RE: Conference CallI posted this over on SI but I missed the most important part. As they are back to work they expect to reach commercial production by the 4th quarter.
There was a thorough discussion of these NGOs in Mexico. Over the last few years a business has developed which sets up blockades and threaten workers before a mine goes into production. It was mentioned that Goldcorp's Los Filos mine pays a $2 million "rental" fee to these companies re-negotiated each year. This money does not benefit the local community. Alamos and Gammon Gold also ended up paying amounts to get the blockaders to go away. Mark Bailey doesn't want to pay extortion fees. They are using all the legal means to have the situation addressed and the blockaders removed. The blockade has been set up three times and is currently not there.
MFL workers are back at work. They had used the recent down time to work on some machinery (under warranty) that needed tweaking. They expect to put cyanide on the leach pad in 3 weeks time with the first dore poured at the end of September, possibly beginning of October.
They have enough cash to last until the end of the year which should see them ramp up to full production. If operations are interrupted again, they have spoken to their bankers about an extension to their line of credit and the bankers were fine with that.
There were a couple of very angry shareholders on the line. One sounded a lot happier when his concerns were addressed by discussing some of the things MFL is doing to counter the NGOs. The other caller sounded more upset about the pm sector saying that he was out and never to return.