The gold price is doing well, and we at APT foresee it getting to around US$1350 quite soon. There are some other runners too, and in general this should be a time of plenty. Plenty of opportunity that is, but you still have to do the deed and produce, and that is far easier said than done.

Being well established in this business we have seen ideas come and go, and of course that is the necessary cycle of invention and creation. But let’s be quite clear and frank – for every successful idea there are literally dozens of dud ones.

The new reality is that that creation cycle needs to be tidied up a great deal, there just isn’t the capital to fund it willy nilly. And it needn’t, indeed shouldn’t be so. In todays modern engineering world we have powerful computers to test ideas long before a cutting torch is lifted. And powerful programs to test and simulate the outcome in advance. This is the age of true engineering, the smarts that dictate the fabrication.

Unfortunately our industry is the dumping ground of many who just want to ‘have a go’. They may have a workshop and may make excellent garden tools, for example, and want to climb in on the process equipment side too. Cheap the resulting offerings may be; they don’t need to factor in the development cycle and all the professional engineering costs, but it is likely to cost far more in the end.

We at APT have invested heavily in R&D and engineering power. We have our own associate laboratories and several in-house test beds to iron out as many of the wrinkles as possible up front, as wrinkles there always will be even with all the primary effort in place.

So as you move into 2019, we at APT wish you all the very best, and we pledge to provide products and services that are as solid as possible and are backed by APT’s commitment.

Successful New Year – Happy New Year.

Kevin Peacocke

CEO