weaknesses of yesterdays release

I have made a quick review of yesterday's release and have highlighted a number of weaknesses as follows:

Project development cost estimated at US$358 million, including US$34.2 million contingency do not include the construction of the 52 km road - need to assume that the Zambian Govt. and not the reverse.

The evaluation was carried out using US$3.50/lb4 Cu price. If the copper price weakened below this it would fundamentally change what could be potentially mined.

The metallurgical recoveries assume a 76% recovery. In the 2012 Scoping Study it was assumed to be 80%. Are 5 drill holes sufficient for Met testwork - NO. Looking at the low recoveries received from the acid soluble copper test work and complex process indicates that perhaps 76% is the best case. You then assume that this will restrict the mining of lower grade material that is included in the resource limiting future extraction of the resource material.

Page 5 discusses the need to convert resources to Measured. Not sure why this would be required as under JORC you can convert Indicated resources to Probable Reserves. Some deposits can never get into Measured due to the complexity of the deposit. Just means more high grade infill drill results that won't necessarily change the resources.

Power will be a critical item and assumes that they will be successful in their negotiation's with ZESCO, the Zambian national electricity provider, for the provision of power from the grid to the Project.. The PFS study assumes a operating cost of $0.25/lb copper. However, if you look back at the 2012 AGM presentation slides you will see very high capital costs over a number of options. Any additional capital requirement for power could completely unbalance the current economics/PFS results.


There is no resources within 100m of the surface. The 2012 scoping study highlighted the deposit as being favourable for open cut mining. Although an updated analysis now indicates the underground as being the preferred option it would have been good to look at the differences in costs now between the different mining methods.

I have never held any BTR stock. Just highlighting a few of the main points.