financially healthy no need for cap raising, page-19

NOBODY wants to lend. The Fed has dropped the rate to 2% and nobody is lending. Nobody trusts anybody at the moment (the banks don't even trust each other).

As for hedging ... I didn't say they would get the money, I said that they would NOT get the money without hedging Contracts ... a big difference. Whether the Banks will accept CTO's forward production figures is another issue. Hedging is precisely the forward selling of UNMINED Gold ... see below:

"Gold hedging, in its most basic sense, is simply the contractually locking-in of a price today to be paid later in the future when gold is actually produced. A hedging gold mine makes private deals with bankers to sell the gold it will mine in the future at a fixed price regardless of whether the actual gold price in the future turns out to be higher or lower than the agreed upon contractual price."

My argument is this ... if they are after a traditional Bank loan, then they will not be able to do this without Hedging AT THE MOMENT. It might be possible to do this at a later date when runs are on the board ... who knows, but (in my opinion), not now.

And no, I don't know if ML is actively seeking Bank Finance at the moment ... I am assuming that this is the case given talk that $30m is needed to kick this off to the next level. What I do know (as a long term shareholder) is that he has has actively sought JV partners in the past but the Terms have never been favourable. He is to be commended for not entering into finance arrangements that are detrimental to s/holders in the long term.