Exactly. It would be good to move forward and at least try to see what Troy actually has. Everything culminates at Upper Ithaka where multiple trends of interesting targets are compressed between intrusions. Very good location to start drilling.Operational problems have been solved (as can be seen by the very minor impact of the Smarts 3 slip because now there are stockpiles to feed the mill).
So the path forward is just continue to run current operations to repay all debt, start exploring the new targets and not lose sight of monetizing remaining value like carried losses, royalties or Casposo stake and Smarts underground.
Insane that there was nearly no exploration on that fertile ground.
However, the Troy share price was at nearly 5 dollars once and so naturally there are a lot of investors with huge losses. They have a grudge against the company (quite correctly) and are still playing the blame game. On the other hand management seems to have repaired relations with many of the larger investors. But it could turn out to be a mistake to not reach out to small long-term holders and get them onboard to move forward.
While finances are still in trouble a capital raise is not needed to continue to operate Smarts and Hicks. It is also not needed to do exploration. Yet any normal company would raise some capital to start exploration on a way more aggressive level. Any normal company's share price would reflect the exploration potential. Very dangerous if a company and investors are preoccupied with doing, avoiding or not doing a capital raise.
If Troy hits a world-class deposit at Goldstar, near Tallman or at Gem Creek or Upper Itaki, development costs could be much higher than anticipated. Financing that using operational cashflow might be impossible in a reasonable time frame. Time to think about owning a smaller stake of a larger pie.
I hope the $1.5m for exploration will be enough to show good results and results in a reasonably higher share price. Why not finance the next round of exploration via a very small capital raise? Why not do a capital raise on a as needed basis and as long as good results are flowing in? In the past we had the issue of a capital raise to fix problems of the past. That is dilutive. But is it dilutive if money is spent on exploration and done step by step with reserves growing accordingly? Maybe a question for mid or late 2019. All I can say is that France-Nevada employed a rule where it was mandatory to do a capital raise after each 60% rise of the share price. Good opportunities will come to those who have the funds to make use of them.
