RE:RE:RE:Summary of the way I see it...
1) Joe indicated that production was proceeding according to plan during Oct & Nov and it was only when they tried to mine the high-grade stopes in December that they realized they had an issue. So any comments made prior to Dec would naturally have been positive as everything was running fine and the quarter targets would have been in sync. When the problem arose & without enough stopes prepped and ready to mine they had no fall back. Result is decreased production (which btw will have been captured in January as Joe stated that they were now mining these higher-grade zones in one of the follow on interviews). Lesson learned -- they need more stopes ready to be mined at any given moment. I would not expect Joe him to make this same mistake twice. But IMO more important: 2) RQ has a reputation as being a straight shooter and a hugely successful builder of investor value. I have no doubt that Joe is also exceptionally well qualified however many investors came to this project because of the integrity and track record of RQ (and the +5Kg/t drill results also helped :) . We've been told the mine and the mill are working fine (better than fine actually). But we have been operational for only 5 months and start-up issues are normal for EVERY new mine that is built. So IMO the painful result of the 4Q news is primarily due to management mishandling of basic investor communications. I believe this is RQ's issue!! Joe's job is to get the mine/mill running, straighten out start-up issues and get to 500K au/yr ASAP. RQ should have stayed engaged in the "communications" of this project until the start-up issues were completely finished. Note how quickly, after the market began to react negatively to the 4Q results, that Joe held interviews and issued press releases with the information needed to inform investors and address their concerns. The information was always available but lack of experience didn't anticipate the need for it in advance. RQ has built enough mines and handled enough start-ups that he should have anticipated the reaction and been ahead of the curve. If the articles and interviews had been built into the PR of 4Q results, I seriously doubt that the SP would have fallen to where it is today. I would certainly hope that RQ and Joe are both front and centre on the conference call in March!