Petaquilla Minerals Ltd PTQMF

CEOs Rule

[wwadehammer]

You're right Paul, everything boils down to the two CEOs.  What do they really want.  Pascal wants to make peace with the powers that be and settle all issues that could delay or stop his project.  Mr. Fifer is already rich so his goal is his legacy.  IMO he wants to keep developing Petaquilla gold and he wants to reopen the ancient gold mines of Spain.  Progafa touched on this when discussing Mr. Fifers truimphs and failures when he stated that Mr. Fifer had brought development at the "intersection of two continents"

 The Petaquilla gold project will be some ore containing 2 to 3 gpt through the plant for maybe another 5 to 10 years and an expanding heap-leach "commerical operation" for up to 20 years.  I believe Oro Del Norte has a lot of gold but it is below 1 gpt and needs to be heap-leached.
Spain can't be developed without a $150 million loan.

So we know what both CEOs need, now you have to estimate what kind of deal would satisfy both CEOs.

First, PTQ will need to get out of debt, further drill Lom Poy to come up with a feasiabilty study,  and have enough money to get a commercial heap-leach operation up and running in Panama.  I estimate a minimum of $130 million to accomplish this.  iMO the land rights for the tailings dam and any other land needs and buying peace with the government are worth the $130 million to Pascal.  This ties in with the SP not moving.  Simply paying off the debt brings us back to what the NI43-101s are worth and it hard to get a handle on that with no assurance that the heap-leach project will be successful.  

A side effect of paying of debt is it removes DB from stopping us spinning out PDI and it makes it possible for PTQ to obtain financing to develop Lom Poy.  The twin drilling results are done and rumor has it that it confirms previous results.  That's a long way from getting a loan, but remember, Mr. Fifer has been working on the Petaquilla properties since 1988 I believe.  That's 36 years to date.  Mr. Fifer is in no hurry.

 Mr. Fifer needs to get out of debt and have some manoeuvring room so I don't think this deal will be for less that $130 million cash.  I think that's why the deal has taken so long.  Pascal thinks $130 million is too much and Mr. Fifer won't take less.  These press releases on hiring foreign workers is a message to Pascal to get FQs act together and agree to the deal with PTQ.  That's why a deal is near, Pascal is buying peace.

No payout to shareholders but keeps us in the game.