Member Info for RightOn

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.

Yes, you are correct bankrupty. The initial project was to heap leach the copper, and to recover the precious metals some years later (look into the economics and this is clearly visible). Now heap leaching takes a long time, so by changing the heap leaching process to doing it in agitated sealed tanks, we bring the cash flow forward by a steady amount (ie the period by which we get our metals from mine to market). But more than that, we bring forward the period for the production of the precious metals by several years. I repeat, by several years (again, look in the earlier economic model to see that). The result may be that even though the start of the project has a delay, the economics look far far better, and producing additional income from much earlier in the project cycle. The beneficial cash flow impact from this route could therefore be considerable. If we achieve that, then there is no argument which can be made about the delays costing the project.

I was fortunate enough to be included in the meeting last Friday with the directors. By being present, I can now be considered an insider, and therefore bound by rules of confidentiality. However I can report in general terms that I heard that there are any number of interesting developments going on, and little of concern to me. The situation with the developments in metallurgical work, mine development activities, exploration, etc, is far more extensive than I expected, and is all very exciting. Funding is of course on everyone’s mind at the moment, and they continue to have every confidence that this will be closed (and of course when needed). Even speaking as an insider, I had not appreciated the amount of stuff going on, on-site in Idaho. I am confident that this summer will see many positive developments which should satisfy most investors here.

Did anyone else note on page 15 of the Annual Report, that no director has disposed of a single share in 2022, and all but 1 have increased their holdings. Does that sound like a board nervous about the possible success of the company? I see this as resounding confidence that the company is on track for success the way the directors have always claimed.

Hi Iknownuffin. I am one of the admins on the Telegram site. On the Telegram site we try to allow a free debate, and many participants do pose contradictory views. These are allowed, so long as they do not insult, or state misleading conclusions which are not based on reasonable evidence. Additionally, in recent weeks we have had a large inflow of spammers, so we as admins have had to be more than unusually attentive, and have deleted many of these accounts. In a couple of cases, one of us was over enthusiastic and deleted non-spammers by accident, but these have been reinstalled. At other times when a strange name arrives, yes we do question. This is always done with good intention of keeping the board "tidy". If anyone wants to join, and we do have a good group, then write to me on Telegram at PantsOnFire888, mention your handle on LSE, and I will arrange for you to be enrolled.
The key difference between Telegram and here is that sometimes members from the PXC BoD post to offer clarification or to offer background (but staying within the rules), something they cannot do here or on ADVFN, or could be disseminated in an RNS. That is found to be a real advantage by the members of the Telegram group.
I hope these clarifications help, and that the insult you obviously you felt is now understood in context.

Please PM me on TG and I'll see what I can do. h t t p s://****/PantsOnFire888

Try this h t t p s ://t. me/join chat/I5hNdxg-LUTkNvtljGWq1A (removing the spaces - you'll have to guess where they are)

I have read all the recent posts and insults thrown since the RNS on Friday. Let us hope some common sense may now prevail. My own take on the RNS, and after a frank and very helpful call with the company (who I understand spoke to other shareholders on Friday as well), and noting that the Nomad restricted some stuff that the Company wanted to say, is as follows:
• This was not by any known measure a distressed equity issue to raise cash, and neither will it place the company anywhere near the grasp of Riverfort
• Through their warrants Riverfort have a financial interest to see the share price grow
• This can in no way be called a dilution. The company stand by their promise not to raise funds before production through placing an equity offer. Small additions to shareholder base happen in every company as warrants are issued.
• The copper bond issue is in good shape and close to being finalised
• Much news is expected in the coming weeks, and particularly as part of the Annual Report and the AGM
• The company has developed very strong Digbee “A” ESG credentials, which will help in many different ways. This has been the highest score awarded by to any mining company to date, and its value should not be undervalued.
• The company is putting 60 holes into Navarre Creek this summer. This work has been prepaid and the programme already permitted.

Now I realise that these conclusions are very different from many recent posters, so I would suggest that if any of them have further concerns, that they actually call to the company, and chat to them about the issues, and then come back and post with what they learn from a position of knowledge rather than panic.
I wish everyone here good luck, and I personally continue to have full confidence in the company.

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.

