Just back from the presentation and there are two big pieces of news to report: The first and biggest is they're looking to do a deal to acquire a 70% interest in an area in the south of DRC that is presently owned by the govt-run Gencamines who would control the remaining 30% and be carried for the CapEx needed to bring this project to fruition - we are talking about a lot of capital required which would be 50:50 debt/equity - BT hopes to announce this deal early in the third quarter - but we're looking at a long life operation that would produce around 40k tonnes of Cu per annum. The second piece of interesting news is that did some drilling in late 2003 on an area in their Dikulushi mining concession that is to the far south around Chibulungwe and came up with very interesting results and this has now become the focus of their current exploration effort. Kapulo has gone on to the back-burner due to continuing civil unrest in the area and maybe won't be looked at again this year. Duc Bo in Vietnam is also on the back-burner as they await the result of applications for more tenements there. Bill also mentioned he's looking at a gold project in S.E.Asia but couldn't be more specific. Regarding the incident at the minesite in March, he admitted that pit mining ceased for around two weeks and processing around a week.But again described it as 'a storm in a teacup'. He says that the CBA selldown has to do with reweightings for them due to the increase in value of the holding. Confirms that the second ball mill will be installed at Dikulushi after they have proven up more resources there. Says that the Stage111 Dikulushi could happen in 2006 if the feasibility study says that it would be more economic to save the money from further stripping of the openpit. No he doesn't expect the copper grades to be lower as they get down further into the orebody. He leaves on Saturday to do a one week roadshow in Canada but it does look like he's backtracking on that minimum price of $4.50 as stated in the scheme document due to the lower price here. Other tidbits-the Canadian sponsoring broker is Haywood Securities. The financial year for the new Canadian company will also be July to June.And they're still looking at a new website. It was all very positive - he's on a growth path and we're all going to enjoy the benefits in the next couple of years.
