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I have a lot of empathy with all the disillusioned posters and frankly I'm almost starting to feel that way too. Almost, but not quite. And I'll tell you why...

1. I think what we've seen recently are the signs of a company that is certainly in a jam and determined to get through this cash glitz (and yes, it will take a while to get its house in order). But the signs are clear that it's not giving up without a fight.

2. Firstly, there's too much upside to AKK and, secondly, aside from loving a challenge, there's no way that Richard Ian Cottee is going to put his own personal wealth and the future of his wife and six children at risk, by remaining Chairman of a company that is trading while insolvent. He's worked too hard and for too many years to allow AKK to get to that point.

3. So what are his options? Yes, he could bail anytime but he's got his reputation to protect and, more importantly, he's not going to abandon his old buddy Dr. W Mark Hart and leave him and other directors to pick up the "insolvent trading" tab. Plus, by his own admission, being a Cottee he's used to being in a jam, but never in a pickle. And whenever he finds himself in a pickle he's very good at getting himself out of it. So in my opinion he's going to fight tooth and nail to get AKK out of its current predicament.

But in order to do that, he's going to have to lay down the law with his old mate. One of the problems confronting AKK in my opinion is the ego (not a dirty word) of Dr. W Mark Hart. He is first and foremost a brilliant mining engineer. He must delight in being known as the first person to crack the Niobrara code. And I feel in my bones that he was behind the (in hindsight) bad Birch decision. If it had paid off, we'd all be singing his praises. But it didn't, so one of the big challenges for Cottee and Goudy is to prevent Dr Hart's obssession with technical perfection from getting in the way of making sensible commercial decisions.

It won't be easy as Hart's dominant personality will be too much for young Goudy to withstand and Cottee's got this other little distraction called CTP to worry about, so he's not around to support Goudy when he needs it...but let's hope they work out a way to succeed!