RE:It's not cratering muchHard to crater much when we are at almost a 9 year low. NSU has been in decline for just about 8 years now. Timok is not putting any lipstick on this pig. Tony for the most part I have been a pom pom fan for Reservoir since eway back when it was Reservoir Capital. Back then our best asset was the hydro project we were developing to sell electricity to Italy. Reservoir Capitol spun out Reservoir Minerals and put all the mining interests in it. They did this because we were not getting green investors because of our dirty mining interests. Here is a clip from Byron King back in 2010.
On another tack, the news from Reservoir Capital (REO: TSX-V) is great. I've described before how they've made a deal with London-listed Orogen Exploration to re-open the King Alexander gold mine at Deli Jovan, starting in February 2011. It's part of a plan to spin out the mining side of Reservoir as a separate company next year. Hey, take the shares and hang on for a nice ride.
Also, I expect that we'll see Reservoir's power purchase agreement (PPA) in mid-January, right after things get back to moving in Serbia, after their Orthodox New Year holidays. As I've discussed numerous other times, this PPA -- for the hydropower play in Serbia -- will be a trigger for the larger funds and wealth managers to follow Reservoir. I expect a LOT more trading in the stock, taking share prices upwards.
I bought shares at the private placement because of the potential of the King Alexander mine. At the time of the spin out we had a deal with Freeport McMoRan to explore our Serbian leases. Come 2012 Freeport hit the mother hole. Here is Byron's release on that.
World-Class Copper at Bor
I've been following Reservoir Minerals for about two years, both before and after the company spun out from Reservoir Capital (REO: TSX-V).
Reservoir Minerals controls mining claims adjacent to the gigantic copper miningdistrict at Bor, in eastern Serbia. Reservoir is in a joint venture with blue-chip copper-miner Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold. Reservoir and Freeport are teamed up to assess the mineral potential of the Bor-related claims. (Remember, the way I originally told you about the copper deposit at Bor was more or less icing on the cake to King Alexander's gold mine.)
The old Bor copper mine was active from the 1890s to about the 1980s, when it scaled back due to economics. In its day, Bor was the largest copper mine in Europe. Bor was a large mine because it sits atop a massive ore body. It's a world-class mining district.
As I've discussed in other ESI articles, Reservoir controls the acreage north and south of Bor. Reservoir and Freeport have been drilling holes there for about three years. I've seen some of the cores from drilling in the past couple of years, but nothing recent.
Well, today Reservoir and Freeport released the results of one (just one) or the drill plays. Right away, the raw numbers are stunning.
In the wording of the latest press release, Reservoir and Freeport have "intercepted important copper and gold mineralization, including 266 metres grading an average of 1.23% copper equivalent ("CuEq") from 598 to 864 metres in hole FMTC 1210."
What does this mean? According to Reservoir CEO -- and PhD-level geologist Simon Ingram -- Reservoir "believes this drill hole represents the possible discovery of a potentially large blind copper - gold epithermal and porphyry mineralized system, and may be consistent with historical grades reported from other high sulphidation systems in this world-class copper mining district."
Based on what I know, the old Bor copper workings held ore grades of 7% copper and more. For the technically-minded, the mineralization was rich in bornite and bournonite, which are both important ores for copper and lead, with associated gold and some silver.
So if this new hole is "consistent with historical grades?" Then we may be on to something big. No, make it huge!
Please note that there's no new 43-101 to estimate the resource. It's just too early for that, right now. We're just looking at drill core. But what core!
We've got this newly described -- very significant -- mineralization. And there are several other drill holes that are yet to be described. So I suspect that there's more good news coming down the pipeline.
Since then the holes just got better, the foot print got bigger and the porphyry keeps on expanding. The problem started when we sold to Nevsun. These guys continue to run the company into the ground. Tony like you for a long time I have felt that Timok would someday be valued for the great discovery that it is. With Nevsun’s mismanagement and what appears to be shady disclosures I'm am less optimistic and my pom poms are getting dusty. My fear now is maybe Mr. market is right and our asset is not worth anywhere near what we think it should be. I say that because of delaying the PEA and the BFS. We are suppose to be close to the PEA now and the stock still can't get out of its own way. Every time we thought the market was wrong about our future and share price the market has been right. I sold about a third of my shares right before the merger took effect (should have sold it all as it looks like right now), since then I have bought what I thought were dips and were a gift but now they all look like nightmares. I had over a million-dollar tax bill on deal day since I am a US shareholder. After buying all the so-called dips I now have a huge loss on the books and getting bigger every month. My other reason for the Pom Pom dust is you can buy NSU December $2.50 calls for 10 cents or less. 90+ percent of all options expire worthless. My huge batch of the September calls recently expired worthless (bought all those expecting a rise in share price coming into the PEA) thanks to continued Nevsun mismanagement. It appears our chance of being over $2.50 is slim for the next 3 months. About the only thing I see now that would get us moving significantly back up would be another high grade discovery and we need it soon! Still praying for GLTA!
P.S. I think we would have been better off if we took our ROFR to Lundin. At least they are up significantly since our deal day!