Amigos, while we wait for the drilling program at Fraser Lake (in the Lynn Lake district) and the drilling program for Miriam in WA to get approved and started, I decided to post and give my opinion. I recently visited Bendigo in Victoria where I went 60 metres below surface in an underground gold mine which historically produced a prolific quantity of gold. It was a wonderful experience and I thank the operators and hope the facility continues to give tourists a unique glimpse of an historic gold mine. The old-timers worked in pairs by drilling and exploding about 1 cubic meter of ore per shift. They would shovel the rocks into large buckets, then transport the ore in lifts to the surface where ore was hand-picked, crushed and refine to gold. Why am I posting this information? Well, from previous reports on the mining at Lynn Lake, it sounds like a similar underground operation was carried out there, until it became un-economic in the mid-1970s. The Lynn Lake mine has been closed for more than 50 years and since then the methods of underground mining, open pit mining, ore processing and refining have advanced considerably. Corazon is carrying out mining studies which will it will use in a feasibility study that is due for later this year. From what Brett Smith has said in interviews and also in reports, the El deposit will be the start-up mine by open pit. After about 3 years the other mines at Lynn Lake will be by underground where more-sophisticated, modern ore-sorting methods and processing are planned. The plan is for entire orebodies, including the lower grade ore (ie down to about 0.3% nickel or so) will be processed. The current resource is 116,000 tons of nickel in sulphides (no silicates, cut off of about 0.5 % nickel). This resource is to be increased substantially according to reports, once a lower cut-off grade is justified. The ore is highly suitable for the EV industries of today. The LME price for nickel is $20,000 per ton (there's a higher price for class 1 nickel from sulphides like that at Lynn Lake), so the minimum in-ground value of the resource at the moment is $20,000 x 116,000 = US$2.2 billion (plus credits for copper and cobalt). The shareprice is pathetic today, but the resource is the insurance policy for shareholders. The resource is my guarantee that this little dog will have its day in the sun. In comparison, there are many other junior explorers which fall by the wayside even though their shareprice went through the roof at the discovery stage. Those companies didn't find a resource that was sufficiently economic to mine. Often companies reinvented themselves and moved to other commodities. In CZN's case it has stuck to its vision of metals for renewable industries. The nickel, copper, cobalt sulphide resource has been built up over more than 10 years. Hopefully Corazon's shareprice will get a much-needed boost over the next period if the planned drilling programs at Fraser Lake and at Miriam hit good intercepts of nickel sulphides (or lithium in spodumene)? Time will tell. I have bought more to average down, again, at these pathetic prices. That may be laughable to many but you have to be in it to win it. And patience is needed for juniors that are exploring as well as making the move to becoming developers. A guiding principle which I agree with, is that the stock market is an efficient machine for transferring wealth from impatient investors (you make up your own mind though). I've rambled on for too long, so that will do me for another month or so. Good luck all.
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