London South East | The UK's favourite investor portal.

Actually I was away on a skiing holiday for the last 10 days, extended thanks to a technical fault with EasyJet. I therefore saw one day, on my return from the pistes, the presence of several hundred messages (and no advance knowledge either), and with my family waiting for me, took the safe decision to ignore till my return. I am now home but have some urgent personal matters to attend to today (the end of year tax return being one), and tomorrow I’m out so it might not be till Friday when I can post. But I will present my thoughts. But from what I have seen, I believe the outcry is exaggerated. I have always said this is a share to put away and forget about. The issue of price has no value till the share is sold (with exceptions I will raise). I have no doubt this is a good company, a good investment and will deliver. Please now allow me to sort my things out, and I will post again when I have free time.

With this little news of the visit to USA fluttering around, let me make my own post. I hate to be repetitive, but I honestly have little new to say aside my belief in this project, in this company. But for those who have not read my opinions, I have followed this opportunity since pretty much the beginning. But, and here is important, I have also seen it grow and mature. I have seen the Resource be better defined, and the way through to production becoming clearer (with the optimisation study due to be delivered very shortly). I would not be surprised to see much improved economics.

I hear complaints of delays, but with the turbulences of Covid and the Ukraine war, and having come out of large scale project management myself, I can understand things slowing down, but in the end, and from what I have seen and heard, we may well be in a better position than before, with earlier and possibly higher recoveries of all the metals, and reduced capital costs. This is all rather tantalising.

Of course the mine cannot be built without finance, and I myself heard much earlier this year the words from a director that the deal was “imminent”, and I posted that. I know that this was said in good faith, and I also know that this deal has not gone away (or the company would have had to announce that). I have strong confidence that the funding will arrive, and very shortly (and this time it is just my opinion).

I have known the directors a long time, and I trust them. I know they are doing their very best for us shareholders, and have all our interests very much at heart, for they are financially involved in this as much, or even more than, us. I also know that they want to achieve the project with minimum dilution, and are committed to that. I get fed up with the negative comments here about Riverfort, for repeating this ad infinitum brings absolutely nothing to the discussion, and whilst I have heard of their reputation, I know that our company has a friendly relationship with them. Please could I ask you to hold back on this now till our BoD release their next information, whenever that is, for any comment from here forward is just speculation.

Let me summarise my own views:

1) I remain confident that finance will be delivered very shortly, and may contain some surprises, and which may go a long way towards explaining the delays

2) When delivered, I am sure that the production optimisation work will show very positive economics

3) I am sure that this project, for the open pit oxide mine, will be financed (very soon), and will be achieved with minimum dilution

Other progress is being made in Navarre Creek, but I caution there, just as I have cautioned previously, that results are likely to show parts per billion, rather than million. Others have expressed it well, that we now have a good sized area, and with our drilling are identifying the location where there may not be gold, as well as the areas where there might be. It’s all progress in getting to know the prospect.

I know that work is progressing on site, since we own the land in Empire as patented land, for example. I am not aware of any significant negatives.

As I have mentioned before, I am privileged to be aware of some insider information, and understand that the situation remains the same for this, information which may well stun my fellow shareholders.

I am happy to engage in discussion with any fellow shareholder. I also know that the board are generally happy to respond to most questions. I do intend to use my influence to push the board to restart shareholder webinars, but to date their message to me has been let’s get the finance done first, so that this topic is off the agenda. I can see the sense in that, as it really has been the sword of Damocles hanging over us. But hopefully, this will be out of the way shortly.

To summarise my position. I am a long term friend of several of the directors, and know and trust them. The present project is based around the Empire mine, which is being planned to generate the revenues to fund the exploration for the sulphides in the deep, as well as the possible Tungsten/Molybdenum porphyry lying beneath. But we should not forget the longer term interests of the potential mine at Navarre Creek, the high grade silver at Red Star (running into Horseshoe), or the Cobalt play. Buying into the Empire project delivers these prospects for free. I know that the Board still intend to do as much as possible of the above work with minimum dilution. My suggestion, and which remains unchanged (not a recommendation, please note), is to buy and put this share away in the bottom drawer for your pensions.

I comment that the above is not advice, but is purely information I see from my viewpoint, and you should not use this to take any decisions, but should do your own research. I believe that the next weeks will be pivotal to the future of this company.

I have been silent for a while, as frankly I felt I had little to add to the debate, and did feel personally bad, for having been a strong supporter of the share, it is not pleasant to see the price drop. However, I do feel I should come out of hibernation with a few comments, as debate has gone a little off track in recent months, it appears to me. I start with my conclusions, and which are consistent with everything I have ever said, and then dig a little deeper. This is a share which is going to reward big time. If you buy (or have bought), then put it away in your bottom drawer, and ignore short term price fluctuations. I have confidence in the geologists who have scoped out the terrain, I have confidence in the Board of Directors, most of whom I know personally. I know them to be honest, hard working, and doing their best for this company. I also know that whatever statements they have put out have been honest appraisals of the situation. I do not have any question there.

