另類職場 採礦項目的成功要素

Gold miners call it “the first pour” — the moment when liquid gold, the initial ounces recovered from tonnes of crushed and chemically treated rock, is carefully channelled into a mould. An ingot of precious metal is formed; the assembled workforce cheers; and a miner’s arduous life once more seems worthwhile.

黃金礦工稱它爲“第一注”(the first pour)——從數噸經過碾磨和化學處理的礦石中提煉出來的熔化狀態黃金，被小心導入一個模子的那一刻。一塊金錠成形了，圍着觀看的礦工們發出歡呼，他們的艱辛生活再一次看上去有了價值。

When that moment arrives at the New Liberty Mine in Liberia at the end of this month, David Reading says, he might finally realise that he and Aureus Mining, where he is chief executive, have successfully built a gold mine.

在利比里亞的New Liberty礦，礦企Aureus Mining的首席執行官戴維•裏丁(David Reading)說，當那個時刻來臨時，他或許才終於會意識到：他和Aureus Mining成功建起了一座金礦。

“I guess it hasn’t sunk in . . . I am too busy worrying about making sure that we meet all our other milestones,” says Mr Reading, speaking in Aureus’s London office. “I am flying [to Liberia] at the end of the month and I think it is going to hit me then.”

“我猜之前我還沒來得及消化這一切進展……我忙於確保到達其他所有里程碑，要操心的事情太多。”裏丁在Aureus位於倫敦的辦公室裏說，“我在5月底要飛往（利比里亞），我想，到那時我纔會突然意識到這件事。”

After 35 years in the gold industry, most of it in Africa, this is Mr Reading’s first “first pour” as a CEO. Aureus, a small miner with a stock market value in London of about £110m, has built New Liberty in four years, which as Mr Reading points out is not a long time in mining.

在黃金業工作35年（大部分時間是在非洲）後，這是裏丁作爲首席執行官第一次經歷“第一注”。在倫敦上市、市值約1.1億英鎊的小礦商Aureus，用4年時間建成了New Liberty礦。正如裏丁所指出的，在採礦業，4年不是一段很長的時期。

“It is a remarkable achievement,” he says. “Probably all chief executives say they are remarkable. But in the context of the industry it is a big achievement.”

“這是一項了不起的成就。”他說，“很可能每個首席執行官都會認爲自己很了不起。但放在這個行業的大背景中，這確實是項很大的成就。”

Aureus has completed New Liberty, at a cost of $172m, in one of the most unforgiving environments for mining. It is the first commercial gold mine in Liberia, the west African country that emerged from civil war little more than a decade ago. It has been built in the teeth of a west African Ebola epidemic and during the worst downturn in gold mining in more than a decade.

Aureus以1.72億美元的成本，在極惡劣的採礦環境裏，完成了New Liberty礦的建設。這是利比里亞的首座商業性金礦。這個西非國家十多年前纔剛剛結束內戰。建設過程中，他們遭遇了西非的埃博拉疫情，還遭遇了黃金採礦業十多年來最嚴重的低迷。

In the circumstances, says Mr Reading, who spends an average of one week a month at the mine, a slight delay in completing New Liberty is acceptable. “We were trying to make March [for the initial gold production] but you can’t script an Ebola epidemic. It is not something you put in your strategy sessions.”

鑑於這些情況，裏丁說，New Liberty礦稍微延遲一些完工是可以接受的。他每個月平均要在那座金礦待一週時間。“我們曾經試圖趕在3月（啓動金礦的初期開採），但是誰料得到會有埃博拉呢。這不是你在制定戰略時會考慮的情況。”

This month Liberia — one of the three countries most afflicted by the Ebola outbreak, along with Guinea and Sierra Leone — was declared free of the disease by the World Health Organisation, after 42 days without new cases reported.

5月，世界衛生組織(WHO)宣佈利比里亞的埃博拉疫情結束，之前該國已有42天沒有報告新的病例。利比里亞是受埃博拉疫情影響最嚴重的3個國家之一（另外兩個是幾內亞和塞拉利昂）。

Mr Reading recalls how a year ago the first Ebola cases were reported in the country, and how the disease grew into a serious outbreak that the 1,000 workers at New Liberty, 100km from Liberia’s capital Monrovia, had to confront.

