Hopefully a few more tidbits on these questions come in. I know how tough it can be to talk to someone with a laundry list of topics and only cover a portion of them. To be fair, Elmer can't answer many of those questions till the BFS is released.
Looks like a quiet trading day. I expect we will close back under the 20 day Bollinger Band in the $1.24 range. With no news this is nice and healthy as we were a bit overbought in the short term imho.
NCU
http://www.nevadacopper.com/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=503178&_Type=News-Releases&_Title=Nevada-Copper-Announces-Positive-Feasibility-Study-Results
I don't follow NCU but I read Nevada Copper's PFS news release to get an idea of what the market thinks of copper mines today.
Their base case used 3 yr trailing average metals prices ($3.24 cu, $1252 Au, $23.19 Ag, no moly). If I use these metals prices in my calcs (with $15 Moly) I end up with a similar NPV 21% before taxes (vrs Nevada Coppers's 23.1%). Also, Schaft Creek pays back in year 4 as well. I expect Elmer's numbers to be sharper than mine as I can only estimate the starter pit grades and can't play around with stockpiling and ramping up production level's to the same degree.
Folks should read the dislcaimer on the CUU presentation about the 2008 PFS numbers and how they may not turn out the same for the BFS... Slide 2 middle paragraph.
Nevada Copper's Pumpkin Hollow has much higher grades than Schaft (overall) but it looks to me that their starter pit options may not be as good (limited volume of higher grades at shallow depths). Also, Pumpkin Hollow will require an underground portion to access a very nice high grade ore body. I'm not sure how they kept Capex in the $1B range... probably the close proximity of powerlines, roads and natural gas to the site.
I liked how NCU released the PFS into the public. Last week they told everyone that the PFS was coming out today and that there would be a conference call to explain it on Jan 26th. The market didn't think much of NCU today... down about 3.4% as I write...
