While it is dissapointing to see the price where it is at, however it would appear to be selling by some weary investors. If you are getting jitters, I recommend you give Elmer a call. You will likely feel a whole bunch better....

As we are 3 weeks in, I found this interesting read on the Peer Review process.

-Firestarter

PEER REVIEW

Peer review is the simple act of an individual or group that knows a lot about the subject, reviewing the work product of another individual or group. Peer review may be informal or formal; rapid or prolonged; on-time or regularly repeated. The following are some essentials of peer review:

·The Peer Reviewers should be independent of the peer reviewed.

·The Peer Reviewers should know as much as or more than the peer reviewed about the work being reviewed.

·The Peer Reviewers should have no stake in the outcome of their recommendations.

The peer reviewers may come from the same company as the peer reviewed as long as they report up the chain-of-command to somebody with more authority than the highest ranking member of the peer reviewed group. Peer reviewers may be outsiders assembled only for the review at hand. Written procedures and a scope for the peer reviewers should be established before they begin their work. And preferably they should provide a written report on their review.

Personally I would rather be peer reviewed than peer review. It is difficult to review work. At one level the peer reviewer degenerates into a simple word editor who quibbles about the location of the comma. At another level, the peer reviewer becomes the lazy buffoon who simply demands that all the important stuff be “brought up front”. I have had to deal delicately with the peer reviewer who read only Section 5 and then complained that we did not adequately explain information provided in Section 4. Another peer reviewer on my little list is the one who starts reading the document the night before it is due to be issued. The most comprehensive peer review is the one to which I was subjected when compiling large proposals for a national engineering company. They would bring in a team of peer reviewers lock them in a luxury hotel and only let them out when they had formulated recommendations. We inevitably won the job when the peer reviewers were good.

The following is a quote from a three-page document that crossed my desk recently:

A Review Board is highly desirable for major civil and mining engineering projects. Those working on such a project can often become so involved in the details of the work that they find it difficult to stand back and take an impartial view of alternative approaches. The Review Board, with its requirement to be impartial and its years of practical experience on similar projects, can usually pin-point problems and possible solutions very quickly. Once these problems have been brought to the attention of the geotechnical team, it is surprising how often an effective solution can be found. Even in cases where a highly competent geotechnical team exists, an occasional independent review can provide the Mine Manager with the assurance that all is in order.

The author of these words is Evert Hoek. The paper on my deck notes that he is adapting from a paper entitled “Consulting Boards for Large Civil Engineering Projects” that he wrote with Alan S. Imrie and published in International Water Power and Dam Engineering (No dates provided).

Hoek continues: A Review Board should be composed of a small number of internationally recognized authorities in fields relevant to the principal problems encountered on the mine. The purpose of the Board should be to provide an objective, balanced and impartial view of the overall geotechnical activities on a mine. The Board should not be used as a substitute for normal consulting services since members do not have time to acquire all the detailed knowledge necessary to provide direct consulting opinions.

The use of peer reviewers from outside of the organization seems to be gaining favor based on the travel schedule of some of my friends who seem to visiting South America to participate in yet another review board meeting. The construction of ever-larger tailings impoundment reaching unprecedented heights in areas prone to earthquakes is perhaps a reason for the interest in review boards. Peer review of large dam design and construction is as old as my tenure in civil engineering—nothing new there, but the use of outside peer reviewers in mining has undoubtedly to meet critical mass as a practice in the mining industry. There are some commenters who believe that independent peer review is the only way for the mining industry to maintain reputations with regulators and the public in general as we move into ever more areas not yet the site of productive and accepted mines.