Saturday, September 11, 2010

Message from Peter Ball

Received this email from Peter Ball. Nice to see things are progressing. I'm happy to see they are still expecting to hit 25-30k at Lamaque in 2010. Even if they come close, I think that will set us up for good numbers in 2011 which will be a critical year.

Cheers,
RE

There is nothing to report that is material at this moment as the company continues with stope development and Bedard development.

LAMAQUE continues to mine in the flats and expect mining in q4 in Bedard and then subsequently in the northwall zone where we expect to finally be able to increase tonnage once these zones are opened which have been delayed by the geotechnical for Bedard, delay in mine equipment delivery.

The mine is playing catchup on all fronts to get ahead in development and thus the delivery of mined tonnage.

The mill is fully upgraded and working wonderful and awaits the mine to open the new mined areas for delivery of tonnes.

The tonnage hovers lower than expected but is expected to take the required jump in q4 and we are still expected to to meet our guidance of 25 to 30k at LAMAQUE in 2010

Day to day right now is immaterial as long as we continue with our mine plan to open the mine the way we have planned.

I see a good q4 as all the above comes together but until then we are behind and tpd etc does not tell the picture as it will mislead readers and not define the true picture over the next few months.

Call me next week and we can chat.

I will be copying this exact email to other folks who email me.

Thanks for your patience.

Peter

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The email from Pete makes sense. I worked for an environmental engineering firm .. AMEC to be exact. I took care of the environmental side while the office manager handled the geotechnical part of the business.

Geotechnical studies must be done to verify stability of the rock structures. New issues will often crop up in the middle of a project .. sometimes requiring further sampling .. and always requiring more time for completion.

At the end of the day the geotechnical folks have to sign off that the shaft is structurally sound. There are liability risks involved, serious business, and so nothing can go ahead until the work is complete and signed off.

Sign off on a project like this will involve a review process .. the person that completes the report sends it off to another office for a peer/technical review .. comments are made and there is a bit of a back and forth process .. god forbid the lawyers (which happens sometimes) get involved which addes orders of magnitude of complication to the back and forth changes to the report.

Thank your lucky stars these are geotechnical issues and not environmental issues .. involving Indian land.

The Geotechnical is done by a third party .. and so is out of CMM's control. There is little they can do but wait till the report is done or complete what ever test work is required to complete the report.

God forbid you dont have your i's dotted and t's crossed from a geotechnical perspective and the mine collapses...you could then kiss your share price goodbye as due to lawsuits.

It sounds as if the geotechnical issues have been resolved and the report completed as if they had not there is no way we could expecdt to be into the Bedard in October.

This is a good question for Peter: - have we recieved sign-off on the geotechnical/ structural stability of the Bedard dyke ?

Prior to this email I did not realize that it was geotechnical issues holding up progress at Bedard.

Now that I do I am greatly comforted as delays due to geotechnical are a completly normal .. and in fact should be expected.

There are no boogy men .. shady schemes trying to depress the share price .. Russian Mafia tricks.

Its quite clear to me now: We are delayed in getting rock to the mill because the Geotechnical folks took thier sweet ass time getting the report completed (as they always do) ...and then when the report was submitted for approval to the govt they were not satisfied and required more testing work be done ..or more support structures put in place (another common occurance).

It is just a matter of time before the geotechical issues are resolved and plan to increase tonnage to the mill is implemented. These things take time but not "that" long. (millenia in the mind of a day trader but not long in terms of the overall plan to completion)

To be realistic the delay is 2-3 months getting to "full" production. It is not like the mill is not operating .. just not at expected capacity for this time period.

I am optimistic that these issues will be resolved in October and CMM gets into Bedard.

If anyone talks or emails Pete it would be great to get further clarification as to whethr or not we have received geotechnical sign off.

Mike

Anonymous said...

The email from Pete makes sense. I worked for an environmental engineering firm .. AMEC to be exact. I took care of the environmental side while the office manager handled the geotechnical part of the business.

Geotechnical studies must be done to verify stability of the rock structures. New issues will often crop up in the middle of a project .. sometimes requiring further sampling .. and always requiring more time for completion.

At the end of the day the geotechnical folks have to sign off that the shaft is structurally sound. There are liability risks involved, serious business, and so nothing can go ahead until the work is complete and signed off.

