Both Sides of the Picture
posted on
Feb 10, 2012 08:22PM
CUU own 25% Schaft Creek: proven/probable min. reserves/940.8m tonnes = 0.27% copper, 0.19 g/t gold, 0.018% moly and 1.72 g/t silver containing: 5.6b lbs copper, 5.8m ounces gold, 363.5m lbs moly and 51.7m ounces silver; (Recoverable CuEq 0.46%)
This board is an excellent resource for learning more about the positives of Copper Fox. It is a great place to discuss why Copper Fox is unique and how upcoming catalysts will further prove that. However, I think this board has become too one sided and I wanted to share some negatives as well. I know I'm putting a target on my head, but I think it is helpful to discuss both sides of the story. I'm not here to start any fights, I'm just looking to create some intelligent discussion. The positives are discussed quite often, so I will briefly summarize them first.
POSITIVES
1. We have a huge world class resource - 1 billion tonnes of mineralized rock is a rare find these days
2. We have excellent economics due to favorable starter pits and an ideal workspace layout
3. We can produce a clean, high quality concentrate
4. We can produce four different metals, allowing us to be hedged against metal price fluctuations
5. We have no major environmental concerns - low PAG rock and not near fish bearing streams
6. We have a solid management team
7. We have an excellent partner (Teck)
8. We have full confidence from insiders
9. Our upgraded Resource Estimate will show a huge jump in resources
Negatives
1. Hole 419 was not a new find. The drill hole location map makes it appear that we found mineralization well south of the resource block model. The map is misleading because the block model is shown for an elevation of 600m, well below the surface. Our actual resource block model goes almost all the way to 6359000 near the surface. The location of Hole 419 was already contained in our Resource Estimate (but likely at lower grades).
2. There seems to be poor information flow to us regarding delays. I understand there will be delays when working on something as large as this Feasibility. That is acceptable. But why wait so long to tell us? We found out Dec 14 that the feasibility would be delayed. At that point, there was only 1 working week left in the year. Did they not know sooner about the delay? Other companies are able to predict feasibility dates months in advance.
3. Our drill results are painfully slow. There are likely valid explanations for this. However, I'm concerned that Copper Fox is either selecting poor contractors for this job or they have weak control over the contractors.
4. Our budgeting abilities seem to be weak. Why so many financings? Why did we not just plan a large financing last spring and get it over with all at once?
5. This is not "cheap". This is a $525M dollar company with a likely 25% stake in a mine years away from construction. There are very few other companies in that situation with a market cap as high as us. So why am I here? Because I expect Copper Fox to be a very expensive buyout.
6. Our 2011 drilling program was not very aggressive. Instead of reading about all the potential, I would prefer if we proved it. Look at Lumina Copper. They are a company smaller than us and they pulled off a 99,500m drilling program in 2011. Ours was 10,000m. If we have a drill program this year, I hope to see it start with a bang.
7. Our Resource Estimate last year was very disappointing. The share price suffered because of it. It was not the shorts, or the frisbee shares, or the big banks. It was our own bad news that caused the drop. It's not the job of a resource estimate to remove rock that is uneconomical. That is the job of PFS/BFS. Our resource should not have gone down.