裏丁回憶起一年前，利比里亞報告首批埃博拉病例，隨後埃博拉演變成一場嚴重的疫情，讓距離首都蒙羅維亞100公里的New Liberty的1000名工人不得不努力應對。

By July, Mr Reading says, the Ebola epidemic “hit CNN” and alarm grew. “A lot of organisations left very quickly and a lot of planes stopped operating. What we had to do was get our minds around this quickly and not panic — panicking doesn’t really help.”

裏丁說，到了去年7月，埃博拉疫情“上了CNN”，情況越來越危急。“許多組織很快離開，許多航班停止營運。我們當時必須做的就是儘快搞清楚這是怎麼回事、剋制恐慌的衝動——恐慌於事無補。”

At the time, Aureus was engaged in building for the project, including the mills, conveyors and tanks for processing ore that it will dig from a 2km-long open pit. “The big challenge was ‘How do we carry on building?’ We were more than half way through . . . for a small company to stop then, you would pretty much bankrupt yourself. But on the other hand you can’t carry on if you are going to endanger your employees. That was the dilemma I had.”

當時，Aureus正投入項目建設，包括碾磨廠、輸送機、以及礦石處理槽（礦石將從一個2公里長的露天礦坑採掘出來）。“巨大的挑戰在於，‘我們如何繼續建設’？我們已經進行到一半多了……對一個小公司而言，在這個階段停下，基本就相當於自我宣告破產。但另一方面，如果你會讓員工置身於危險，你就不能繼續。那就是我當時面臨的兩難境地。”

New Liberty quarantined itself be­hind roadblocks and kept two doctors on site. Contractors, most of them used to working in Africa, were flown in and out using Liberia’s military airport. With New Liberty only 100km from the nearest port, most supplies kept arriving. No Ebola cases arose at the project.

New Liberty進行了自我隔離，設置路障，還安排兩名醫生駐守礦區。合同工（其中大多數人習慣於在非洲工作）利用利比里亞的軍用機場出入境。New Liberty離最近的港口僅100公里，因此大多數物資仍不斷到達。整個項目團隊沒有出現一例埃博拉病例。

Tom Butler, until recently head of min­ing at the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank arm and one of Aureus’s biggest investors, says Mr Reading rallied the workforce to commit to the project by going to the mine. “It was personal leadership at its best,” says Mr Butler.

直到不久前一直是國際金融公司(International Finance Corporation)礦業主管的湯姆•巴特勒(Tom Butler)表示，裏丁親自來到礦址，這鼓舞了員工，讓他們堅守這個項目。“這是以身作則的最佳案例。”國際金融公司是世界銀行(World Bank)旗下機構，也是Aureus的最大股東之一。

Aureus is one of countless small gold mining companies peppered across the planet, holding licences for deposits that — with the right mix of luck, judgment and financial backing — might one day become a functioning gold mine. Mr Reading previously worked with Randgold, the UK’s largest listed gold miner, and was Later CEO of European Goldfields, sold in 2011 for $2.4bn. When he joined Aureus shortly before it listed in the UK and Canada in 2011, he visited New Liberty and was confident that a mine could be successfully developed.

Aureus是世界各地無數小型黃金開採公司中的一家，持有礦藏執照——藉助運氣、判斷力和財務支持，這些礦藏有朝一日可能會變成一座開採出黃金的金礦。裏丁之前曾效力於英國最大的黃金上市公司——蘭德黃金(Randgold)，後來成爲European Goldfields的首席執行官（該公司2011年以24億美元被出售）。2011年，Aureus在英國和加拿大上市，他在公司上市前不久加入。他走訪了New Liberty，確信可成功開發一座金礦。

His strategic dilemma was whether to get the mine into production as quickly as possible rather than carry on exploring the area in search of more gold — even though more discoveries could have enhanced the value of the project and company. “People were saying ‘Just carry on exploring and make lots of ounces’,” he says. “I said: ‘This is a cyclical business’. If you don’t walk before you can run, you will end up with something where you have no funding and you don’t know where to go with it.”

