Zapper,

I was bored so I desided to fully read your attempted rebuttal of my posts and found them to be non other than skirting the issue of a labour shortage.

You write,

/ To illustrate my point, ARU is having success training, educating, and employing Ecuadorians for their exploration program.  Couldn't the same be said in future years to train, educate, and employ Ecuadorians to develop the mine?  A factor working in their favour is the large lead time to develop the mine./

Tell me where you get the information to make such a grandios claim to the above. ARU has hundreds of employee's and they are used to build roads, buildings, clear drill sites, move equipement etc. These are hardly skills that ARU would have had to teach the locals even though losely you may claim they are part of the exploration program. 

While who ever does decide to develope the FDN deposite will certainly be expected to train Ecuadorians in modern mining techneques. Afterall this will be expected by the Ecuadorian government in order to create jobs and it would be in the interest of the company in order to take advantage of the low cost labour. What company wants a mine run fully by expensive expats like myself hahahahahaha.

There is still the problem that you have skirted of where are they going to get a whole mine of expat employee's to train there counter part nationals. This would prove very difficult for an exploration company like ARU (with no exhisting labour force to draw on) to accomplish for a mine the size FDN will be.

Training miners is an apprenticeship program that is done on the job and very little can be done in a class room. That is why you used to have generations of miners from the same family because it is a trade that was handed down between family and friends. There is the experienced leader of a 2 man crew and  then there is his partner of similar to no experience ( if that leader desided to take and train a green horn). 1 - 2 generations of miners has been skipped and now there are very few miners left to train the new generation of miners that is needed. With the ever increasing mining rules and regulations in the west I might add that of those few capable miners left to train, even fewer of them wish to take on the responsibility of training a green horn. The situation is dire and that is why there are ever more reports of mine fatalities. Men with little or no experience are sent underground and told to mine.

 Tell me zapper what you propose, ARU build a practice mine before they attempt the real thing.  In order to train miners you need a mine to train them in. To propose otherwise is putting the egg before the chicken hahahahahaha.

You write: 

/   they compounded growth by building their businesses over decades.  similarly to what bob mcewen did at goldcorp from exploration to production.  patrick anderson could do likewise with aurelian.  /

Well zapper if you consider this next statement as part of my MO of discrediting other posters well all I have to say is that you either post correct information and know what you are talking about or you do not. This latest exchange between us proves to me that you have no qualifications to speak about anything with regards to the operations of a mine. Once again your above statement avoids the issue at hand of a labour shortage not to mention that many of the above wealthy people amassed there fortune in less than a decade.

First of all if by bob mcewen you are refering to Rob Mcewen he took over the business from his father. Second his large success was proposing that the ore body at there Red Lake mine which his father had bought continued to depth. This is something I could have told him and I say the same thing about the FDN deposit, hence my 40 - 60 million ounce eventual target for them. The Red Lake mine was in operation since 1940's and is in an established mining camp, in an established mining country with an already established mining workforce in the Red Lake camp. How you compare this to ARU's situation is beyound me and once again totally avoids the manpower situation.

This post is intended for  those readers who truely wish to be informed about mining as part of there DD in future and present mine investments.

F.F.