the degree to which we pay off the facility with what we will self-fund, I guess, for expansion activities, particularly at Fekola. So I think you've got to look at it like that. In terms of becoming debt-free, if we wanted to, I guess, the next couple of years, give or take, or certainly in early 2021, I think we could be debt-free, if we chose to be. But that's really a question of did you actually want to be completely debt-free or do you want to use those facilities to fund some other activities.
So looking forward, we haven't got any numbers in there for -- like if it's for Fekola expansion or for anything beyond the whole budget in Gramalote. So you've got to balance those off. But certainly, at $1,300 gold prices, very strong cash generation. We certainly have the ability to pay down that facility rapidly, if we wanted to.
And the focus is going to be, as Mike said, to continue to grow the company, looking, first and foremost, at our pipeline of projects. In the longer term, what we aspire to be in the future is a company that's going to take some of its cash flow and spend on our growth and some of the cash flow and, ultimately, pays a dividend to our shareholders. So that's the longer-term view. For now we think our shareholders are -- want to see us focused on what we've done pretty dramatically and very well for the last 10 years, which is grow profitable gold production.
OK. Fantastic. And just on the G&A, do you foresee similar total G&A going forward given the Malian office and some of the additional cost that were incurred in late 4Q?
Yes. I think G&A for '19 to be somewhere in the ballpark of 18 months, right? You see Fekola's already in there in '18, so it will be in there in '19. And then we have hired up a little bit in the latter part of '18 in some areas, so there might be a slight increase on the salary side, but generally speaking, ballpark, would be roughly in the same ballpark.
And your next question comes from Geordie Mark of Haywood Securities.
Just maybe jumping the gun a little bit ahead of the optimized study coming out for Fekola. Instead of talking to the details, that will come out soon, just thinking about more holistically, about timing of investment decisions, if it comes out positive, which I'm sure it will, when you could hope to implement that expansion and expect the completion of expansion through to 7.5 million tonnes per annum.
Well, the details are going to come out. I guess, what we're looking at so far was spending -- do you want to answer about what we're going to spend this year or next year if we had in fact -- if we decide to pull the trigger on the expansion that we see today.
Yes, Clive. We're looking at spending about half of the amount this year, so $24 million to $25 million this year, $24 million, $25 million next year as far as the cash flow outlay. And right now, the expected completion is in September of 2020, but we're trying to move that date up if possible.
As we tend to do, we're going to look at fast-tracking that process and a lot more detail will come out of this by the end of the month.
OK, great. And if I could add one more question there and stay close to home at Fekola and moving north up to Anaconda. Just thinking, obviously, you got a program there through 14,000 meters of work around there. Just thinking about what the scope of work is there in terms of infill versus expansion? What are you expecting on a footprint basis, how much you might expand it by? And what are the considerations on the trade-off studies through stand-alone versus tracking that back down to Fekola to further increase production?
Are you talking about the -- on the saprolite resource or the footprint of the sulphide resource?
No, just saprolite at the moment because I think you've got an idea of continuity there at the moment.
Yes. No. Certainly, the saprolite is open going north into the new license that we've picked up. And it's actually wide open.
We know that there's small mining activity up there, so we'll be following that to the north. As for size and potential expansion, well, I have no idea yet. We've got some work on that. And then within the main snake areas of sulfur, we picked up a new area of saprolite mineralization in the last year in the Boomslang area.
We plan to follow that up. So those are the main expansion areas of the saprolite resource.
And the reality basically is drilling below it.
Dennis, do you want to talk about what we're doing in terms of potentially -- at least looking at whether stand-alone makes any sense at the saprolite, I think that's part of Geordie's question as well.
Yes. We're updating the study that we did earlier where we've done some additional metallurgical work on it to -- what's the easiest and best way to process just the saprolite material, ignoring the hard rock that's under it. So we're doing a plant design on that right now, our goal here is to reduce both capital cost and operating costs from what we had in a previous version of that study, looking at the tailings disposal, getting those costs down, things like that. So we're doing that right now, and we hope to have some numbers out on that.
Our goal is to have that kind of wrapped up by the end of May.
Right. OK. do you think there is any trade-off to come back to Fekola for an expansion there? Or are you thinking more just a self-standing saprolite?
We'll look at bringing some of that material to Fekola. We're going to look at haulage cost, and we're going to look at what is the cost of actually putting that thing through the Fekola mill because saprolite goes through there pretty easy, actually. We can't get the blend too high at Fekola or shortstop some things up there, too. So we have to be careful with that.
But we will look at that as a trade-off to the stand-alone plant, and we'll looking for those considerations.
And your next question comes from Lawson Winder of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Just, first of all, Mike, thanks so much for the tax guidance for 2019. It's very helpful. When you mentioned the corporate income tax installment payments, totaling $65 million, are those just income tax? Or does that also include the priority dividend and the ad valorem tax from El Limon?
