To all,
I have been a Naxos investor for three years now, and have greatly enjoyed
and learned from this thread. My area of professional activity is about as far away
as you can get from the geology/mining/finance arena so I have not felt that I could
contribute much to the chat. Today, however, I have an irresistable urge.
I have never sold, but constantly added to my stake over this period. This
has been easier for me to do than for most of you. This is because I know
personally some of the principals in the company. I like and trust them; and have
devloped a great admiration for them because of the grace, equanimity and skill
with which they have handled a succession of corporate setbacks as well as
malicious attacks, both professional and personal. I am very pleased to read the
near unanimity of approval which has greeted their most recent work, but believe
that a careful reexamination of their efforts over the past year, free of the hysteria
that inevitably accompanies a plunging net worth , would lead to a conclusion that
the problems of the past were not at all of their making. At times during the past
year it really seemed as if we had truly embarked on the "voyage of the damned",
but the fault for this surely cannot be laid at management's door. Moreover, if we
have managed to sqeak through to this present promising pass, it is in no small way
due to their nerve and judicious efforts.
Confidence in management notwithstanding, my own enthusiasm for the
stock has always been tempered by the second issue; whether they could succeed in
recovering PMs economically. With the latest COC and non-COC numbers from
Ledoux I was able to shed this concern, but only provided that the company was
able to secure a right to the J&L recovery method upon which these numbers were
dependent. Friday's "release" (perhaps "deliverance" is abetter word) clears the last
hurdle IMO, and now nothing stands in our way but the passage of time. As
already pointed out, acceptable COC numbers in the next week or two are almost
implicit in the release.
With regard to the J&L deal, I believe the price is right. If we must shoulder
considerable cost and share dilution, they are giving up alot as well. Specifically
the freedom to market and refine their technique to their sole benefit, with only
modest compensation for some time to come. Having said this, I believe that J&L needs Naxos as much as we need them. These are clearly very capable men who have
laboured long and hard to reach their present understanding of microcluster PM
recovery. They haven"t done this in the ether. They probably have used their
technique on half the soil in the Southwest and never found better results than with
our dirt. But it may not be simply our dirt which is magical. It may be that real
success with recovery of PMs in the DDs is going to be a fairly rare event,
dependent on confluence of several factors:
1) a rich ore body
2) a sizeable body
3) sufficient homogeneity of the dirt to allow one recovery technique
to work.
4) a technique which is both economical and high-yield.
I believe that these factors have now come together for Naxos and that the
people on both sides of this agreement have understood this. Let me just close by
wishing a happy anksgiving to all of my fellow Canucks. I personally plan to give
special thanks for this "Cornucopia Naxonia" and raise a glass to all Amercans who
kindly let me own a little of your Death Valley dirt, especially those whose new
Canadian embassy is on Nelson Street in Vancouver.
Best Wishes to all,
Lawrence |