Sign off on a project like this will involve a review process .. the person that completes the report sends it off to another office for a peer/technical review .. comments are made and there is a bit of a back and forth process .. god forbid the lawyers (which happens sometimes) get involved which addes orders of magnitude of complication to the back and forth changes to the report.

Thank your lucky stars these are geotechnical issues and not environmental issues .. involving Indian land.

The Geotechnical is done by a third party .. and so is out of CMM's control. There is little they can do but wait till the report is done or complete what ever test work is required to complete the report.

God forbid you dont have your i's dotted and t's crossed from a geotechnical perspective and the mine collapses...you could then kiss your share price goodbye as due to lawsuits.

It sounds as if the geotechnical issues have been resolved and the report completed as if they had not there is no way we could expecdt to be into the Bedard in October.

This is a good question for Peter: - have we recieved sign-off on the geotechnical/ structural stability of the Bedard dyke ?

Prior to this email I did not realize that it was geotechnical issues holding up progress at Bedard.

Now that I do I am greatly comforted as delays due to geotechnical are a completly normal .. and in fact should be expected.

There are no boogy men .. shady schemes trying to depress the share price .. Russian Mafia tricks.

Its quite clear to me now: We are delayed in getting rock to the mill because the Geotechnical folks took thier sweet ass time getting the report completed (as they always do) ...and then when the report was submitted for approval to the govt they were not satisfied and required more testing work be done ..or more support structures put in place (another common occurance).

It is just a matter of time before the geotechical issues are resolved and plan to increase tonnage to the mill is implemented. These things take time but not "that" long. (millenia in the mind of a day trader but not long in terms of the overall plan to completion)

To be realistic the delay is 2-3 months getting to "full" production. It is not like the mill is not operating .. just not at expected capacity for this time period.

I am optimistic that these issues will be resolved in October and CMM gets into Bedard.

If anyone talks or emails Pete it would be great to get further clarification as to whethr or not we have received geotechnical sign off.

Mike

Anonymous said...

The email from Pete makes sense. I worked for an environmental engineering firm .. AMEC to be exact. I took care of the environmental side while the office manager handled the geotechnical part of the business.

Geotechnical studies must be done to verify stability of the rock structures. New issues will often crop up in the middle of a project .. sometimes requiring further sampling .. and always requiring more time for completion.

At the end of the day the geotechnical folks have to sign off that the shaft is structurally sound. There are liability risks involved, serious business, and so nothing can go ahead until the work is complete and signed off.

Sign off on a project like this will involve a review process .. the person that completes the report sends it off to another office for a peer/technical review .. comments are made and there is a bit of a back and forth process .. god forbid the lawyers (which happens sometimes) get involved which addes orders of magnitude of complication to the back and forth changes to the report.

Thank your lucky stars these are geotechnical issues and not environmental issues .. involving Indian land.

The Geotechnical is done by a third party .. and so is out of CMM's control. There is little they can do but wait till the report is done or complete what ever test work is required to complete the report.

God forbid you dont have your i's dotted and t's crossed from a geotechnical perspective and the mine collapses...you could then kiss your share price goodbye as due to lawsuits.

It sounds as if the geotechnical issues have been resolved and the report completed as if they had not there is no way we could expecdt to be into the Bedard in October.

This is a good question for Peter: - have we recieved sign-off on the geotechnical/ structural stability of the Bedard dyke ?

Prior to this email I did not realize that it was geotechnical issues holding up progress at Bedard.

Now that I do I am greatly comforted as delays due to geotechnical are a completly normal .. and in fact should be expected.

There are no boogy men .. shady schemes trying to depress the share price .. Russian Mafia tricks.

Its quite clear to me now: We are delayed in getting rock to the mill because the Geotechnical folks took thier sweet ass time getting the report completed (as they always do) ...and then when the report was submitted for approval to the govt they were not satisfied and required more testing work be done ..or more support structures put in place (another common occurance).

It is just a matter of time before the geotechical issues are resolved and plan to increase tonnage to the mill is implemented. These things take time but not "that" long. (millenia in the mind of a day trader but not long in terms of the overall plan to completion)

To be realistic the delay is 2-3 months getting to "full" production. It is not like the mill is not operating .. just not at expected capacity for this time period.

I am optimistic that these issues will be resolved in October and CMM gets into Bedard.

If anyone talks or emails Pete it would be great to get further clarification as to whethr or not we have received geotechnical sign off.

Mike