Well first of all, I don't consider myself to be a "bear" since I actually hold a chunk of BAY. I'm bullish enough to think good drill results this summer can move the needle. But I have played in the junior exploreco space for a long time, and it's really, really, really, HARD to take an exploration camp and turn it into a mine. The lessons in this space are hard ones. It takes years actually proving up a resource, and tons of cash/dilution, winding your way through red tape/permitting, dealing with a remote and in this case arctic location, having a management team that knows what it's doing (which I've realized over the years is the biggest factor of them all), and every little thing has to go right for all those years. It's threading a needle with sledgehammer and why like one in several thousand explorations ever gets there. So when people tell me about how easy it will be to do this DSO operation, I'm skeptical. Has anyone done this with copper in the arctic circle before?
I have even been in a junior that literally started mining and then problems arose and they had to shut down and now they are on life support. They too had a unique approach - in situ mining of copper. Retail punters think they will invest in this great opportunity and wait for easy riches, then are dismayed when the dollar they invested turns into a penny. Why do you think they call them penny stocks lol? This is hardly the first time I've been on a board listening to guys tell me how amazing a project was. And then you hear these completely naive comments like "they should be able to ship ore next year" and "why isn't the stock price higher, this is so amazing, they must be suppressing the price!" And this is really what the lifestyle companies depend upon - retail suckers.
And clearly AW1/BAY are actually exploring not doing lifestyle, or I wouldn't be here. But I am dismayed that Dave constantly puts creampuff language in his press releases, like "SPECTACULAR". Umm, the market would move if it were such. That is the style of a pump and dump operator, not a serious geo looking to prove up a resource. Who does he think is buying the hype as the market punishes him every time he tries it? Really stupid. But I digress.
In summary I think the road to an arctic DSO operation is a lot longer and harder than people realize, but that is my opinion only. As I said when I first landed here, I'm hoping to see some deep drill results that move the needle this summer. YMMV. I hope good things happen here for all of us invested in the prospect!
Expand
(20min delay)