An article from The Australian. Apologies if it has already been...

An article from The Australian. Apologies if it has already been posted.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-trio-poised-to-prove-the-critics-wrong/story-e6frg8zx-1225971157776

An extract about CDU:

"Some 500km northwest of Palmer's holdings in the Galilee Basin, CuDeco's Wayne McCrae adopts a similar outlook about his patch of ground containing what he has always maintained is valuable copper deposits.

McCrae, originally from Perth, has been knocking around the northwest for more than 20 years, but what has always been at issue is its actual size and accessibility of the deposits.

Back in 2006, McCrae claimed that he had 60 million tonnes of copper with a content of 2 per cent, but this year he saw his share price tumble in August when he said he had about 30 million tonnes of copper with a content of 1 per cent.

At the time it seemed as though McCrae had suffered a humiliating backdown, but he also told The Australian at the time that he was quite comfortable with that size deposit.

"We know where we're going and that's still a pretty good-size deposit," he said.

But since then McCrae has made further releases to the market, claiming copper equivalent in some of its samples of 10 per cent and 17 per cent, which has hoisted its shares back up again.

More importantly, he has been active outside of the actual mining operations in setting up all of the processes needed to make the mine succeed.

He has signed a memorandum of understanding to secure rail access to Townsville's port which will be used as the basis for exporting the copper, while he is also negotiating with Queensland Rail for a rail spur from the main western line between Townsville and Mount Isa to the Rocklands site.

The company also announced that Cloncurry Shire Council had approved the construction of a 200-person mining camp in the shire, and it has also been accumulating much of the machinery it needs for the mining operation.

But possibly the more significant movement was that after years of having a share register of purely Australian shareholders -- or more specifically the Gold Coast -- the company has attracted overseas interest, with the giant US investment group Vanguard accumulating a 7.9 per cent stake.

McCrae, who has had several disastrous public appearances, seemed to have pulled his head in a little by holding this year's annual general meeting at the Cloncurry Shire Hall rather than the Gold Coast.

Despite the standard drama over executive and board pay -- 31 per cent voted against accepting the company's remuneration report -- McCrae told the meeting last month that he was on track to be mining by the third quarter of 2012.

He has set a tight timetable -- he told the meeting that he expected a bankable feasibility study on the project to be completed by the second quarter of next year, with construction of the project starting in the first quarter of 2012, and initial production following not long afterwards.

McCrae has in the past dismissed market analysts as Sydney-based desk jockeys who don't understand mining, a theme echoed by Ray James, another veteran miner who, like McCrae, lives on the Gold Coast when he's not kicking rocks in western Queensland."