Chid, few people outside the company know the company, the resource, the directors and the massive opportunity better than me. Let me explain why this has not been picked up. To attract a major this needs to be big. Majors do not go small. The surface oxides have had many holes drilled and the deposit is clearly economic but not huge like a major would like. What is potentially very large are the sulphides underneath, but these have not been drilled to create a resource (ie knowledge) for which a major would buy with confidence. So, the way PXC are organising the project is to finance the very attractive open pit oxide mine, and use the revenues to map out the deep resources, add value, and onwards, maybe through sale to a major. But the area PXC have landed in includes a Carlin gold deposit (Navarre Creek), a rich silver mine (Red Star), and underneath the sulphides possibly a tungsten porphyry. Plus Red Star continues for several kilometres. It is said that there has only been less than 1% f the ore drilled to date. Drilling any of these in isolation would not be be sensible, and to produce a report good for a bank could potentially cost a lot of money, hence the stepwise route selected by PXC makes good common sense.

And the reason they got started here. Two of the founder directors were in the region on another project and just happened to come across this brownfield site, saw the geology, identified the ownership and the opportunity, and the rest is history....

Please don't hesitate with any question. I would be happy to respond.

TREK, trading has been tiny compared to the number of shareholders, and well below 1%. The issue is that this is becoming a sticky share, with many holding on to it for long term gain (wisely in my opinion). In the normal way of things, if few people trade, then those few set the price, and not those who remain. My guess is that we are seeing traders take profit. When this does finally blow, it will blow in a massive way, again because the long term holders are indeed holding on.

Bankrupty, you wrote “They mined good grades before WW2..........Why don't they go straight back underground then?”. Please allow me to try to respond and explain.

Up till the 1960’s, economic technologies did not exist to recover copper from oxides, so what we now call the oxide open pit, was waste material as far as the miners were concerned. They had identified the deeper sulphides, and were mining these through deep mine shafts, but the process was expensive, particularly with the supply of utilities such as electricity, despite the high grades being brough to the surface. The final “nail in the coffin” was the second world war, where the manpower required for the fight took precedence over marginal ventures such as the Empire mine.

Fast forward to today, and the recovery of oxides is economic, and a low hanging fruit, since near surface open pit mining is much cheaper. Then we have the sulphides below (the oxides would have started off as sulphides, but the material near the surface would have oxidised in contact with air over time). As we drop the surface level thorough scooping off the oxides, access to the sulphides becomes easier, particularly for drilling, since the surface is lower. And that is the beauty of this project, that each stage finances the next. Mining the oxides finances the sulphides, which finance the deep sulphides, which finance the Tungsten porphyry, which finance the other deposits such as Navarre Creek Carlin gold, White Knob, etc. And this is something which only a small agile company could do, as a major would not be interested in mining for the oxides (a relatively small deposit), whilst the sulphides, etc, remain too much of an unknown today. The oxide project is very attractive, and the revenues generated open the doors to the pots of gold underneath and surrounding. Buy into the Empire Mine project today, and you get a bonus of all these other opportunities for free.

They gave the approximate date mainly because it makes good sense to inform the punters. It was always indicative. Who knows what's going on inside the company (aside the directors), but what cannot be said, for that unfortunately is the system here. But I got the impression that the announcement is indeed very close, and will be positive. Can you imagine what the posters here would be saying if they had not given any date at all?

With the end of February today, I called up to a director to find out what the situation was, since it was the company who suggested to me that news on financing was due before the end of the month. He said that frustrating as this is to many, the financing is happening and we will not be waiting too much longer. He added that this delay has not cost the company anything in the way of time, but has instead saved interest payments. There was no need to bring the funds in earlier, where the only result would be to cost us money. I got the message that whilst he could understand that some shareholders are uneasy with the delay, they should really not be concerned, as the finance will be brought in, in good time, and the company stands by its goal not to dilute present shareholders before production from Empire starts, through an additional equity raise. What more could he say? You really can’t argue with that.

Plutus, the hope most of us shareholders have is that a major does swoop in and make a good offer. But that will not be for a while, because it is just too early in the process. Specifically we do not have sufficient drill holes into the gold or deep sulphides to know about our deposits for sure, and majors do not buy on speculation. The signs are very good, but not yet sufficiently good. I think that if over the next 2 years the Navarre Creek results look good, plus the deep sulphides, then we may see an arrangement whereby a major may come in and finance the (expensive) drilling in exchange for a first offer. That would be a win-win.

But the above is just the starter, and is not the reason I am invested in PXC. External consultants believe that the Empire Mine is sitting on a very large copper sulphide deposit, beneath which is perhaps a Tungsten Porphyry, which could be MASSIVE. One expert called this an “elephant” deposit. These world class experts have said that exploration has looked at less than 1% of the potential to date. If this is true, then as the CFO once said, we could be looking at a billion dollar company. But the oxides, the deep sulphides and the Tungsten porphyry are not all. For included in their portfolio is the silver/lead Red Star mine some few hundreds of metres away, from which we are expecting drilling results shortly, the continuation of Red Star up to Horseshoe, plus the other zones on the periphery of the Empire pit. Then we have the potentially immense opportunity at Navarre Creek, a Carlin style deposit, where first drilling will take place in summer 2023. Carlin gold deposits have the potential to be large, very large, and preliminary surface scanning showed the right ore carriers and geological structures were in place. If Navarre Creek looks good, then this could be a standalone company. And lastly for potential, we have the Cobalt deposits which are a further opportunity waiting to be exploited.

