Member Info for CaveatEmptor

Hello Mannan,

Yes, I have been here for many years and have accumulated over two percent of the company - Still quite a way to go before I am in profit, but I am confident that BZT's time has come and that I will make a very good return on my investment.

I spoke to Colin last week and he was very bullish so I am happy to see a bit of confidence returning...

MMs are paying .1925p at the moment, so they must need some shares...

Hello Andrew,

You seem to have completely missed my point, which is very unlike you.

The point I was making is that the site contractors have complete control over XTR income from Manica. CB can only give forward guidance based on what he is told by the contractors and they can change their minds at any time, resulting in CB having to revise the forward guidance accordingly. Trying to pretend that CB has more influence than he actually has is misleading, as too is trying to blame him for changing forward guidance.
Incidentally, CB did state publicly on a podcast that GF production would concentrate on the high grade veins, so anybody that was interested could have done the maths to come up with a revised forecast for XTR income, all based entirely on information already in the public sector.

CB can sack the contractors he has appointed if they ultimately fail to meet their contractual commitments, although he would need to have a better alternative in his back pocket in order to dodge the inevitable bullets heading his way. Until then, I am not sure what good it will do to shoot the messenger, as that is mainly what CB will be whilst the contractors are managing the projects.

Hello Andrew,
Early predictions of income for XTR were based on average grades of gold, however the contractors strategy of chasing the high grade veins with little waste and ignoring the lower grade areas has resulted in expectations of 3g - 4g of gold per tonne and therefore higher short term monthly income to XTR. I guess it makes sense from the contractors point of view to maximise their ROI - and it is pretty good for us, too.

It is up to the contractor on site to decide its strategy and XTR can only revise expectations in line with this . If the contractor decided to target the low grade areas first then there would be nothing we could do about it and monthly income to XTR would have to be revised downwards to around $40K per month - luckily that is not the case and therefore something like $200,000 per month is the current expectation.

I am looking forward to getting the update on FairBride next week, or possibly the week after if the contractor drags its feet...

Assuming that XTR has undue influence over the day to day actions of site contractors once they have taken control of production can be misleading and could result in unrealistic expectations. CB does enough of this as it is, without shareholders compounding the confusion...
Let's hope that the contractor plays ball when CB asks for an update.

Hello LittleWing "upset" was my summary interpretation of how Colin responded, perhaps I erred on the side of brevity as "angry/indignant/confused" could equally fit various aspects of the bill, but he didn't use any of these specific words.

Sorry if I mislead you - it was not intentional.

So, Colin called me.

He read this BB yesterday and he was quite upset about there being so many inaccurate and un-informed posts.

We spent a long time on the phone and covered a lot of ground so I don't have time, or the memory capacity, to report the conversation verbatim, but these were the salient points ( items in brackets are my own comments and not Colin's):

GF contractors well advanced with GF surface stripping and first income from both Alluvials and GF due by early November. ( given past experience, I would probably say mid-end November, but I could be wrong.)

There was talk of mining GF and BE concurrently - CB hopes to clarify this in the near future ( I guess it will depend on output from GF and their processing capacity).

$200,000 monthly income to XTR expected from GF and alluvial II combined by year end.

4.5Kg of gold about to be shipped to Dubai.

Colin suggested he get a full progress update from MMP and then publish it in its entirety and un-edited by the end of next week. I agreed it was a good idea. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if it appears the week after next).

There was a large appetite for the fund-raising and we could have raised £1.5M, but it would have been at a lower price and would have caused unacceptable dilution to existing shareholders. The board decided that a lower value placing and priced at Bid would produce the least dilution whilst covering imminent cashflow and project funding obligations. Very few companies manage to complete a placing at market price, so very pleased with the result.

CV-19 is causing chaos all over the world and nobody knows what is around the corner - if there is another flare-up in Africa then funding will be very difficult to achieve so it was decided to get the loan option as a form of insurance. It costs over 1% of the MC, but is peanuts compared to the damage that would be done if we ran out of money during a flare-up. As with all insurance, you hope not to have to use it, but its a life-saver when you do.
Colin is not sure why TW turned on XTR, Colin puts the drop from 2.2p down to a concerted campaign by TW, Colin has always been very supportive of the guy, he put over $200,000 into TW's first company and even wrote out a cheque for $25,000 just a week before TW closed the doors, so Colin thinks that TW's actions now are a bit of a kick in the teeth.

TW was trying to broker an equity-backed loan that had a lot of onerous clauses and CB thought it would be the "kiss of death" so he turned it down. (It would be shameful if TW turned on Xtract just because he lost out on a brokers fee!).

FairBride, once up and running, will be worth $500,000+ per month to XTR, after expenses.

OK, I think that's about it. I will post anything else that comes to mind.

Looks like MMs have about 5M shares to offload, then it will move up, unless there are any more large sells at the level...

Exploration at Hope copper-gold project commences...

Hello Andrew,

I understand that in addition to border issues there is a considerable amount of work required on site but MMP's project manager was locked down in Australia ( due to C-19) for a while and this may well have caused other delays. Obviously they need to build dams, lay foundations and a hundred-and-one other things before they will be ready to build the super-structure of the processing plant they will be importing from SA. This is one of the reasons I would like to see a detailed update on operations - then we would know exactly where we stand and if 4 months is still an accurate forecast for commencement of production following arrival of the plant...