No, just income taxes -- sorry, and the ad valorem but not the priority dividend.
OK. OK, great. And then with regards to the fully participating 10% interest, I mean, right now, obviously, you guys have no need to pay a dividend to the Malian government at this point, the intercompany loan has to be paid off before that happens. But one thing I wasn't clear on is that loan could also be used for the Malian government share of capex.
I'm wondering if you can provide any guidance around sort of when you think that loan might be paid off and then you would then start paying the fully participating dividend to the Malian government.
Well, yes. You're correct that the loan -- the deal we have is that we get to recoup our capital investment before any payments are made or any dividends are due. In terms of -- I didn't quite follow your question on if that loan could be used to pay the government share of capex. Look, we can self fund Fekola going forward.
We can cover any required further capital from Fekola's cash generation. So that loan, the original capital loan, that was put in for construction purposes is being paid down. We did disclosed in the MD&A, if you look on Page 14, at the end of December, we have approximately just over $400 million outstanding on those loans. Remember, those loans included the original loans we inherited when we bought Papillon.
It includes the capital to build Fekola. It includes the fleet cost. It includes the early works. It includes the Fadougou relocation, all those things so -- and an interest charge.
So right at the end of '18, there was about $400 million. So if you want to plug that into your model, I guess, you can figure out when you think that will be paid down.
OK. Does that $400 million also include the $47 million for the purchase of the additional 10% interest?
No. Remember that additional 10% is a loan, it is a payable that's due to us, B2Gold, by the state of Mali, right? It's not an intercompany loan with Fekola, right? It's due to the holder of Fekola. So that's over and above the $417 million.
OK, gotcha. OK. That's very helpful. And then on Jabali Antenna, I was just curious, so I mean now it looks like it should be going ahead in the second half of this year.
I'm just curious, when you guys did the impairment, were you assuming a second half 2019 start-up of Jabali Antenna? Or is this something now that could lead to a potential reversal in the future? I'm not sure if you're able to speculate on that.
No. We don't need to speculate. I could tell you it did include Jabali Antenna from the second half of 2019. But remember, the impairment was based on the timing of Antenna coming in, right? Like, the previous life of mine sort of assumed that Antenna would be in much earlier and that the benefit of those cash flows would have been recognized earlier.
So that had a positive NPV impact. With the delays in the country and the delay in some development, particularly with Antenna, and with the delays in getting to the order phase at Jabali underground, that had an NPV impact. So we are anticipating mining Antenna open pit and underground, but the timing delays caused by the unrest in the current 2018 year, it did have an impact on the NPV overall.
Pavon may be a positive. I don't know.
Yes, Pavon. With positive developments at Jabali Antenna, there's also now new engagement on development on Pavon. Historically, we had looked at Pavon potentially as being mill feed for Limon, but I think it's probably -- it doesn't almost come between Limon or Libertad, where it could be a possible future source. The benefits of Pavon aren't built into the model because we don't have any indicator of when any potential permitting time line might be.
Bill, do you want to comment -- sorry -- on Pavon?
Yes. I think very interesting development that effort's been that as we look at that property now, we've been around the community, we're in the neighbor, we've been invited to participate in development in the community. So our orientation is completely different. You may recall, at Pavon, we had on our plants roughly 50,000 ounces to be mined, the grades are good, five grams, mine development only.
And the thought was always that we would transport that to one of our operations proposals.
OK. Can you share the time line on that?
No. We will see how this proceeds.
OK. And then maybe just one last one for me, if I might. Clive, you mentioned, with any acquisition, B2Gold wants to be the operator. And so I mean that, to me, relates well to Gramalote where, based on the current agreement, AGA is the current operator.
And I'm just curious, for Gramalote to go forward, I mean is there any sort of impediment there, given that B2Gold is not the current operator?
Well, I think there's going to be some discussions. There's already been some preliminary discussions with Kelvin Dushnisky, the new CEO of AGA that we've got a good relationship. And I think if this project looks like it's in an economic interest, I'm sure that we'll -- both companies would be keen to see it move forward. Kelvin said publicly that he's very impressed with our ability to build mines, and I think there will be some interesting discussions around that.
My comment on operatorship was merely -- that was when -- I think when I was talking about exploration. Also though, we do want to build our own mines and run our own mines as well. But I think if you have a -- with new economics and/or better gold price, or whatever it is with Gramalote, if you got an asset of that size with a mining permit already in hand in Colombia, I'm pretty sure between the group is going to be weighted and advanced. But we'd be willing to build it.
Our team is ready to build.
[Operator instructions] Your next question comes from Chris Thompson of PI Financial.
I actually thought you did a great job in the fourth quarter. So just one quick question on Fekola. You've spoken about, I guess, low-grade stockpile supplementing mill feed. Can you give us a sense of percentage of mill feed from mined ore versus low-grade stockpiles, as well as the grade of each?
Yes. What period are you talking about? Are you talking about going forward? Are you talking Q4? What are you talking about?
