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jointhedots your report is very appropriate and shows why there are concerns. I would however like to offer an opinion. In my experience the Russians do not always involve themselves as "peacekeepers", but moreso as "protectors" of their geopolitical influence. They have seen Armenia drifting away from their sphere under this new PM, so it suits them very well indeed to see him under pressure. Meanwhile they are major arms suppliers to Azerbaijan, as well as Armenia, so they are onto a win-win if a simmering conflict endures. Lastly, you will remember that it was a Russian company (oligarch) who owned and mined the deposit on the border, and they are also there to protect his interests. I feel pretty sure that the oligarch will have Putin's ear, which AAZ surely do not have. We should not not underestimate the influence that Russia can have in this conflict, and it's not always as a peacekeeper.

Good evening 2Damen. Thank you for your sympathetic posts, and I mean just that. I hold my hand up, for the equity raise was larger than I expected. On 17th Feb I wrote :

"It is so obvious that the next major step will be finance for the project, and I guess they intend to do that with debt, if possible. I believe that a cash raise from us shareholders will be part of that, much like a deposit on a house, but I would expect this to be small compared to the size of the business, and I bet it will be the share price which will be the major beneficiary, since with finance in place the institutions will start to join us, not forgetting that this may well be the last call for cash ever. And once the institutions join in, there’ll be no looking back."

I got the size of the equity raise wrong. I was expecting the final tally of shares to be under 100 million, whilst we have ended up with over 1110 million. That was significantly more than I expected, and I apologise to all. However, I believe that I will be proved correct with the other points, now that we have cash in the bank, and that once the air is cleared with the present cash raise, there should indeed be nothing holding us back. I would expect to see our share price move up substantially. I was promised a succession of news in the coming weeks, so I guess there are other things happening. I believe that analysts reports should be amongst the news, and I would expect a substantial re-rate, plus I understood that the analysts reports may not be all that's happening.

I know that we have the potential for a very profitable business here, and we now have all the means to complete it. I remain confident that we will be very happy, and rich, shareholders come a year or 2....

I asked why they did not restrict the fund raise when the goal had been reached? They said that taking all the money offered, they felt we could advance the various programmes significantly by having more cash on board now. And this will advance all the different exploration programmes, and maybe bring some parts into fruition years earlier than previously expected. They are also in a much stronger position for cheaper finance, being able to offer a significant cash part, without impact on our exploration work. Even if we have to put up $10 million for the project we have it. We could see Red Star and Navarre Creek being explored this year, and maybe seeing Red Star in production next year or in 2023. The other issue raised by the directors was that in reality we were always going to end up with needing a similar sort of raise, and completing the raise in this way, we have accomplished this in one go. Now there won’t be the fear of the equity raise in the background. In short, on balance, they felt every pound raised today brought far greater value into the business.

All the board felt that this equity raise was on large balance hugely beneficial for the company and their own shareholdings (that’s important to note). It gives a clear line of sight to production, and to exploration for the wider opportunities. Although the RNS says for the foreseeable future, I heard from the board that they want to make this the last equity raise for cash ever.

I was told they will have funds available to invest in PR, and there will be a steady flow of information coming out the next few weeks. On PR I asked and was promised that we will have webinar the week of 15th March where this and other issues can be discussed.

To summarise, and bring in my opinions. Upon reflection yes, I was initially a little shocked by the amount of dilution, but now feel after due reflection that this is exceptionally good for the company. And whilst I did look on this initially as dilution, it should be regarded in reality as the next step up, and as the addition of substantial cash into the business, allowing PXC to progress smoothly from small explorer into potentially a lot larger scale developer and operator. Production is ever closer and more certain. This will build our company. Our market cap now goes above $50 million and with institutional investors we are on radar screens, and therefore highly visible. I have previously stated that my interest is in share price, for that is what translates into cash into my pocket, and our share price should now have a free ride up. I believe furthermore we are now completely secure for the future.

I am glad I took those 24 hours to investigate and reflect, and I’m happy to respond to any question.

