Talked to Mike a little bit and then Elmer for a fair bit today, for a conference. On a personal note, Elmer is a real gentleman, straight up, no bs, and we had a few laughs when I joked about the districit they were proving up, not just a big deposit.
A few thoughts are below from our time - nothing new, but nice to meet Elmer and hear it straight from the horses mouth so to speak:
1. CAPEX - still trying to keep it at or below what they said. However, iron ore prices and other factors are a reality that make it tough to do on the cheap. However, still very positive about the capex and confident it won't be much different than before.
2. PIT DESIGN - still working on this but it sounds well along in the process. The starter pit is going to be pretty good I think. And Elmer seems very pleased with what is on the northern part of the block model - loves the high grade there and he's convinced there is lots more.
3. SILVER - of course it is being worked on but no holding up the BFS for this. Waiting for silver in a new RE could mean BFS in 3rd or 4th quarter, so no way! I agree wholeheartedly. Any player knows the silver is there.
4. BFS - smiled and said yes, the plan is for it to be done this quarter. There have been delays, but I tend to believe Elmer on this.
5. DEPOSIT AND DISTRICT - one of the sheets they were handing out described Schaft Creek as "a large porphyry deposit". I said I was hoping it would say "district" but one has to be careful with one's words. Elmer agreed and had a very large grin on his face. I said maybe deposit should be plural "deposits" and again just big grins and agreement, and then he started to walk me through the block model and go over the areas where they stopped drilling at depth and where the edges of the block model were still open to more drill holes. He figured 20+ years from now there will still be drilling to get at how deep/wide the deposit goes.
6. TCK - said they are working with the techical people from Teck regulary, but NOT management. The technical people are great to work with but no signals from management so they are pushing hard to be the BFS done. The 120 clock needs to start ticking.
7. BUYOUT, DIVIDEND, SPINCO - talked about lots of different options here and Elmer has thought out various scenarios. Everyone just wants a buyout at the end of the day - we all know what a bird in the hand is worth. Elmer didn't seem concerned, but both he and Mike talked about the instability in the macro situation and that everyone would like to see this bought out sooner than later. I suppose none of us would complain about a really fat dividend too and continued exploration under Copper Fox 2.0 if/when Teck backs in for a portion.
Can't recall what else we talked about right now although there were a few more things and suspect there is nothing new here for those who've been following this story for a while now. I was encouraged, very impressed that Elmer took some time to excitedly (for Elmer) relate the geology to me and where he thinks some key areas are for further exploration and perhaps even better grades/more deposits. They have the exploration program lined up for 2012 ... and they'll go for it if things drag for some reason ... but really this is one more example of them getting this ready to hand the keys over to the new owners in 2012 (and us shareholders getting some new keys to new cars and homes I trust!).
Viva la fox.