LittleWing, I think you are confirming that Omnia made a commercial decision based on the returns they could get from limited company resources in the area? If anything, I think they were disillusioned with MOZ rather than walking away from XTR. Omnia had spent several millions of dollars towards plant and infrastructure for the alluvials and then continued ( and still continue) to do the same for the hard rock.

My understanding was that MOZ also spent millions of dollars on building plant only to find that it was not suitable for the type of processing needed. I seem to remember that this had something to do with their being experienced diamond miners, but as it turned out, plant that would have been good for separating alluvial diamonds was no good for the much finer alluval gold dust. It was probably a mistake to go into partnership with MOZ in the first place but the mistake cost them a lot more cash ( not to mention at least one death, too) than it did us. You would have thought that a company investing millions of dollars would know what they were doing? Regardless,
It is just a fact that when you farm out an operation then you lose a lot of the day- to day control over the project, so the skill is in writing a warer-tight contract and choosing the right contractor in the first place. MOZ was chosen by CB ( with advice from our site office?) - CB made a mistake ( as did Omnia as they decided to partner MOZ), it was a disaster all around - **** happens! Time we got over it...

Hello Littlewing,
I think they decided to let go of a side show that was acting as a distraction for them so they could concentrate on the main feature - I would hardly call that "walking away" from either XTR or Manica. When the current alluvials are depleted to the point where they become commercially unviable, production will cease, but when it does happen I would not describe the current contractor as "walking away" - just making a good commercial decision.

Hello LittleWing,

I am a bit surprised today as you are normally well researched I I often enjoy your poste even if I do not agree with them.

Why do you say that Omnia has walked away? They are part of the FairBride consortium and so have invested a small fortune in the hard rock and are still very much a partner for XTR.

Andrew, we already know that all the plant needed for processing Guy Fawkes and the new alluvials was already 'in-country' when the deal was signed so it is hardly surprising that C-19 would cause fewer delays to these projects than to Fairbride where border closures had a significant effect.

Even though the borders are now open, they are being very selective with what they allow to cross over and massive queues are already in place for commercial trafic - My best bet would be that MMP will be able to start moving the plant sometime next week.

My understanding is that we will get first income from both Guy Fawkes and the new alluvials by the middle of next month, which would not represent much of a delay, based on previous time estimates.

Regarding Guy Fawkes - we know there is a lot of additional potential there, over and above what has already been uncovered. As the Chinese will be targeting the seams and following them, grades of 3g-4g of gold per tonne is more than likely, so income to XTR should be very meaningful by year-end.

Yes, there is a lot that has happened over the last few months and years that many here will try to use as a reason to carp about whatever CB does or says. The fact is that the company is now in a very good position from an asset point of view , will have very significant income before the year end and is now financially secure for at least 12 months, so let's try to forget about the past ( I'm the first to say that is particularly hard to do) and look to the future.

Speaking of which, a full and factual operational update that tells us exactly where we stand on all fronts might be helpful just about now - that might help to put some minds at rest, and if not, at least it would put an end to the need for further unfounded speculation .

Oh, and yes, in case anybody is in any doubt , I do think the loan facility is a bit of a coup in the current commercial climate - I just hope it is a safety net that will not be needed...

Hello Andrew,

That is correct - but I think we were all a lot more confident back in June that SA were about to open up borders at any time and CB certainly thought we would be earning up to $500,000 per month going into November.

Looks like everything is delayed a minimum of 4 months on the Fairbride hard rock side, so not a complete surprise that cash is now low.

At least we still have Guy Fawkes income to look forward to before Xmas - assuming no more delays - and that should help to bolster the SP?

Then there is 'Alluvials II'- The Sequel, which is supposed to be in the can and which could prove to be quite a feature...

Hello Utilityone, Not sure you can make that sort of comparison or projection for the SP. The SP was 4p at the end of June so has fallen by over 60% in three months - What would the price be if it continued like that over the next two years?

-See what M mean?

Hello EyeGuy,

In what sense are you using the acronym "SAG"?

Now that CB has hired an A&M specialist, I would not be surprised to see the number of companies he is involved with reduce due to mergers. CB has worked hard recently to get many of his companies to be synergistic with each other - An amalgamation of the management expertise from multiple companies into one focused unit could produce far better returns than small fragmented under-managed entities on their own. Keep an Eye on the Tiger...

OK, so MMs paying 2.2p now for virtually any quantity with 2.25p having been paid on the Ask.

...Looking good.

At the moment it is looking like a re-run of yesterday with large orders being filled - can sell over one million shares for 2.06p but have to pay a premium for a measly 50,000, I hesitate to say it, but could this be the start of that long overdue re-rate in SP?

CB paid 2.85p not so long ago, and it looks like even those trades may soon be in profit?

Sadly, still a long way to go before some of we LTHs are in a similar position - some of us paid the equivalent to around 10p, back in the day, maybe a bit optimistic at the time? True, isn't hindsight a wonderful thing!

Call me foolish (and I am sure that many will), but i am beginning to think that CB may actually get the SP back up to those heady heights of yesteryear. I have waited a long time, i can wait a little longer...

GLA.

2.08p to sell and a massive premium being charged to buy even a small number - The MMs definitely still want those shares...

Hello Lucky, you are quite right - there may well be more than one update, so could be news, but I would be happy with just one good new...

2p broken in style - how far can it go before next new?