The outlook for copper both short term and long term seems to change weekly and sometimes daily, so it is hard to keep up on it.

I think that the long-term view is quite consistent. Even the beariest of bears thinks that there will be a copper shortage in a few years. In terms of our current stock price that is cold comfort because investors want results now.

Copper producing companies, however, have to look to the future. It also seems that China is looking towards a coming shortage and that's why the SRB has been buying all this year and is planning on much more into 2015.

The analysts are all over the map but I think that you get a solid opinion from the actions of China. If they are buying it is likely because they think we're at the bottom in terms of price of copper. They even bought some molybdenum which they haven't bought in two decades and that is very good news for us.

BHP is experimenting with chemical dilution for their big Australian mine to raise the output. It seems like they are trying the same technology that we would use at Van Dyke to liquify the ore and extract the copper. They're doing this at an underground mine though.