Yes, maybe just going forward, Tom?
It's just funny that you asked that question because we were just talking about it before the call. It's going to be like 50-50 for Q1 and Q2. We have approximately 4 million tonnes of low-to-medium grade stockpile left at an average grade of 1.77 grams. And So right now, we're hastily beating down stage four to get in the high-grade zones where we want to be in the second half of the year.
I don't know if you remember, we're actually weighted second half ounce-wise for Fekola because of that.
And your next question comes from John Bridges of JPMorgan.
I think I did have to say miss, but I didn't really mean that it was a bad miss. Just wondered, with Gramalote, what's changed? And then could you give us a little comment on the security situation around Gramalote?
Sure. Well, I'll talk about what's changed. Well, we're not really sure yet what's changed, John. I think that -- I mentioned in November, there seemed to have been a change in AGA.
There was some personnel changes. And perhaps it was a more receptive audience to hearing the ideas that maybe they've been able to create a lot but tried to make it bigger. And we had some issues with their model for some time and felt there needed to be more drilling because the model can swing so much. They told us that we need more data points, so we're drilling.
For some reason, some people within AGA had believed that they need more drilling, but that seems to be changing now. So they came with a new model, which showed some potential improved economics. But they said, look this is a work in progress. Can you guys check it? Can you run it among yourselves, and let's get an independent to do it.
All very positive things from a joint venture partner, and we're working very well with them. So I think we're closing in right now on coming up with some of the economics for the new models that we've run, and they're doing the same thing. And we'll to try to come together with one model or at least very close over with the next month or so. So what's changed is potentially better economics than we were seeing.
Before, the economics are quite poor. They had a grade of like a 0.66 or something or a point a while ago, making it bigger. And the economics were not attractive to us, we actually took the decision to start diluting rather than to spend money. We're not as big as they are, and we don't just spend money and spend money and spend money for long periods of time.
So we took the decision to start diluting. And then all of a sudden, this new model comes out or a potential new model. That got our attention to say, OK, well, they seem to have had a change within AGA in terms of their approach to Gramalote. So let's work closely with them to try and understand it better.
So we can't say today whether it's going to be something that is attractive at this gold price, but I think we're going to have lots of idea in a month or so. And if that's positive, then we'll be suggesting that we go ahead and do some more drilling together, and move -- probably move to a final feasibility study. But all of that's going to come out of what comes out over the next six weeks or so and working with then. But we're working very well as a joint venture.
As I said earlier, I think Kelvin is keen on growing AGA, and we're keen on growing. So we got a lot of work to do. We definitely can't say it's a project for us yet, but it's definitely bore interest.
Security. Yes, Dennis -- Dennis spends a little more time there than I have. And Gramalote is located in an excellent place to build a large open pit gold mine in Colombia. And as I've said, we have a permit and a tremendous local government support as well.
So Dennis can talk about security. Thanks.
Yes. It's a mining district, too. That's why the permitting there -- I mean the people want the mine and everything. In all the years -- we've been there quite a while now with -- as an operator originally, and then now with AngloGold as operator, and security has never been a major issue there.
We do have a military contingent in the area that helps secure that. But it has always been a very, very stable area in that part of Colombia. So no issues, really.
And you say the original grade was 0.60. The new model is pointing to what, 0.8 or 1?
More ounces, and potentially an improvement in grade. But once again, it's just too -- we're not prepared to -- we don't have a number for you yet in terms of where it's going to go, but we'll have a much better idea in the next six weeks or so.
And we've come to the end of our Q&A session for today. So I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Clive Johnson for closing remarks.
OK. Well, thank you all for joining us. And thank you for your interest and support and your questions. Have a good day.
David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and B2Gold wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.


CAS PY 105; or equivalent.
The CAS PY 105/106 sequence satisfies premedical requirements. PY106 covers some of the basic principles underlying the physics of everyday life, including electricity and magnetism, direct-current circuits, waves, optics, and modern physics. Carries natural science divisional credit (with lab) in CAS. This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Critical Thinking.
S5 Gregor SCI B23 MW 6:30 pm-9:15 pm Prereq: Py 105.
S5 Gregor T 6:30 pm-8:15 pm Prereq: Py 105.


Updated definitions and clinical criteria for sepsis should facilitate earlier recognition and more timely management of patients with or at risk of developing sepsis. The report, which appeared in the February 23rd issue of JAMA, was released to coincide with its presentation at the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s 45th Critical Care Congress in Orlando, Florida.
A release from the publisher explains that sepsis, a syndrome of physiologic, pathologic, and biochemical abnormalities induced by infection, is a major public health concern, accounting for more than $20 billion (5.2 percent) of total U.S. hospital costs in 2011. The reported incidence is increasing. Although the true incidence of sepsis is unknown, conservative estimates indicate that sepsis is a leading cause of mortality and critical illness worldwide. In addition, there is increasing awareness that patients who survive sepsis often have long-term physical, psychological, and cognitive disabilities with significant health care and social implications.