他在戰略上的兩難是，要不要儘快讓該礦投產，而不是繼續對該地區進行勘探、尋找更多黃金——即使發現更多黃金礦藏可能會增加項目和公司的價值？“別人都說‘你應該繼續勘探、增加黃金儲量。”他說，“我說：‘這是一個存在週期性的行業’。如果你沒學會走路就奔跑，到頭來你可能連資金都搞不定，而且不知道該怎麼辦。”

It appears to have been the right decision. Six months after Aureus listed in 2011, the gold price peaked at more than $1,900 per ounce and started to retreat. Late in 2012 Aureus raised $80m of equity, a significant chunk of New Liberty’s construction cost. By the time the gold price fall accelerated in 2013, Aureus was already building. “The whole approach was ‘Let’s get this up and running’. The boom time wasn’t going to last for ever,” says Mr Reading.

這看上去是個正確的決定。Aureus於2011年上市6個月後，金價達到每盎司逾1900美元的頂點，然後開始下跌。2012年末，Aureus籌資了8000萬美元的股本，這相當於New Liberty的一大半建設成本。到2013年金價開始加速下滑時，Aureus已經開工建設了。裏丁說：“當時我們的基本原則就是‘只管儘快建好投產’。繁榮期不會永久持續。”

“We have been able to fund a project in the downturn. That doesn’t normally happen — and if you can fund a project in a downturn you will definitely reap the rewards of the next upturn.”

“我們得以在低迷期保證了項目所需資金。這是比較罕見的成就——如果你能夠在低迷期保證一個項目所需資金，你肯定會在下一個繁榮期獲得回報。”

The ingredients of a successful mine are not particularly complex, Mr Reading insists: lots of gold at a high grade; good people, who are not fazed by the challenges that inevitably arise; and “an enabling government”. Liberia, whose president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has visited the project, has been encouraging, Mr Reading says. “The other challenges are pretty stan­dard for Africa: logistics, supply routes, terrain, rainfall. You will get that every­where.”

裏丁堅持認爲，採礦項目成功的必備要素並不複雜：大量高品位黃金；靠譜的團隊，不會被難免出現的困難所嚇倒；以及“政府的支持”。裏丁說，利比里亞政府一直非常支持，總統埃倫•約翰遜•瑟利夫(Ellen Johnson Sirleaf)曾視察過該項目。“其他困難都是在非洲非常普遍的：物流、供應路線、地形、以及降雨。你在任何地方都會遇到這些問題。”

Mr Reading owns a small percentage of Aureus and is painfully aware that gold shares have been “hammered” over the past three years. Gold is now at about $1,200/oz, cutting the returns from the many projects that were planned in an era of higher prices.

裏丁擁有Aureus的一小部分股份，他非常清楚黃金礦商的股票在過去3年遭受“重創”。眼下金價約爲每盎司1200美元，這使得許多在金價較高時期規劃的項目回報減少。

Even with production close, Aureus shares are almost 75 per cent lower than when the company listed four years ago. Options that Mr Reading owns for more shares are mostly worthless at current prices. “If I want to make money I have to make the shareholders money.”

即便將要投產，Aureus的股價仍比4年前公司上市時低近75%。按照現在的價格，裏丁擁有的可讓他獲得更多股票的期權幾乎一文不值。“如果我想賺到錢，我得讓股東們賺到錢。”

Aureus will be profitable, he says, and calls New Liberty a “starter kit” for further development in Liberia, where the company has other licences.

他說，Aureus會盈利的，他還說，New Liberty將是公司在利比里亞的“起跳板”，他們在利比里亞還持有其他執照。

“We need to get it up and running, get revenue and reinvest it in further growth,” he says. “What gets me out of bed in the morning is seeing a good asset developed and knowing that there are plenty of others we can develop.”

“我們需要把這座礦啓動起來，獲得收入，再投入於未來的增長。”他說，“我每天起牀的動力就是看到我們開發了一項優質資產，並且知道還有其他很多項目有待開發。”