When I read the RNS yesterday for the first time I was disappointed and perhaps a little shocked with the scale of the equity raise. I do talk often with members of the board, and whilst over the years we have talked of the need for cash, as you cannot finance a development project completely through debt, I was hoping that it would be on a smaller scale. I spent yesterday speaking with them, and reflecting, and what follows is a combination of both.

The first question I put was for clarity why do we need an equity raise at all. Why could we not finance 100% through debt? The answer was fast coming back, that PXC is a new company, without any production, with our only assets in the ground, and so we absolutely need to input some cash into the project to obtain finance. Next I asked about the scale of the raise, and why did it need to be so large. The answer I was given was that PXC needs the money for 2 purposes. First as our collateral for the debt, and secondly to advance our exploration programmes. Simply put for the second part, you cannot explore through debt. We would have had to hold back on exploration till we were producing from Empire which would have held us back for 2 years, pushing back the developments, and which would also have resulted in no news flow for that period.

There was agreement within the board that the share price could have been higher, but here we have an issue. We do not have large institutions on board, so we were at the mercy of traders and the Market Makers. It appeared that every time we had good news, our price was marked down. It was practically impossible to cross over the 45p line. I also guess it was because the market was expecting there to be a fund raise, and so many people were holding back.

To make a difference we really did need to recruit institutions on board, and move us away from these issues. Since most institutions are limited in that they can only invest in companies of value over $50 million equivalent, we had to ensure that the outcome from this raise was that coming out we had a higher value. The Board felt we needed to do something special to bring the institutions on board, so targeted £10 million. However, in so doing, they were offered it by some very significant institutional investors. I also understand that there is some substantial US involvement which is great news. Both of these create a step change. Why? With this fund raise we have crashed through the barrier, and are now on the radar of some large and important institutional investors, as well as being known in USA. And these boys are hungry, and when they get their appetite will be mopping up any loose shares.

I suspect the drop today was due to the Market Makers "shaking the tree". The price of gold may have also had an impact with many mining companies similarly impacted. Keep the faith, and just remember that this us a share for life and not for just a few days. It will always go up and down, but in the end it will go up, and up, and up.

Hi 2Damen, I suggest you relax a little more, and put your trust in the board. Have they let you down yet?

Most companies allow themselves, through a resolution at an AGM, the liberty of raising some money from an equity issue. Imagine that we found unexpectedly, that one of our seams continued beyond our owned territory. We would certainly want to buy it, and to wait for a General Meeting to gather the shareholders to raise those funds is plainly not reasonable. I believe that all companies have the right to raise some money through an equity issue, however, that power is limited, and therefore many companies put in place a resolution at an AGM to allow this to allow cash to be raised for instances like the above. In any case, I see no harm in an equity raise if it expands our potential value, for it is share price I am interested in, and if the company comes out bigger and better I am all for that, even if we do have more shareholders.

You should not confuse a company raising equity for survival, like many in this pandemic, and compare that with a venture seeking funds to expand, and increase the wealth of their shareholders, not that I know anything is happening in Phoenix.

I have today received my voting message from H-L, with the option to vote in favour, or do nothing. I am of course doing nothing, but I would rather have put my x against a rejection of this silly proposal.
Personally, I lived in 10 years in Kazakhstan, and at that time Kazakhmys (as it was known then) had a genuinely awful reputation, including in the expat community. Their reputation was one of bullying and getting results through political connections, rather than proper governance. I saw a change through the early 2010's, with a marked difference in corporate governance, and was really quite impressed with the result. I did think they had turned the corner. Then came this proposal, which I personally feel has taken them 10 steps back. I hope that the directors read this post, our posts, and see the feeling that they have, in my opinion, brought upon themselves. They had our support, our trust, and we feel frankly abandoned. That's what I feel, and I think many other posters here as well. When this vote fails, as I am sure it will, I hope they will comprehend the damage they have done, and will work to improve relations, rather than be sour and blame us. The British representatives on the BoD have a lot of work to do to repair the damage.
Good luck all! May the vote fail!!!!!!

Hi 2Damen. I think you read this wrong. This was a small cashing in of warrants, nothing more. Warrants are issued as an incentive, often at the time of a share issue, a little freebie, as an appreciation, often when the future is still murky. Much like, if you share the pain with us today, then you'll be rewarded if we come good. To convert them into shares there's a price attached, and that money goes straight into the coffers. This is not dilution, as everyone knows about them. Look on the website under investors and shareholders information. It's published, and I do my calculations based on our fully diluted situation, with all warrants converted.