Definitions of sepsis and septic shock were last revised in 2001. Considerable advances have since been made into the pathophysiology, management, and epidemiology of sepsis, suggesting the need for reexamination. In January 2014, a task force (n = 19) with expertise in sepsis pathophysiology, clinical trials, and epidemiology was convened by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine to evaluate and, as needed, update definitions for sepsis and septic shock. Definitions and clinical criteria were generated through meetings, Delphi processes, analysis of electronic health record databases, and voting, followed by circulation to international professional societies, requesting peer review and endorsement.
Sepsis should be defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection.
Septic shock should be defined as a subset of sepsis in which particularly profound circulatory, cellular, and metabolic abnormalities are associated with a greater risk of mortality than with sepsis alone.
In out-of-hospital, emergency department, or general hospital ward settings, adult patients with suspected infection can be rapidly identified as being more likely to have poor outcomes typical of sepsis if they have at least 2 of the following clinical criteria that together constitute a new bedside clinical score termed quick Sequential (Sepsis-related) Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA): respiratory rate of 22/min or greater, altered mentation (mental activity), or systolic blood pressure of 100 mm Hg or less.
“The debate and discussion that this work will inevitably generate are encouraged. Aspects of the new definitions do indeed rely on expert opinion; further understanding of the biology of sepsis, the availability of new diagnostic approaches, and enhanced collection of data will fuel their continued reevaluation and revision,” the authors write.
The full report is available at the For The Media website.
Editor’s Note: This work was supported in part by a grant from the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, etc.
“Although the present definition for sepsis provides needed evolution in categorization of this syndrome, incorporation of more information about the molecular and cellular characterization of sepsis may have been helpful,” writes Edward Abraham, M.D., of the Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, N.C., in an accompanying editorial.


MOHAMED SALAH could complete his £39m move to Liverpool tomorrow.
The Egyptian winger is set to undergo a medical on Merseyside and then tie up the remaining details on a four-year contract believed to be worth around £90,000-a-week.
The Reds will pay Roma an initial fee up front and with add-ons the deal could be worth £39m, which will make Salah the club’s most expensive signing.
The fee would surpass the £35m the Reds paid Newcastle for Andy Carroll in 2011.
Salah, 25, turned down a move to Anfield in 2014 in favour of joining Chelsea in a £11m deal from Basel.
But he struggled to settle in the Premier League and after loan spells at Fiorentina and Roma, he moved to the Italian capital in a £15m deal last summer.
Salah is believed to be excited about returning to the Premier League to prove his ability after his Chelsea disappointment.
The Egypt winger will be Liverpool's second signing of the summer following Dominic Solanke's move from Chelsea.
Liverpool have been in talks with Roma for about a month but are now on the brink of landing their man.
The Reds are set to continue spending with Kop boss Jurgen Klopp keen to bring in Red Bull Leipzig midfielder Naby Keita despite the Bundesliga club being reluctant to sell.
Klopp is also keen to sign a defender after the club were forced to back out of a move for Southampton defender Virgil van Dijk after allegations of tapping up.
Mohamed Salah to Liverpool: Who will he replace? Is £39m too much? What will he bring?


A Bluffs woman has filed suit against a Jacksonville doctor she contends was negligent in a 2013 surgery.
Stacey Goetze of Bluffs is suing Dr. John Daily and the Passavant Physician Association. She is seeking $50,000 and court costs after Daily reportedly removed both inferior turbinates during a surgery for a nasal septoplasty — a surgery to straighten a deviated or crooked nasal septum.
According to the suit, after the removal of the turbinates, Goetze began experiencing pain in her nose and sinus area, as well as headaches. After returning, she was diagnosed with empty nose syndrome and had a corrective surgery March 20, 2013, to reconstructed partial turbinates.
The lawsuit contends Daily breached the standard care by removing the complete turbinates and caused her to pain and suffering, as well as lose of income. It presents only one side of a case.
“As a direct and proximate result of (Daily’s) negligence as herein described, (Goetze) continued with worsening symptoms … necessitating a second surgery in order to try to alleviate ongoing and worsening symptoms, undergoing additional pain and suffering, and a loss of earnings and damaged from the loss of a normal life … ” according to the lawsuit.


Electronics retailer has bought 51% of Network Neighbourhood.
Melbourne based Network Neighborhood (NN) offers technical service in education, corporate and government sectors including Project and Infrastructure, ICT planning for schools, warranty lifecycle services and IT products.
The deal means the high street retailer can now further develop its expanding enterprise offering, which has grown massively in the past 12 months.
NN deals with brands such as Lenovo, Apple, Belkin, HP and Microsoft, also has an online product portal for education clients to choose technologies and submit orders.
“Our commercial clients are demanding integrated end-to-end solutions,” said JB Hi-Fi CFO Richard Murray.
