RE:Notes from my meeting with Excelsior....metalhead666 wrote: Disclaimer...This isn't investment advice. Do your own due diligence. I'm biased towards "green copper" and this project as I own shares....that being said...
I choose to believe that this project will succeed.
I had a fantastic meeting with JJ of Excelsior yesterday. I find him very generous with his time and passionate about his role at the company for the last 10 years. I discussed everything I could think of including points raised by the CRUX hit piece. I've come away cautiously optimistic that they will succeed and that shareholders will reap the rewards if they remain patient as you must be for any mining operation just getting into production.
One third of the wellfield is current in production. Copper is being produced but not at steady rates as the process is being optimized. This optimization will take several more weeks with improvements occurring along the way until steady state production is maintained and the ramp up process can proceed. There is no acid procurment problem. The CRUX piece lied about that. During the Covid shutdowns no acid was being manufactured at Kendicot so none could be had. That is not an issue now. In fact the price has come down.
The rock types at Florence are different than at Excelsior but the geologic processes are exactly the same. Copper forms in the "channels" and fisures in the rocks where it is extracted no the rocks themselves so rock type is not an issue. There are carbonate type rocks which neutralize acid which is why the acid concentration has to be optimized to account for this. They know this and are dealing with it. There were close to 150 holes drilled so there's no mystery about the geology. The CRUX hit piece was misleading on this.
There is a massive Sulfide lying at the bottom of the wellfield and that contact zone is loaded with copper...this is a bonus not even mentioned which provides for some very large upside to the resouce. There is a lot of room for future discovery and additions to the resource.
The suggestion by the CRUX person that the feasibility study is useless is pure BS. While there have been and will continue to be modifications and improvements, what the FS said is what we've got. Everything is going to plan as expected with the usual teething issues every mining operation has. The issues of "channeling" are not an issue...the channels are where the high grade is and to get to the rest the channels can be blocked. The suggestion that this was a problem was wrong.
This property was owned decades ago but a mining company which got bought out by BHP. BHP did not go forward here because copper was cheap, they were going in other directions and it had nothing to do with the projects viability. A number of the personale who worked on the original test projects now work for Excelsior. The suggestion that they didn't develop it for technical or economic reasons is again pure BS by Crux.
Excelsior has plans to return to bi monthly webinars. They are not inclined to babble about nothing when there's nothing to babble about. Their attitude is that it's "show me" time and the time for aggressive promotion will come when they've proven all the naysayers wrong. They want to get a NYSE listing at some point, will finance expansion via similar means as they have already.
Technical data will be coming but you need to understand that this is a process. They are refining the process, collecting data, making improvements constantly and in the couse of optimization final data will become available so you can model production rates etc...thats just not relevant now as its a work in progress.
In summary....I beileve they will pull this off and go on to produce 125 million lbs per year as quickly as possible. They will sell some royalty streams to finance expansion, they will surmount any technical challenges, they will have a lot more to say to you when there's something meaningful to say and I'm confident I will make a lot of money being a shareholder.
This is not a blank check endorsement however...there is risk still...I'm not a chemist or mining engineer...I have a geology backgroud but I'm not in their lab or on the site and I'm mostly relying on company information, intuition and honestly, some hope as I really want this project to succeed. I don't buy anthing the CRUX person wrote. They did not call or visit the company so cannot possibly know what's going on. I do think management is competent and on top of this and will reach the stated goal of 25 million lbs by year end. Then its just a question of ramping up and taking all the cash generated to the bank.
JJ is a very generous IR person. You should all call him and have a chat. He's qualified to answer any question you have. I enjoyed my meeting and have renewed confidence. I intend to see this through to full nameplate production of 125 million lbs per year and $5 min copper...I can do the arithmetic on that!
I think we all liked you better some 3 weeks ago. Just saying.