Typos fixed: Questions for Aurcana (Ken and Ron)Find below the questions I plan to ask Aurcana executives when I attend the conference. Please feel free to post other questions, and I will add these to the list.
1. Why was production in the most recent quarter only 60% of the forecasted 440 tonnes/week? Your production was 270t X 12 weeks = 3240 tonnes of concentrate, when it should have been 440t X 12 weeks = 5280 tonnes of concentrate. Was this due to reduced grades, lower than expected recovery rates, or reduced (less than 1000tpd)throughput in processing?? Are you actually processing at 1000tpd, and if so, since when?
2. If the lower than projected production of concentrate was only temporary (due possibly such things as processing lower grade material), then why is the forecasted annual cashflow only $20 million ($.21/sh)? You report that your costs are inline with projections, and steps are being taken to lower them further, so based on your forecasted concentrate production of 440 tonnes/week, should your annual cashflow not be closer to double what you are forecasting, i.e., 35-40 million?? The bottom line is that 20 million projected annual cash flow is much lower than expected and is dissapointing. Can you provide updated figures for your rock value/tonne and you production cost/tonne?
3. Do you have any professional Canadian or American mining engineers on staff, or on the board, and if so why not? You are now a mining company with producing mines, and with all due respect, geologists should not be running mining and processing operations. Do you not think that, at minimum, an audit of your mining, processing, and maintenance methods by a Canadian mining engineer with 20+ years experience with similar types of operation is in order? It is often the case that significant improvements in operations effciency can be found in these areas by highly experienced 'outside' mine engineers/managers.
4. It is my opinion that there has been serious disregard for maintaining shareholder value through the promotion of the compnay and its operations to the appropriate investment/analyst community (Bay St. fund managers, etc.). The addition of Jack Barnes to manage investor relations, and your attendenance at this conference, are certainly steps in the right direction, but how do your respond to these concerns, and what actions, specifically, do you plan to undertake to correct this serious definciency/oversight and repair the serious damage that has been done to shareholder value? Furthermore, when will be there analyst coverage of Aurcana, and when will there be an organized analyst tour of operations in Mexico?
5. When will be you finalizing an agreement with Agoracom for their services, to supplement and/or compliment the IR operations of Aurcana Management. Agoracom will conduct and post interviews with company executives, spam Black Berry's, Yahoo Finanace and other news media with your news releases, thereby exposing the company to a much broader 'audience' than it currently retains. Agorcaom will also manage a monitored investors forum as part of the Aurcana hub that it would create, which be a one-stop location for all company news, interviews, and other company information. I know you have received their proposal and are aware of the services they can provide, so when will you be acting on it?
6. Finally, when will the first 43-101 compliant resource/reserve be completed and made public? This is desperately long overdue and Aurcana, in terms of its market capitalization, has been a slowly sinking ship without it.