Hugh Marquis founded NN in 1999 and has won several awards from vendors including IBM and Lenovo Partner of the year.
No word on how much JB piad for the 51% stake in the IT services company which has three offices including two in Melbourne and another in Brisbane.
JB HI shares rose 1.13% to $12.5 today.


A wedding party, including a bride and groom from Wales, are stranded in New York as the city goes into lockdown in preparation for Hurricane Sandy.
Phillip Stocker's daughter, Charlotte from Abertillery, is with the wedding party.
We spoke to one of the bridesmaids, Stephanie Phillips from Ebbw Vale, who is with the wedding party. She described the city as being like a 'ghost town' and says they have been warned to stock up on food and drink as conditions are set to worsen over the next few hours.
Forecasters warn strong winds, heavy rain, flooding and dangerous sea conditions with a surge of water up to 12 feet high could reach built-up areas along the East coast.
Parts of America including New Jersey are already experiences the effects of the hurricane.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have issued the following advice to British nationals currently in New York or on the Easy coast of America.


Married at First Sight success stories: which couples have lasted the test of time? | HELLO!
Married at First Sight success stories: which couples have lasted the test of time?
Maybe these really were love at first marriage!
Last modified on 2019-03-27T14:24:34+00:00 Emmy Griffiths Married at First Sight couples might tend to break up eventually, but some couple manage to last the test of time!
Married at First Sight might be a slightly bizarre concept – to have two people tie the knot on television after having just met one another – but it doesn't mean that the show isn't (occasionally) successful! While most couples just don't end up lasting the test of time, the scientists behind the series sometimes get it right – at least for a while!
Will this season's Steph and Jonathan last the test of time?
One of the most successful couplings of the UK version of the show were season one's Sara and Adam, who actually – and rather impressively – ended up staying together for a whole year before ultimately calling it off. Speaking about their split, Sara explained: "I think that science matches the compatibility between us; what the science can't match or can't create is the chemistry." The pair were closely followed by season one's Emma and James, who last over eight months before breaking up.
READ:Married at First Sight UK - where are the couples now?
Although the UK version might not have found two people who have stayed together for longer than a year, the USA and Australian versions of the relationship experiment have had much better results! In season one of the US version, Jamie Otis wedded Doug Hehner in 2014, and the pair have been together ever since! In fact, the pair welcomed a daughter, Henley Grace, in August 2017. Speaking to People magazine on their five-year anniversary, Jamie said: "People laughed at us when they heard we were doing the show. Now here we are!" Fellow season one alumni Cortney Hendrix and Jason Carrion are also still going strong, despite reports that the pair had called it quits. However, Cortney shut down the rumours by sharing a post of herself posing with her hubby, jokily writing: "STFU."
READ: Married at First Sight UK - where are the couples now?
Season five couple Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico are also still together, and welcomed a baby girl, Mila Rose, in January 2019. Speaking about welcoming their daughter, Ashley told People: "We never knew we could love someone so much! She is perfect in every way. Holding her for the first time was the most amazing surreal moment of my life. Watching Anthony take care of her makes me love him even more. We can't wait to show this sweet little baby girl the world." However, there are several couples who decide to call it a day - even when the country is rooting for them! UK fans were particularly invested in Ben and Stephanie's relationship, who hit it off straight away after meeting on the show. After deciding to stay married after the 2018 series, the pair confirmed they were breaking up just a few short months later. At the time, Ben told The Sun: "We were both 100 per cent in it to make it work. I never got into this to get divorced so didn't ever consider that we'd have tostay together for a year if it didn't work."


Budget officials announced yesterday “that the federal deficit has soared to a record $455 billion. … The final accounting for fiscal 2008 produced a larger shortfall than had been projected, reflecting the start of federal efforts to address the economic emergency.” The previous record deficit had been $413 billion, reached in 2004.
The Bush administration “issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency’s use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects.” CIA director George Tenet requested the memos “more than a year after” the program began because “senior CIA officials were troubled” that the White House had never endorsed it in writing.
20 days to go: John McCain and Barack Obama will engage in their third and final debate tonight at Hofstra University in New York. Sarah Palin is in Dover, NH, and Joe Biden campaigns at Ohio State University.
After Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed a “spending freeze on everything but defense,” his campaign appears to be walking the promise back. Yesterday, aides to McCain said his budget also includes “a specific carve-out for spending on science.” “You’ll definitely see, under John McCain, more spending on research,” senior policy adviser Ike Brannon said.
And finally: Yesterday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued an unusual dissent that was more “Supreme Court noir” than traditional legalese. Roberts wrote a dissent from denial of review in Pennsylvania v. Dunlap, “a fairly routine drug arrest case raising ‘probable cause’ issues.” Mystery writer Paul Levine speculated on Roberts’s shift: “My guess is that the Chief lost a bet with Scalia on the baseball playoffs. If Roberts wins the next wager, Scalia will have to write an opinion in iambic pentameter.” Read Roberts’s writing here.