This was a very standard RNS for the conversion of a few of the warrants. And we don't have that many, compared to other companies.

It's too early, way too early, my friends. There has been massive exploration of the shallow empire open pit, but not much at depth, so no one will pay us huge sums for that. And we all know the POTENTIAL, which remains just that, till it is explored. But fast forward say 4-5 years, when we have dug out our first pit, and can place a drilling rig much closer to the deep. At that stage, we will start to build up our Resources, and start to get some interest. But we'll be in a lot stronger position ourselves, having already been mining in Empire for that period, plus would have started on Red Star, and perhaps Navarre Creek. Our sp will be much higher by then, so the uplift from any offer would need to be be much higher. I'm going to stick my neck out, and say today, looking in the crystal ball, I would expect an offer of the order of £10 plus.

Good morning 2Daman, I would suggest we don't get into a debate here about climate change, but more importantly the policies which are being implemented around the world. In USA this is called the "Clean Energy Revolution". This is pushing for the reduction in use of fossil fuels across the panorama and for the electrification of many industries. The driving force for this will be copper. And since this is being mined in USA, in an environmentally friendly way, we will be ideally placed to take advantage!

Deep does not necessarily mean bad for us. Look up Bingham Canyon just 4 hours drive south from us, owned by Rio Tinto, which is one of the deepest man made holes on earth. It's so vast, it's visible from space. And they are mining a very similar resource to ours, and now getting down to the Copper/Tungsten layer. in the porphyry .

Hi LL, you are correct. I do not believe that raising finance will be difficult. I also agree about the 1% turning into 100%. It was said a little tongue in cheek, but you get the intention, which is that we have discovered only a really tiny part of the resource to date. Of that, there is no question. I also agree that the best way to do the exploration would be from the old deep tunnels, or alternately once they have mined the first pit sufficiently low. I would estimate this to be maybe 2-3 years away, from today.

Good evening Novitiate. I can help you here. The history of this mine is really interesting. It started up in the days when there was a lot more copper in the world, so they had no interest in the lower grade copper near the surface.. This operated from the 1880's till the early 1940's. They were after the richer seams of copper at depth they, with approx 5-8% Cu in the ore they were mining, as I understand it. But they had 2 major issues. Firstly it was a difficult mine to operate since it was so deep, and secondly by 1941 they needed the manpower for the war effort. This mine was not a large volume producer, so they decided to shut it down. Meanwhile, the last week of its operation, documents show they discovered large quantities of rich tungsten, but it was too late by then. If they had found that earlier, the mine would never have closed. But that tells us that we have this massive Copper Tungsten Porphyry at depth, and that today, is very valuable indeed.

Fast forward to now, and the deep tunnels still exist, but would need a lot of investment to be used. I am not sure we would even go into them now. But also the grade of copper available in the world has changed, and we mine lower quality, and that is today's norm in the world. Our Dennis Thomas came along, and identified a potential workable copper mine on the surface, something which would not have been mined 80 years ago. This will be opened, and will be mined very profitably (I heard today, with the present price of copper, it has a pay back of 8 months), and able to throw off the cash to be able to fund the exploration work we would need to go for the deep.

We have a huge amount of information available from historic records, and we know the Empire Open Pit very, very well. Please do let me know of anything else you may be interested in.

Hi sewingmachine. The company are intending to fund the start-up project through debt, and are already deep into conversations, we understand, but for obvious reasons the details are confidential. This Monday they announced a £2 million unsecured loan (at 8%) to be used to advance the permitting process. There might be a small equity raise, I would guess, but with the expectation of adding value. The directors are all heavily invested, and understand that it is on no one's interest to drop the share price. They are also closely aligned with shareholders. Specifically though, they took on a US outfit last year (EAS Advisors) who are professionals in this sphere. The RNS about this was dated 2nd Dec 2020.

hTTps://youtu.be/y9xxb6PNuxE Enjoy!

