From Jim Briscoe

"Some thoughts from my intense scrutiny of the copper markets and producing mines; as a complete surprise, yesterday was Freeport throwing in the towel to the Indonesia government piracy of the Grasberg Mine, 2nd largest copper-gold mine in the world.  It is incredibly complex and working in glacial conditions at about 14,000 feet on the only glacier on the equator where every day at the lower mine entrance it rains about an inch and then clears off until the next day.  The miners and geologists in the underground mines work in waist deep water.  The new block cave underground (see Glossary - under "Mining Explained" menu at Libertystaruranium.com) is incredibly large using full size underground railroad powered by full sized electric locomotives, with a hydraulic elevator that lifts the train and cars from one level to another.

My prediction is that  the Indonesian management will not be able to operate it,  the equipment will not be maintained, and will shortly become inoperable.  I think copper production will weaken and perhaps fail all together from this second largest mine in the world.  This will exacerbate the current copper shortage and causing copper and gold prices will both to continue to trend upward. 

La Escondida, Chile was discovered by my friends Dave Lowell and Harold Courtright (deceased) by using leached capping interpretation to guide discovery drill holes. which I learned about using leached capping interpretation from Harold and the excellent University of Arizona leached capping collection with specimens from all over the world. La Escondida is reported to be reaching the end of its high-grade chalcocite enriched ore body.  This is currently the largest copper mine in the world - running out of ore will have a definite impact on copper availability and thus prices.  

With the projected copper deficit, we are now entering, we need to discover one of these sizes of mines every year for the foreseeable future.   That will not happen, as they are as rare as hen's teeth.  Perhaps we could hope for one such discovery every 50 years -- the deficit will continue and the price will rise to $10/ pound in terms of current US dollars.  I have been suggesting this for about a year now.

RE: zinc. Remember, Hay Mountain should have lots of zinc zoned around the copper bodies."

Tracy Myers IR Rep