Thank you once again. It is with humble appreciation for the citizens of York County that I will now have the opportunity to serve as your sheriff for another term. It is with great pride that I serve in this capacity, and it is with great commitment that I pledge to work to improve the quality of life within York County.
The York County Sheriff's Office depends upon the public for support. Thank you for serving as our partners by helping us do what is needed to serve you. I pledge to continue to run a top-notch and professional organization that will make you as proud as you are secure.
York County is not the same community that it was in 1996 when you first elected me as your sheriff. York County's growth and the influx of new crime trends have created a need for the Sheriff's Office to grow and change as well. We have implemented many new programs, and we have changed our way of policing in an effort to better serve you and your needs. We are proud to say that we serve you to the best of our abilities, and we will continue to do so with equality and fairness.


'Dreamers' Jovan Rodrigo, 27, and Gloria Mendoza, 26, take part in a protest near Trump Tower on September 5, 2017 in New York City.
If you want to know how people feel about healthcare in America, just ask Eric Ries.
"Everytime there's a new healthcare bill, people go nuts," Ries told Business Insider. "If I didn't read the news, I would know when there's a new bill from the server melt down problems alone."
Ries is one of the original developers behind Resistbot, the text message-based bot which makes it easy for users to send letters and faxes to their representatives in Congress. The bot has amassed 1.366 million total users since it first launched in March — a number which goes up with every shift in federal policy, from healthcare to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Resistbot works like this: users text "RESIST" to the number 50409 — or message the bot over Facebook. The bot asks a series of questions, like full name and zipcode, so that it can identity the user's local senators. It then sends a fax to the senator's office with a personalized message from the user about their concerns. Yes, a real paper fax.
Once users have sent a fax, they can unlock more capabilities — such as outreach to members of the House of Representatives, personalized and physical letters, as well as phone calls.
Total Resistbot users, from its launch to September 19.
This week alone — in the days since Republicans senators introduced the Graham-Cassiy bill to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act — Resistbot has seen its new users increase by the thousands. From September 18 to 21, the app had a total of 34,368 new users. The most active day was September 19, when the bot had 80,589 active users, new and returning.
Jason Putorti, who now runs a lot of the day-to-day operations for the bot, said that Resistbot has resulted in almost 5 million faxes sent, 33,000 postal letters, and nearly 34,000 call minutes to representatives.
Over all, the bot has sent and received 91,421,000 text messages.
It's a heavy load for the volunteer-based application, which was built on the programmable text message software Twilio and is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers.
The specific logic of the bot was customized by the Resistbot team, but the core of it is the opensource communication platform called Rapid Pro. The bot also integrates with other applications, such as Lob, a system that helps businesses programmatically send large quantities of physical mail.
Still in its early days, Resistbot continues to face what Ries called "one of those classic scaling problems." The team has already run through its free usage limits on both GitHub and Slack.
Daily active users on Resistbot, from March 9 to September 5.
Ries said that while the bot software is good at its job, none of the components were designed to be used at the scale the bot has been experiencing. As the result, the wait time for sending messages can be long. Every once in a while the system has what Ries calls "a total meltdown."
"It's designed for very high scale," Ries said. "We're just really pushing it."
Users, however, don't seem to mind. Once run entirely on Ries' personal creditcard, Resistbot is now fully funded by user donations. Over 20,000 people have given Resistbot money, which is used to fund postage for physical letters as well as AWS server costs.
Despite taking phone calls from the press, Ries insists that he's rather hands off about the project these days. The bot is primarily managed by a core group of six to eight engineers.
A total of 123 people have contributed across tasks, from managing social media to submitting letters to the editor to local newspapers (one of the latest features to be added to the bot). There's also a fulltime customer support person — a stay-at-home mom — as well as an editor who writes a policy blog at Resistbot.news.
As Resistbot grows in popularity with every passing Senate bill, Ries said he sees this as a new way of doing politics.
"I think we'll develop a whole new range of techniques for coordinating and doing activism. Resistbot is just connective tissue and glue to get it going," Ries said. "I don't see this as an ideological or partisan thing. This is really about the forces of democracy versus the forces of illiberalism."


The U.S. Department of Justice is playing a dirty game in its effort to get its hands on email and web visit data on American citizens.
In theory, the gambit is part of a probe of the “development, planning, advertisement, and organization of a violent riot” on Inauguration Day.
But the government’s digital fishing exhibition is not limited to violent demonstrators. It’s aimed at over a million people who visited the www.disruptj20.org website.
This violates their First and Fourth amendment rights, according to lawyers for DreamHost, the web hosting service fighting the DOJ in court.
Many probably did not even attend the protestors--not that there would have been anything wrong if they had: They would have been exercising their constitutional rights. Yet they could now face harassment and exposure.