Questions 11 and 14: Why does the board feel they are so well placed to bring PXC’s various projects to fruition? And why would I choose to invest in PXC over the other available mining plays?
Answers 11 and 14: We are very fortunate to have a mineable geology in a first world jurisdiction, favourable tax, in a community which supports our activities 100%, and with copper over $4/lb, plus high demand for our products. We get local support from the top downwards, including from the state governor, and have had great encouragement and nothing but support from the local community. We have a world class team of professionals. Very importantly we have a superb shareholder base, indeed, all the stakeholders. It does not get any better than that. We are always very willing to talk with anyone. If you are inspired to call us, or have any question, please do so.

Question 12: Can you supply some detail on the steps between now and bringing the open pit into production - assuming finance is in place?
Answer 12: Finish the engineering and process design, go for permitting, then construction, 6 months in good weather, pretty straight forward, favourable ground, and excellent community support.
Question 13: What are the plans for the 5-10 year development of the company? Which projects will be prioritised? In particular, what is the plan/timescale for targeting the deeper sulphides?
Answer 13: Get the Empire mine into production. Then into exploration work in Red Star, particularly for its silver, and if we find an economic development build an underground mine, then in the process look at Windy Devil and Horseshoe portions. We have 5.3 kms of skarn along this trend, and the exploration of Red Star northwards will be a major exercise, and we may be mining along the entire length. Then it’s Navarre Creek, which is accessible from the surface. Enormous potential. Then we can start to look at the underground sulphides, and will look at them along the entire length of the strike. We’ll be using the cash flow thrown off by the Empire open pit.
Supplementary Question: What is the largest risk to any time delay with the Empire Mine opening?
Answer. The regulatory process in USA is very standard, box checking. We have already 3 years of environmental studies, which have exposed no risk. There is no risk to ground water, and no river. In Idaho the issues are generally about water, and we don’t have any.
Supplementary Question: You said earlier we have less than 1% of our resources exploited or explored so far. But today, only in Empire open pit, we have over $1 billion dollars of assets. Does that mean what I think for how large our potential resources could go?
Answer: Yes. There is genuinely enormous potential. We are fortunate that we have the relatively low hanging fruit of Empire. Plus we also have cobalt at $50,000/ton.
Supplementary Question: Back when the mine was working they were pulling out ore with 8% copper. Is that true?
Answer: Yes, that was what they were pulling out from those deep mines, plus they were pulling out ore with 4% Tungsten, when they shut the mine (due to manpower being needed for the war effort). We will be exploring that area, and at those depths.

Question 6: The same question for the divide between those two and Navarre Creek Gold zone?
Answer 6: This is rock type. Navarre creek is hosted in quartz rich volcanics. These are similar in chemistry and character to those in the Carlin type deposits. Quartz rich volcanics are permeable, and able to host these minerals, and that’s why we are so excited with this project. The same setting as the original Carlin trend mines, which have already produced 88 to 100 million ounces of gold. If we take $1,000 per ounce of gold, that makes $100 billion of gold delivered from the Carlin Trend already.
Supplementary Question: Is the Carlin gold easier or more difficult to extract and process?
Answer: The magic of this is that Carlin gold is low grade but high tonnage, so there is an economy of scale. You can be highly profitable at grades under 1g per ton, due to the scale.
Supplementary Question: You will have all these different mines, surely there will be economies.
Answer: Yes, we will recover all the metals which are of economic grade, and we can manage all of these from a single site and office in Mackay.
Question 8: The resource table shows that the Inferred category is roughly 50% of the value of the Measured and Indicated (M&I) Categories. What sort of % of the Inferred category might be expected to be converted to M&I?
Answer 8: We won’t be able to answer this accurately till we are mining. But it is reasonable to expect 50% to be recovered.
Question 9: Would it be reasonable to assume that the Empire Open Pit will have not just a 7 year life, but might work for many years?
Answer 9: We sure hope so. The plan in the EM is a snapshot of now. As we move forward, we may assume that we may go on for some years after.
Question 10: What are the permitting requirements in Idaho as impact our projects, and what are current estimates for delivery?
Answer 10: The permitting requirements are federal and state, and all linked to environmental law. As we go through the process we go through our baseline data, then the plan of operations (June 2021), then there are mandatory timelines and deliverables, which will take us to a late 2022 start.
Question 11 (moved to 14 below)

