Revised II: Questions for Aurcana (Ken and Ron)Question from Gehuff has been added as question '1a.', and the ECU news realease has been referenced in this question as an example and has been printed as an attachment to the questions sheets...
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The following questions have been put together and are endorsed by some members of the Aurcana Stockhouse and Agoracom forums, whom collectively hold more than several million shares.
Questions for Aurcana executives attending Resource Investment Conference:
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?
1a. There is widespread confusion concerning the concentrate(s). Please supply your investors with a full breakdown for the quarter including tonnage mined and concentrates produced including the average metal contents for each (please see last page attachment for an example). Has pay been received for all or a part of the concentrates shipped? How much?
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 disappointing. Can you provide updated figures for your rock value/tonne and you production cost/tonne?
3. What net impact does the rising Canadian dollar have on your bottom line, and how are you planning to take advantage of your resulting increased purchasing power? Will you accelerate plans to acquire other properties?
4. 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 efficiency can be found in these areas by highly experienced 'outside' mine engineers/managers.
5. It is my opinion that there has been serious disregard for maintaining shareholder value through the promotion of the company 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 attendance 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 deficiency/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?
6. 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 Blackberry’s, Yahoo Finance and other news media with your news releases, thereby exposing the company to a much broader 'audience' than it currently retains. Agoracom 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?
7. 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.