Hello Rago.

I think I can speak for everybody, saying we all sincerely appreciate your investigatory work. Obviously, squeezing words out of people is not often an easy or pleasant thing to do. Of course, when many of the important details are hush-hush, that’s not your fault. As I understand your last message, we can expect more information to follow on the Lamêlée deal.

Your words (spare as they are) deserve repeating. “I think it will be the first project that they have received financing for. But I will believe it when I see it.”

I share your skepticism. I’m waiting for the day our leaders grasp the comparative enormity of what we own. The magnitude of our resources, defined by enormous positive numbers, should have enormous positive implications.

As you may recall, earlier this month, I crunched the Magpie numbers. I concluded, one way to look at our share of the mountain of Magpie resources was in terms of the Gold equivalents. I talked about our resources in the ground in terms of Gold because Gold prices are more closely followed and more readily understood than the prices of Titanium, Chromium, Vanadium, or Iron.

When somebody tells you something has the same sound level as a train whistle (90 decibels), that’s easier to understand than being told the sound level is three times louder than a quiet whisper in a library (30 decibels). Likewise, without making any material change, we can draw equivalents between different commodities, so long as the market prices (in different measured quantities) equal one another. I bring up Gold equivalent ounces strictly for convenience and familiarity.

OK. As I said on 2 September 2013—when I added up the spot market prices of the four resource metals (Titanium, Chromium, Vanadium, and Iron) representing our percentage share of Magpie—the total was the equivalent of 605.48 million Gold ounces (in the ground). Today, crunching the Lamêlée numbers the same way, I get:

Lamêlée Inferred = 520 million tonnes
Fe2O3 = 39.6% (at Lamêlée) = 205.92 million tonnes
Spot Market Price Fe2O3 (31 August 2013) = CAD$140.80 tonne
CAD$140.80 tonne X 205.92 million tonnes = CAD$28,993,536,000
Gold = US$1322.95 (9:40pm, 26 September 2013) = CAD$1367.00 troy ounce
CAD$28,993,536,000 / CAD$1367.00 = 21.21 million Gold equivalent ounces (in the ground)

Gimus 30% Lamêlée = 6.363 million Gold equivalent ounces (in the ground)
Fancamp 70% Lamêlée = 14.847 million Gold equivalent ounces (in the ground)

Dr. Smith has a wacky way of explaining it: “The proposed transaction is a win-win-win situation for Fancamp, Champion and Gimus.” In other words, who cares if we overpaid Gimus? Whatever the (unstated) terms of the deal, it’s triple good. Just so long as we remember, it’s a “win-win-win.”