Fellow ICG shareholders .... some quick comments on today's and...

Fellow ICG shareholders .... some quick comments on today's and yesterday's ASX announcements by the company.

Humaspunco Drilling (yesterday)

Nothing exciting or special in the way of either reported grades or intercept widths. It is a positive that they intercepted all veins and achieved considerable depth extensions and that they also managed to intercept some new veinlets/tension gashes but, frankly, the grades were most disappointing!!

One interesting observation was the zinc (smithsonite) ringing galena (Figure 1) which indicates that the Zn mineralisation post dates the Pb mineralisation. Not sure if this is just different phase of mineral crystallisation or whether the Zn is deposited after Pb mineralisation and post brecciation of the Pb phase. Would be most interested in looking at some thin sections of this mineralisation to try to understand the paragenesis. maybe Ross could provide some thoughts on this??

The identification of the new structure to the east and parallel to the Callancocha fault is a positive but as Poet notes in one of his HC posts, Bornite identified this structure from Google satellite photos in July 2016 so it is not as though it is a "eureka" moment and it also begs the question that if this sort of structural geology can be done by satellite mapping how much of this is the company doing to help them advance their ground work? It might be worth Ross providing shareholders with a more extensive discussion on exactly the range of exploration tools they are employing

Cerro Rayas (today)

This ASX release was a bit more exciting in terms of reported grades, although again I note that channel sample widths are less than 1 m and so for us to get really excited we are going to need to see a lot more of these veins (almost in swarms) if we are going to get an economic sized deposit. In that regard the fact that they now think that they have a strong 1.5 long mineralised corridor is positive.

It was most interesting to note the reported metal zonation both regionally (between the 3 deposits/mine workings) and locally ( within the mine workings - see Figure 2). I would be most interested to hear, in some detail, what Ross thinks the implications of this are. In relation to the metal zonation at the mine workings (Figure), where you have Pb dominant mineralisation "surrounding" the Zn dominant mineralisation, is this indicative of just metal zonation or does the Zn dominant phase post date the Pb dominant phase? All important information to determine.

It is a positive that they have identified a lot of new breccia veins and breccias, some of a decent size and this is positive in terms of potential mineralised volumes. It is also suggestive of extensive/multiple phases of structural activity/deformation which is also a plus. I assume that ICG will have sampled the new breccias as they mapped them and I look forward to seeing what sort of assay results these return.
I note that in addition to the strong NW-SE mineralised trend that they report (Figure 4), there also appears to be at least one N-S mineralised trend (to the NW side of the area in Figure 4) and it will be interesting to see whether this is part of the same phase of mineralisation in the NW-SE trend or a different phase. All very interesting and definitely shaping up.

Other Matters

I note the comments on the "anticipated" shortening of permit approval processes, but I must confess that I will not be holding my breath for a positive and early outcome on this and definitely not within a time frame that suits ICG (from the Quarterly cash flow report you can see we only have 6 months of cash left before they have to do another CR).

It is also most frustrating to see that positive exploration results are having absolutely no positive impact on the share price. No doubt part of the reason for this are the day traders who now trade the stock but I also strongly suspect that it is because we have far too much stock on issue (I remember only 3-4 years ago when there was only around 300 million shares) and we have been seriously diluted. This is a real concern for me, especially in light of the AGM proposals to seek shareholder approval for the issue of further stock. If the share issue resolutions are approved by shareholders (which are in addition to the allowable 15% issue) we will see further MASSIVE dilution as it will allow the company to issue a further plus 860 million shares.

When you realise that most of these new shares would be issued at around 80% of prevailing market price, not only are existing long term and loyal shareholders facing serious dilution but also further price weakness. For me, this is a MAJOR issue that shareholders need to think about and perhaps form a shared position on ahead of the AGM.

So ..... Curates' Egg again .... a bit of good and bad. Overall the story is still very positive and the project is looking more and more attractive but it is also very clear that we are not going to get a quick answer here and that we are well and truly running a marathon rather than a sprint. Given the current cash position and the points I raise above, I think the shareholder group need to strategise. I will be happy to respond to any emails for a more rigorous and in depth discussion about these sorts of issues as they are not best addressed on the HC forum.