my two bobs from agm, page-3

Good post PeeSter.

There were 3 ASX announcements in the latter part of 2007 to do with the cost/time blowouts at the Browns Oxide Project.

There was the announcement of August 30 2007 to which Huntley's gave this response:

"CMR dropped a bombshell admitting commissioning of its Browns Oxide project is delayed from 4Q07 to 1Q08 and process plant cost will increase by 20-30% or $20-30m. CMR will wear most of this increase. It is hard to believe this could come one month from commissioning when shareholders had been told that everything was tracking to plan! It implies a breakdown in communications between the Board and what was happening on site. Our confidence has been shaken. The company's ASX release reveals little in the way of what happened or why, and how it could go unnoticed. This needs to be clarified for trust to begin to be restored."

Then there was the announcement of October 3 2007 where processing plant construction costs were revised upwards to $106m (from $83m advised in May) and the explanation given by CMR was:

"Isolated schedule concerns emerged late in July. However, it was believed they would be addressed by the introduction of additional specialist project management staff. The subsequent resignations of key project management staff necessitated the establishment of a new project management team during August. The new team uncovered previously unknown deficiencies in some areas of plant construction and in project management procedures. This has led to corrective action, remedial works in some areas, and revision of project management systems. A progressive peer review of critical aspects of the project has been implemented."

Then there was the announcement of December 21 2007 that the processing plant would now cost an estimated $140m to construct (i.e. $57m more than the May figure, with this increase to be paid for by Compass), because of "the progressive peer review advised in October 2007, and also resulting from materials cost increases and supply delays".