I think Steve Altmann did a fanstastic job today to present the update on ECU. I am very familiar with the story but I learned some new things myself, and thought it was a pretty crisp presentation overall. He outlined the progress so far, and explained some of the decisions that the company has made.

Some of the interesting details:

The grades they are encountering from actual sampling of the veins underground have been higher than the drill results so far. So the actual ore zones will probably be even higher grade than the expectations based on the data.

They have over 300,000 data points from the deposit, which has to rank it as one of the most comprehensive resources for any deposit of this size.

There are 32 known veins on the property controlled by ECU. Most remain open lateraly and to depth. Almost no exploration has been done on the western veins so far.

Development work commenced on a 2km decline ramp about 2 months ago. This ramp will allow access to the lower levels of the mine for heavy equipment. It will also open up drilling stations that will make it much cheaper and faster to do exploration drilling to depth.

Work continues on the pyrite circuit to try and optimize gold recoveries, and the progress is described as 'encouraging'. Steve had great praise for MICON and the work on the resource estimate, and for Kappes Cassidy and the metallurgical test work that is in progress.

The company still hopes to have the PFS completed by Q2 but that is still subject to possible delays along the way.

There will be between 2-4 drills turning during 2008. The objectives will be to continue infill work to upgrade the resource to M&I, to step out the current discoveries and try to expand the deposit area, and to complete new exploration work, including targeting the skarn zones to depth.

There is about $12 million in cash in the bank, and about $1 million per month is the burn rate.

I asked a few questions about the potential to restart processing ore grade material, in order to generate positive cash flow. Altmann suggested that could begin very soon. The main issue is that the deposit model for the bulk tonnage ore requires that the higher grade vein shoots must remain intact or the lower grade zones will not be worth going back to. So trying to make money off a low tonnage operation does not make sense. However, there are known veins outside of the MC bulk tonnage zone, and they could be put into production to generate cash flow as the company had established last year, at lower gold and silver prices.

The mill remains fully operational, but most of 2007 was running low grade test material. The work is ongoing to increase the efficiency as metallurgical test results come in. I think the management understands the importance of getting production going again, so that investors can know that the project is viable, and so that they will be able to stretch the cash position a bit further by generating internal revenues.

Altmann has quite a few analyst meetings set up in the near future. I think the story is starting to get out to the institutions. I respect the effort for Steve and the CFO Dwight Walker to come to present to retail shareholders. There has been a lot of nonsense circulating on the forums and I hope this post has helped to clear up some of the facts for the company. I am also sure that anyone that calls the company directly will get straight answers to any questions they may have.

cheers!

mike

Voluntary disclosure: ECU is one of my largest personal holdings. The company is a paid advertiser on my website.