Personally, I would go a little easy on management. Yes, I do agree that the time required to begin the drilling program and the initial stages of the drilling were disappointing. Keep in mind though, that although Staargard does need to take responsibility for it, that the drilling contractor was not necessarily keeping up their end of the agreement. Chris saw the problem, ensured that they get a second drill to try and make up some time, and since that time I would say drilling has progressed relatively smoothly. Yes, not at an extremely quick pace, but they did complete about 10-12 holes in the last 6 months. The delay in results is obviously a problem sector wide. Also, Lithic paid the drilling contractor per metre drilled, so I believe there was a considerable cost saving by doing this. Also, look at Lithic's administrative cash burn - very low - Chris is running things pretty tight. So, yes, although I agree that a "slower" program and a slow start is frustrating, Chris was making changes midway to improve the situation, and he was successful. Thus, I think that Chris is a very competent manager, who is a talented geologist, and runs a fiscally lean operation. He is a great promoter - not at this time, and it will be something they have to work on as the 43-101 is nearing completion.
It is easy to write the company off because of a slow drill program, but the results have been encouraging, and it looks promising that the historic resouce will become a larger 43-101 compliant resource. Just consider some hypotheticals, such as a 2 billion pound zinc sulphide deposits, worth about $2 billion in-situ, not counting oxides, indium, copper, silver, or moly. Also, at a relatively high grade to make the economics more promising, and all at a $9 million market cap. To me that is a disconnect, and the market sentiment reinforces my belief that there is a big disconnect, and the better a person is at finding value the more money to be made during the recovery. Yes, I realize thinks are quite bad in the world economic climate right now, but I do believe a recovery will occur within the next year or so. |