Question 3: In the RNS about the Economic Model the project pays back in under 2 years. What is the return with today’s metals prices?
Answer 3: If you look at the EM, it is based upon $3.60 and will repay within 2 years. With today’s price of over $4 being some 10% over that, we pay back our investment in under a year. The beauty is that the benefit of increased metals price goes straight to the bottom line, since our operating costs remain exactly the same. It’s pure profit. So, look at the tons of copper processed, look at the increased price, and you can calculate the increased profit.
Question 4: Could you describe the geology in our territories in layman’s terms, and explain what makes this interesting to PXC?
Answer 4: All indications point to that we have a porphyry at depth. Porphyry systems around the world are famous for having rather large reserves of copper, zinc, gold, silver, tungsten, and molybdenum at depth. In Empire this is a large system with a large heat engine bringing the metals up. This is plate tectonics on steroids. The mineral systems come up with faults to near surface, and if you know what you are looking at you can identify them. Mackay is the centre of the dart board, with many other magmatic activities in the region.
Question 5: Can you explain why Empire open pit has a range of metals quite different from Red Star less than a kilometre away?
Answer 5: Red Star has the same range of minerals. It is just the concentration of those metals. It is the same ore body, and it has just been faulted down.
Supplementary Question: The porphyry is a very deep deposit. Are you planning on drilling into that? This can be a long process. Can you comment on this?
Answer. Look on this as a fruit tree. The Empire mine is a low hanging fruit. We are focussing today on what is readily available, Empire, Red Star, etc. In one our reports, the geologist stated that we have only exploited and explored less than 1% of resources to date. We are in a very good situation that we could go down to the porphyry in good time. Get profitable with the top, and then go for the deep.

Phoenix Copper Limited
Notes from the Webinar 23rd February 2021
Dennis Thomas. Mining engineer, worked above all in developing new projects worldwide. Found the Empire mine property. Saw the area from Google Earth. Procured in 2017 for Phoenix Copper.
Ryan McDermott. Geologist. Born and raised in Idaho. Great grandfather, and grandfather both worked underground in the Empire Mine before the last war. Started work with Kinross in the Mackay area in the late 1980’s. He feels like he is coming back home. Joined Phoenix in 2017. The town is all supportive. It would be hard to find projects in such a supportive jurisdiction.
Question 1. When do we estimate that we will generate our first dollar of revenue from production?
Answer 1. The process design is for Cu/Zn recovery by heap leach. Typically within 30-45 days of beginning leaching we will be selling product, which is planned for late 2022.
Supplementary question: What sort of royalties and taxes will we pay on everything produced?
Answer: We will pay standard state and federal taxes, plus Idaho has a 1% mining tax, which totalled up on the life of mine will be about 9%. This is a very favourable jurisdiction.
Question 2. Is there any way that the start-up date could be brought forward?
Answer 2. Simple answer no. Based on regulatory guidelines, we are confident with the schedule we have.
Supplementary Question: How are you going to juggle all the different priorities? Will you focus on 1 project, or can you handle them together?
Answer: The flagship project is the Empire Pit, and will remain that. All our other projects can be easily accessed from Mackay, and can be run concurrently. Plus we are polymetallic so we could move priorities around between projects dependent upon metals prices.
Supplementary Question: The projects will put you into a large cash flow. In order to maximise the value of the company, you will be required to upscale the exploration activity. What will be the level of extra drilling and exploration activity?
Answer: A lot depends on the copper price and the demand for copper. We will look at the market and the cash available and deploy it optimally. We will put the cash where it is most effective at that time.

Good morning all. Here following are the notes I took during the yesterday’s webinar. I understand that the company will be posting the video very shortly, and I'll post the link here, so you will have a choice of my notes (not a verbatim account, but a precis), or the approximate 45 minute video, or both. We talked briefly after about the format, as this was made in Microsoft Teams. We were thinking next time it might be better in Zoom which I think has more flexibility. Any feedback on that would be appreciated.