Last month, The DOJ asked the Washington, DC Superior Court to order DreamHost to comply with a wide-ranging search warrant pertaining to the disruptj20.org site.
This would have amounted to handing over roughly “1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content, and photos of thousands of visitors to the website,” wrote a broad coalition of groups that support DreamHost in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Then the DOJ backed off — a bit. In a revised filing, driven by “mounting public pressure,” as DreamHost alleged, it dropped its request for visitor logs, and for any data subject to the Privacy Protection Act. And it reduced the time frame to the period between July 2016 through Inauguration day.
The danger? That “the information yielded by this demand could allow the government to identify individuals engaged in constitutionally protected speech and dissent, as well as members of the news media and the public who simply participated in meetings or communicated with organizers whose email accounts are affiliated with the J20 website,” the coalition argues.
Despite that eloquent plea, the Superior Court approved the altered DOJ request last week. We assume this isn't the end of it,.
So much for the revised warrant.
Dig back into the murky history of direct marketing, and you’ll find several attempts by the government to use personal data for enforcement. Most of them were laughable.
For example, there was a scheme in which the IRS bought marketing data from an unnamed supplier. The logic was that if people lived in an affluent zip code, their tax returns better reflect that prosperity.
It didn’t work, and it led to a national uproar. The IRS had to back off.
Then there was the attempt to use mailing lists to uncover draft-age males. That blew up when some teenage boys signed up for free birthday ice cream sundaes under multiple names.
The ice cream birthday list was rented to the Selective Service, and the boys received draft registration notices under every one of those assumed names.
Later, a consensus developed among businesses and consumers that digital information in general is sacrosanct when it comes to the government.
Granted, this principle was eroded after 9/11. As former President Bill Clinton said, it should have been possible to head off the attackers based on behavior patterns they showed as documented in commercial databases.
That was easy to say in hindsight. As with any search warrant, however, there has to be what lawyers call 'particularity,' or specific probable cause.
Historically, consumers’ privacy fears have been largely focused on companies. As this and other cases prove, it’s the government that should concern them -- and we’re not just talking about the Trump administration, but about government in general.
So we’ll let the coalition sum it up.
Thanks to DreamHost, Google, Microsoft and all other companies fighting such incursions.


Jennifer Lopez is planning a star-studded wedding to her new fiance, Alex Rodriguez. The couple, who got engaged during a romantic vacation earlier this month, are now looking toward their big day.
According to Life & Style Magazine, Jennifer Lopez wants to have the biggest, most lavish celebrity wedding of all time, and she’s ready to shell out some serious cash to make sure that her special day with Alex Rodriguez is perfect.
“She’s decided this should be the most star-studded, opulent ceremony that will go down in history as the most lavish celebrity wedding of all time. She’s aware it’ll be a fine line between classy and over-the-top so she’s working with a team of high-end planners and lifestyle experts to weigh up options,” an insider told the outlet.
“Right now, they’re toying over venues such as The Bahamas, The Hamptons, Hawaii or even a private island. Money’s no object whatsoever and she’s willing to wait if it guarantees her the ultimate guest list. She figures this will be her final opportunity for a princess-style wedding, so she wants to go out with the ultimate bang,” an insider added.
As many fans already know, Lopez has been married three times in the past. She was previously married to Ojani Noa from 1997 to 1998, Cris Judd from 2001-2003, and Mark Anthony from 2004 to 2014. She also shares two children, twins Max and Emme, with Anthony.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Mark Anthony allegedly had a very sweet and supportive reaction to J.Lo and A-Rod’s engagement. The singer is said to be very happy for his former wife, and her future husband.
Sources tell Hollywood Life that Anthony likes Rodriguez, and that the most important thing to him is that Alex treats his children well, and that the kids like their future step-father.
Insiders also reveal that Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez’s blended family is a blessing to them. A-Rod’s daughters are said to love J.Lo and her kids, and that Jennifer is head-over-heels for Alex’s girls as well.
The source reveals that they really are just one big happy family, and that Lopez and Rodriguez have never been happier than they are right now.
Alex proposed to Jen with a huge diamond, which may be her most expensive engagement ring of all time, and Lopez likely knows diamonds, as she has been engaged five times in her life.
Fans can see more of Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez’s life together by following them on Instagram.


'I want my lawyer" is a phrase with which most Philadelphians are familiar, thanks to books, movies, and Law & Order re-runs. What most people do not know is that the right to legal counsel and representation is available only to criminal defendants charged with a crime.
In contrast, every day Philadelphians end up in civil, or non-criminal, courtrooms where they face critical consequences that can upend their life, but where they have no right to a lawyer. They may lose their home or their children or be saddled with large financial obligations. If they are unable to afford a lawyer, they must navigate a frightening and complex legal system alone.