Let me offer a key message. Today’s price is quite sensibly being led by the oxide project, for that is a confirmed resource, albeit still at a discount, waiting for the finance and the ATS results. But buying in at today’s price for the oxide pit, allows you to get for free the potential opportunities of the deep sulphides, the Tungsten porphyry, the silver in Red Star, Horseshoe and beyond, the gold in Carlin and the Cobalt. With the professionals saying that these look very good, and drilling so far confirming this (but not sufficient to confirm this as a bankable resource), this could be the opportunity of the century.

As I said, please do let me know of any questions, and I’ll try to respond. But do remember that I’m just a fellow private investor like you and have no connection to the company, and post independently, and offer this information without any recommendation. You must do your own research and take your own decisions.

Where are we today? The surface open pit copper oxide mine has been thoroughly explored, in terms of copper, gold, etc, and the project is advancing well. Meanwhile the price of precious metals has moved significantly, and these are now well worth recovering, particularly the gold. Then they decided to try Ammonium Thio Sulphate for the recovery of the precious metals. ATS is an environmentally friendly solution (pun intended), to recover precious metals, avoiding use of cyanide. But as a bonus, they then found that the ATS could also be used to recover copper, displacing the use of sulphuric acid. This is the work which is ongoing, to determine the right conditions for our specific ores, and to find out the recoveries in pilot plant situations. If ATS works, then it will bring forward the date when precious metals can be recovered, and making the project much more profitable overall. This will also simplify the environmental permits, as the chemicals used are much more environmentally friendly. Meanwhile the project team have been working hard, and have initiated plans to replace hauling ore down the mountain by diesel transporters to using a gravity flow system, as well as a few other environmental features. Today we’re waiting for news concerning finance, and I’ll talk some more below, plus the results on the ATS, due this spring, I believe. Both of these could quite naturally have a major impact on the share price.

Now for the finance. As mentioned, I know the board quite well, and know them to be honest hard workers, but with some imagination. Just look at the ATS as an example. But perhaps the most important consideration has been the way they have addressed the issue of finance. Early stage mining projects are often fraught with dilution, when market conditions change, or results do not go as planned, or just they spend too much money. But PXC have been rather imaginative. They had a big fund raise some 3 years ago, raising sufficient funds to lead them through exploration and development of the open pit, and into the pre-production phase, promising their shareholders that they would not need any additional equity raise before production. They appear to be true to their word, and are developing a mechanism using copper bonds (ie linked to the price of copper), which will raise the funds and be non-dilutive. If this happens, which the board assure us will be firmed up before the end of February, then the project is set for plain sailing through to production.

PXC represents a huge opportunity. For those who don’t know the details, let me take you through it, and knowing that many questions arise, needing explanations, I’m going to try to describe the whole story as an overview, and allow you to ask questions for further detail. I have been an investor from the start, and know and Trust the Board, but I state clearly, my posts are completely independent. Please do ask me questions, and I’ll try to answer.

Some years ago the founders of PXC (Roger Turner and Dennis Thomas) fell on this isolated brownfield site in Idaho, where limited mining had taken place in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Copper sulphide mining essentially stopped in the second world war, when the war took the manpower away. However, in the last days of operation, the copper grades being mined were in the order of 8.5%, plus with significant Tungsten being found. The issue at that time was that copper oxides (oxides lie near the surface, sulphides below) could not be recovered for technical reasons, whilst the deeper copper sulphides being mined were not economic in Empire due to their depth. How things have changed.

Fast forward to now and our founders saw the near-surface copper oxides, combined with local history of mining with the geology, and realised the potential, since today we have technologies available to recover oxides. They believed that the opportunity had been simply overlooked. Money was raised, drilling was performed, with sufficient holes to make a Resource. In reality a large company would have no interest in this relatively small oxide deposit, which is why it had been neglected. PXC started putting together a plan to make a project, starting from the now mineable and recoverable surface oxides, which would pay for the exploration and development of the true goal, the deeper sulphides, which everyone believes lie in large quantities (and which would interest a major if confirmed).

Seeing no trades yet today, I explored by trying first to sell £500 (no luck), and then to buy the same, and was able (which I declined). it's an unusual day when there are no trades..... I wonder what's up.