E-mail from Chrispicked up in the German boards ....
Thank you for your email and your continued interest in and support of Commerce Resources.
We were very happy to be back in Germany for the show in Munich on Sept.29 & 30 and then the show in Frankfurt for Oct.2 & 3rd. I thought that the attendance was low but the mood was positive, especially towards Commerce.
We as well did a presentation for the Munich Stock Exchange on Monday Oct.1, 2007 and it went very well.
This is all in regards an answer to your question and to be honest I do not understand the recent pressure either. I spoke to many shareholders and they all seemed to be in a similar frame of mind to you – positive about the company.
However, of course, I suppose I should not presume that I spoke to all or even most of our shareholders in Germany.
But as we move forward the only point I could mention is that there are certain aspects of development that are a little outside of our direct control – and in this regard I would be thinking about the hydro-metallurgical testing that is on-going at SGS Lakefield.
When I was in Germany in May of this year I was asked many, many times about what I perceived was the next major step or milestone for Commerce Resources and I answered almost always that it was the confirmation, on a commercial sized basis, of the lower acid consumption figures for our tantalum and niobium concentrate. (These lower acid figures were received by the work done at SGS Lakefield in 2004, but from a laboratory sized sample).
The bottom line is that I was given – by our mining engineer – an estimate of the timetable for the repeat of this test and the release of the data from SGS, but this has proven to be too short. SGS is still working on this process and I have an expectation that I will have data in about a month from now.
I do want to point out that a) there are no issues with this process (other than the time factor and in this regard SGS is the only lab globally that can do this work and that they are extremely busy with everyone in the industry wanting them to do similar work for their projects) and b) that our concentrate is approximately 60% target minerals (combined values of 10% tantalum and 50% niobium) whereas the world’s leading tantalum producer (the Sons of Gwalia) produces a concentrate that is only 30% tantalum.
The balance of our concentrate is only 40% consumables whereas the Sons of Gwalia (SOG) balance is 70% consumables. The fact that we have shown a lower acid consumption than the SOG makes complete sense as you can quickly see that there is just less for the acid to consume in this process.
We eagerly await the data from this test from SGS and of course are looking for a confirmation of the lower acid values that we saw in 2004, and in very simple terms, lower acid values means overall lower costs of processing.
Additionally we have already shown that we have the lowest cost of production of a tantalum and niobium concentrate.
And so, we will continue to build the project and develop it towards production.
I know that I may not have been able to answer your question, but let me reiterate, that at this time I cannot think of a reason that anyone who really knows the project would be thinking of selling at this time.
I look forward to any comments or other questions.
All the best,
Chris Grove
PS – we will have a booth at the Edelmetalmesse in Munich on Nov.2 & 3rd.