American law recognizes the sanctity of our homes in many ways, but that is not visible when families stand in our courtrooms unrepresented and worried about ending up in the streets. Two major U.S. cities - Washington, D.C., and New York City - are currently considering local laws that will ensure a right to legal counsel for individuals facing eviction or foreclosure proceedings. And now, thanks to a resolution introduced by Councilwoman Helen Gym, Philadelphia is exploring becoming the third.
In September, the New York City Council held a public hearing featuring more than 80 witnesses, including the former chief judge of its highest court, borough presidents, and the New York City Bar Association. They testified in support of a municipal law that would provide legal counsel for low-income tenants who are facing eviction, ejectment, or foreclosure proceedings. Witnesses testified to the damage done to families who lose their homes, the significant cost to the city of housing, educating, and supporting families who end up homeless, and the powerful difference that legal representation makes in these proceedings. Last month, New York's mayor responded by announcing a $93 million increase in legal aid spending over the next five years to provide counsel in these housing matters for low-income families, effectively enacting the right-to-counsel provision.
In October, the Washington City Council held a public hearing on the Expanding Access to Justice Act, which was introduced to provide a right to counsel in civil cases involving fundamental human needs - including housing, safety, education, income, health, and loss of liberty from deportation. This bill is still pending.
On Monday, in response to the resolution by Gym, City Council will conduct hearings to examine the impact of eviction and substandard housing on the health and well-being of Philadelphia's low-income renters. Among the issues that will be examined is establishing a right to counsel for low-income renters in landlord-tenant disputes, including eviction proceedings.
Evictions are complex, technical legal proceedings in which rules of evidence and procedural and substantive law apply. Renters are at a disadvantage in this process. Last year, 81 percent of landlords were represented by lawyers, while only 8.27 percent of tenants were. Of that number, only 1.45 percent were represented by a legal aid attorney. As one would expect, statistics show that tenants usually lose, as they are greatly disadvantaged by not having legal representation.
The consequences of eviction for Philadelphia's low-income residents are severe. Families and individuals who lose their homes in legal proceedings often suffer loss of employment, missed school, damage to physical and mental health, and homelessness. It is clear that at least some of this harm is avoidable.
National studies show that tenants who are represented by lawyers are far less likely to be evicted and far more likely to enjoy safe and habitable housing than tenants who are unrepresented. Simply by having lawyers available to enforce the law, more vulnerable families stay in their homes.
Representing Philadelphians facing the loss of their homes will require funding for more legal aid lawyers, but it is money well spent. Investing in civil legal aid will not only make our justice system work better, but will also save the city money in the long term. A recent economic impact study found that for every dollar spent on legal aid in Pennsylvania, the commonwealth and its residents receive an $11 return.
The financial advantage to expanded legal aid in the city is large. Philadelphia must provide emergency and transitional shelter and social services to families that have suffered eviction, and deal with the educational impact of children thrown out of their homes. The long-term effects of traumatic displacement of individuals and families carry additional costs to city coffers, as well as causing personal tragedy for those involved.
Philadelphia should follow the example of Washington and New York and move toward making legal representation in eviction and foreclosure proceedings a right, not a privilege available only to those who can afford it.
Catherine Carr ( ccarrphila@gmail.com) and Joseph A. Sullivan ( sullivanja@pepperlaw.com) are co-chairs of the Association's Civil Gideon and Access to Justice Task Force.


The health care authority allegedly considers sanctions for the private facility owned by masseur Pavol Kostka.
A private facility owned by Pavol Kostka contravened regulations when treating the assistant of non-affiliated MP Miroslav Beblavý. The information was confirmed by the MP himself, who referred to the confirmation issued by the Health Care Surveillance Authority (ÚDZS), the TASR newswire reported.
The Bratislava-based clinic has several flaws, the document suggests. Assistant Vincent Bujňák was not examined by a doctor, but by an employee responsible for rehabilitation.
“He was also treated using several therapies that result in the same effect, which is prohibited during a single visit, and the therapy took twice as long as usual,” Beblavý said, as quoted by TASR.
ÚDZS also revealed several flaws in the medical records. It is allegedly considering sanctions against the facility and has already turned to the Health Ministry, Beblavý added.
The authority has confirmed that “the above mentioned clinic is cheating”, the MP continued. It recorded that it treated his assistant with acupuncture, though he had refused it and no such treatment had taken place.
“The state-run insurer Všeobecná Zdravotná Poisťovňa (VšZP) failed in that it made a contract with Kostka concerning the therapy that lasted three hours, though such therapy should last no more than 60 minutes,” Beblavý told TASR, adding that due to the length of therapy the final price was higher.
ÚDZS carried out the inspection after receiving a motion from the members of the Slovak Medical Chamber, and also after the Sme daily published a series of stories concerning the activities of Kostka’s clinics. ÚDZS asked for the testimonies of dissatisfied patients, so Bujňák decided to visit the facility to be able to provide a proof, as reported by TASR.
VšZP meanwhile terminated the contract with Kostka Clinic. The reason was that ÚDZS has found several flaws in their agreement.