Does anyone know why the previous owner (Canadian) of the mine could not make a go of it?
I thought it was the Finnish company Outokumpu Metals that formerly owned Kylylahti? From what I can see from the DFS, Outokumpu sold it to Dragon NL, an Australian company, in 2003, which onsold it to Vulcan in 2004.
Regardless of who the owner was, I would say they didn't mine it because the copper price was sub-$1 for five years until late 2003, and sub-$1.50 since the late 80s! This is the way it was across all hard commodities over most of the world from the late 80s to the mid-2000s. Assets were let go across the board, and companies like AOH with counter-cyclical acquisition strategies were able to pick them up cheaply or even free.
worry when a mine needs to be subject to Govt. subsidies to keep it going.
AOH doesn't need government subsidies to keep the mine going. Far from it. They simply got a couple of small grants from the Finnish government as part of a job creation project for regional areas that suffer high unemployment.
The mine would still be profitable without them, but if somebody offers you a few million Euro you'd be stupid not to take it!
I'm starting to get sick of AOH -down $8k on my 120k shares already.
Well I agree with you on that part, at least! :)
AOH Price at posting:
25.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
