<<What if Bateman had come in early on this year?>>
Ummmm... earlier this year they didn't take the desert dirts seriously??? Why didn't Naxos land BD (good luck with them) many _years_ earlier??? Probably BD wouldn't have touched another dd until seeing some results at IPM.
Rand, sorry but many of your points seem naive to me. Let me clear the air also on Chuck Bankes reaction -- it's mine too -- We get a lot of posting "attacks" here -- and your timing, lack of previous posts, lack of e-mail, etc... create a circumstantial case for being wary. Plus you _could_ be ticked off by Jay Taylors sell naxos/buy IPM call.
You seem to be appearing sincere by some of your responces, so I'll take some of them on, but this is just clearing the logic and misconceptions. I'm realist. This does not mean IPM management has not made mistakes and wasted $ on dead-ends. I'm sure they have made plenty. I'm sure 99.9% of the most Jr miner management have made done the same -- and I'd betya Barrick during it's rise -- and for that matter Ford/Chrysler and GM in the 80's. I think some of what appeared IPMs mistakes may have been due to outside entities they were depended on, but surely others were all their own and hindsight is always 20/20.
<<"Whatthe heck, IPM's management has cost me money, so what's another $75 to start posting on SI.">>
C'mon that's a cheap shot when pumping Naxos... they've had plenty of "volatility".
<<Naxos did it right, IPM did it wrong.>>
the truth is usually in the middle of all the extremes it seems to me. Both have done some things right and wrong... IPM has done more things right IMO, Naxos has done some awful financings in the past -- and has _twice_ the shares out -- adjusted Naxos is now $14.50 to IPMs $5.37 and was over $20... And the Johnson-Lett deal will dillute 30% plus I believe, if taken all the way.
<<You can try what IPM did. They hired a lot of employees to do in-house R & D on a recovery method. They played with their chemistry sets, as it were, trying this and that>>
You have the story all wrong. All of these dd companies were once 3-4 man operations. IPC was too for quite a while, outsourcing everything, and working on a tight budget. After the TSE delisting which would NEVER have happened with the current fire assays, they got BD, and a one-man R+D team of Dr. Sam Shaw. On a modest budget Sam and Paul Mentzer tried a lot things, and IPM spent 50K with some lab in Denver to do a battery of tests on various leach agents. Along the way, things were discovered, results came, and they got seriosly finananced. What you don't understand is outsourcing takes a lot of $ too!!! I've heard IPM has paid BD a fortune to date. Mr. Furlong said it at the AGM -- that they did not want to be an R+D company, and they have not hesitated to turn to vendors: LaDoux, Mountain States, freelance metalurgists, Mountford, The Vercombes, Dr. Creelman, Lyco, "Friendship Metals", AuRic, etc.
In one instance IMO, IPM would have done better to spend the $ and build an inhouse bulk testing circuit instead of relying on "Friendship". One of IPMs "outsources" as you call it -- BD -- itself uses outsourcing for metalurgists, etc.
<<...Trouble is, they didn't have any means with which to evaluate the efficacy of their efforts.>>
No, no, no... The fact is that during the years these companies were having trouble getting the "mainstream" and Bateman's of the world to take them seriously -- IPM and all the DDs have had an open door to a wide range of independent one-man shop metalurgists with recipies -- some highly credentialed like Dr. Hewlett, some controversial like Dr. Groves, and other "self-taught" tinkerers -- which I'm not opposed to as Dr. Shaw told me that's what Thomas Edison was. Anyway, all the DD's over the years have freely handed out buckets of dirt to these people saying, "bring us something that works!" The main problem at IPM has been THE ORE IS A BITCH!
<<They finally brought in outside companies - Bateman and BD - to evaluate their work and lo and behold, they said it wouldn't work.>>
Way off, BD has been there _3 years_ and didn't give such indications.
<<You spend a lot of money on salaries and chemistry sets, but you don't know if they'll succeed.>>
You spend as much and more at LaDoux, Bateman, BD, etc... and also don't know if they will suceed -- that's why these things have such big rewards if they do. Nothing is guaranteed. And btw, the in-house stuff is primarily there so IPM can evaluate what the "outsourcers" (really called vendors) have been bringing them.
<<As regards the development of a fire assay, they apparently dropped the ball again. From what I can tell, a practical fire assay existed a LONG time ago.>>
I'm sorry but you are really uninformed here. Dr. Hewlett did preliminary work at IPM and wanted the BRX contract that BD got! IPM didn't turn their back on some existing fire assay that works like a charm! This is absurd. Maxam's stuff fire assays because they have more free gold!
<<OR you can do what Naxos did.>>
Sorry, IPM has made it's mistakes, but I don't see Naxos as anyone's model.
Bottom line is this: Of all the DDs, IPM is the only one that got serious financing and enough results/property potential to progess past that 4 man shop point. Even ultra-critic Rod Curry posted he thought they were understaffed last year. The problem IMO is IPM did need to expand, but expanded too much. If one looks back at all the stuff and PR going into the AGM, they obviously thought they had the nut cracked and got ahead of themselves. Okay. We move on. I heard months ago they had cut their burn-rate, and expect them to continue to do so till we get a resource established. But, hey, I doubt if Bateman comes cheap!
The rest of your post compares a lot of apples an oranges, but good luck if you are in all these DDs.
Lew Green
PS... I've heard Steffy will be reporting on Fridays PR. I'm sure he'll add some unpleasant "spin" and he may be quite desperate or emboldened by now.
PPS... Someone should ask Mr. Charters with his snide seawater chatter if he knows the cut-off grade for Barrick on the Carlin trend. He won't, he never knows these things till I post them, then someone gives him something to put up to act smart. The cut off is .018 and the average is .04 -- and they are using MANY assays -- not standard -- and they still don't read all they get. Hmmmmmmm. |
