Good variety of responses here.I'm not convinced just having...

Good variety of responses here.

I'm not convinced just having JORC measured resources or reserves is enough to be able to value a mine. I've seen plenty of juniors with JORC reserves - the highest confidence category in terms of the amount of minerals in the ground - subsequently go under for a variety of reasons.

If I had a block of pure copper, which was exactly 500 cubic metres, and somehow planted it 500 metres below surface, you still couldn't value what ownership of that block of copper was worth.

There are still unknown variables, which cannot possibly be knonw, which affects the ultimate cash received upon recovery and sale of that block of copper in the ground.

One example: By the time you dig that block of copper up, which say, takes 1 year, copper might have fallen back to its 2001 levels and made it non-feasible to dig it up in the first place.

To Practisingaccountant: yes, analysts will value resource stocks using measured resources. But is the valuation actually usable? It is anything other than pure rubbish? My contention is that it's not, because they rely on assumptions which are clearly not knowable, such as the price of copper in 2 or 3 years time, exchange rates, capital structure of the company, presence/absence of technical and operational difficulties, management behaviour, etc.

To those who say subjective valuations can be made: that's true. But IMHO, for a valuation to be any use, it must have predictive value - there must be some certainty with regards to what a share price will end up being by a specified time. If a valuation cannot achieve this in the slightest, then it defeats the purpose of the valuation in the first place. Subjective valuations - which I take to be ones based on anything other than a thorough regard for all the relevant facts to the investment - won't achieve this.

But seeing some responses like cipher's here, I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees things this way!