Many (maybe most) people have questioned the delayed arrival of the finance, having heard a director tell us some time ago that the arrival is imminent. He told me that, and I posted the same. My knowledge is that this was, and indeed remains, the situation. The rules state that if new information arrives which has impact on financial matters, then this needs to be published. From this we can conclude that the arrival of finance does remain imminent, for the company have not issued any counter RNS. I know that Plans B and C are well advanced, and should not hold back progress at all. I have confidence, as Richard Wilkins stated on Telegram last week, that finance will be delivered very shortly, and when needed.

Meanwhile the company continues to have good access to working capital, and have continued to make massive progress, for example in studies looking at the different solvents combined with our specific ores. We have had a few bits of information coming out via RNS which show that the metals recoveries could well be higher than first anticipated, and particularly the recovery of precious plus base metals in one go, which will render this project far more profitable. The economic study should be out shortly for that, and will make for fascinating reading, I am sure. I also noted the comment that the processing facilities might be located up the mountain, which would be fantastic news, as it would quite likely reduce costs plus environmental impact. If we get enhanced recoveries and lower costs, that will result in greater profitability, and generate a better value for the company. I am interested in this project, this company, over the long term, and not just the first day. I am sorry for those who have sold out looking at the low share price, but remember my comment at the start, that this is a share to buy for the long term. I stand squarely by that. Nothing has changed there for me.

Sorry for the short delay in my response Chid. I'm away. In the mean time bankrupty and intoodeep gave great replies, so I've little more to add. However, I can add a few side comments. Normally, Analysts and similar cannot state a value to a company without that a proper analysis or feasibility study having been performed, and which would depend on known data, and the results from properly certified drilling and analyses. That makes sense or otherwise it would be easy to talk up a resource for potential illicit financial gain (eg when the resource is not there). However, that does not mean that the potential is not there, it just means it has not been logged. However there are many ways of having confidence in the potential of our area, and of which we are lucky since we have a combination of several historic sources. First we know that the area was being mined with excellent grades (just before the mine was closed they were pulling out some ore with over 5% copper, which would be unbelievably high for today), second there were several government surveys which are widely available and which have confirmed the potential themselves, thirdly the geologists working this territory have strongly stated their belief that the geology looks very very similar to some of the largest deposits on earth, and lastly PXC have brought in some top geologists who have themselves walked over the territory, and have exclaimed in very positive terms the potential, and which they have put into writing. I suggest you look the reports by Nigel Maund, and I supply links at the foot of this note. Look at his conclusion to the October 2019 report, which I extract here:

"Finally, the foregoing reinforces the view, held in the writer’s previous report on the Empire Mine Project for PXC of last April 2019, that the potential mineralised system has been less than 1% exploited and explored. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, this northern part of the system remains unexplored with indications of substantial ore potential within medium to high grade polymetallic base & precious metal systems offering significant collective potential tonnage."

It's difficult to come up with more a positive conclusion than that, I think you would agree.

https://phoenixcopperlimited.com/Company%20Presentation/20190402_A-Report-on-a-Field-Visit-Made-to-the-Empire-Project-idaho-USA.pdf
https://phoenixcopperlimited.com/Company%20Presentation/20191017_Field-Review-of-Red-Star-and-White-Knob-Mine-Group.pdf

Thanks Chid for your considerate approach, and for the sensible questions. I spent some time with Dennis Thomas, a mining engineer, who first discovered this site together with Roger Turner, a geologist, and who used to be the “qualified person” in the company till he retired, in other words the in-house expert whose word is gold (pun intended). I asked them exactly the same question as you, and the response was “we don’t know”. It had been simply overlooked as there had not been much work to define the extent of the sulphide deposit, and no one will invest in speculation for a possible large deposit. However, the geologists are saying that there is the likelihood of a very large sulphide deposit existing under the oxides. But likelihood is different from certainty, and majors do not come in and invest in a multi-million drilling programme based on likelihoods. They need more certainty. Using the open pit oxide mine, we will deliver that programme. But every hole we drill gives the geologists more knowledge and certainty of the geologic arrangement. How the strata run etc. And we have now drilled more than 400 holes. The deposit would have started as complete sulphide, but the upper layers oxidise in the presence of air, to form the near surface oxide pit. We know from the previous mining that very rich sulphides lie beneath, but we don’t know just how extensive they are.

Over time the small companies holding the ownership of their small mines (there was not one company in ownership but many small ones), have sat and waited for someone to arrive. In this period they earned nothing. Some ownerships were sold to ExGen Resources, a Canadian company interested in obtaining royalties from others who exploit their mines. We are friends with them, and Dennis was a director of ExGen, which is how this deal came about. They still own 20% of the Empire Mine, and the CEO of ExGen is on our board, showing the friendship. It’s obviously difficult to tell a long story in a few words, but the next sentence summarises the situation. The opportunity was overlooked by majors as being too small with insufficient data to be of interest, whilst we were able to capture it because we are small and nimble. It could have been some Americans, even Chinese, but our luck was that some Brits were visiting.

And one last point, which I hope will give you confidence. Roger Turner has a fantastic reputation in the industry. In a previous life I was told he was the first to identify the Carlin style gold mine in Nevada which became the single largest gold-producing complex in the world. And he identified Navarre Creek as having the similar structure. Let’s see.

Latest Share Chat

Member Info for RightOn

Posts (Last 30 Days)

Posts (All Time)

Last Post

Member Since

Share Chat Post Distribution over the last 30 days