Hi Jay5,
I like the long term outlook for this company. I am a firm believer that, along with oil, copper, cobalt and nickel will see a huge supply squeeze in the next couple of years. The property, I am a firm believer that it hold a massive amount of ore in it. It is spread out over a great distance and goes deeper which doesn't help them with the driling aspect of the business. The shallow stuff should be very economical with an open pit operation and then they will go underground. I do think that this property could hold at least 5-6 times the current 44 million tonnes, but the probelm is the expense of drilling this, it is deeper and the property is pretty far north which increases the expense.
As far as a JV or buyout, I think that most, if not all are leaning towards a buyout. I don't think Mr. Douchane at this point in his life wants to stick around for another 5 years for this to go into production. He may surprise me but I do believe that he would welcome a buyout, at the right price of course. With China trying to buy up all the production that they will need to feed their massive growth puts SRU in a pretty good position. They just need to prove out the metallurgy and this company will be gone IMO. China got shot down in their bid for Oz Minerals by the Australian government but on the heals of that a Chinese company has made a deal with Consolidated Tompson for a large percentage of the company which also allows them a certain percentage of all metals that Consolidated mines. China is being very smart right now and they know that these prices will not last forever. Think 2-3 years out when all the economies are hitting on all cylinders, just what will this do to metal prices after all the shut downs and stalled exploration projects?
So the project is safe in my opinion but my only concern is with management's ability to increase shareholder value. There is no reason for this stock to be sitting where it is today, I think most can agree to that! Let's get the pilot plant going already, prove this system out and let us sell the project to the highest bidder! I don't really care, BHP, Chinalco, Rio, I think this is the way we should go and I hope management agrees!