what we fail to see sometimes....

I understand that it is very easy to get excited about the amount of minerals that are in the ground up in Cloncurry. Heck, I too look forward to finding out how many times we can multiply our already impressive totals once we add in native copper and begin to truly investigate Wilgar (and a few new areas).

However, what I think is very hard for most to comprehend while we sit behind keyboards is that the greatest asset we have at the moment in CDU (IMHO) is not necessarily what is IN the ground. When you've not made the trip up to the property (as I hadn't until recently) it is very difficult to get your head around what it actually takes to set up a successful mine. In theory one could have all the copper in the world in the ground but if you cannot get it to your customer (without getting nailed to the wall in price) then it really doesn't matter what your "inferred" JORC numbers are. Actually it doesn't really matter what your measured numbers are either.

Let me try to explain. What shocked me the most from my visit was the sheer scale of the $$ needed to get ones copper to market. Did you know that if you wanted to mine tomorrow that it would cost you 50% more to buy USED trucks than new? Why? Because you'd wait a year to get a new truck and at millions a day you'd pay what you had to. That's if someone had one lying around with this copper price at the moment! Right now CDU has 90% of the equipment we'll need to start digging!! 90%!! Oh and did you know that if we were to contract that work out that they could basically name their price from week to week? What would you do, stop digging and look around for a new company that had people not working in this boom? Good luck!! How about the fact that we have an amazing road and a rail virtually next door. How about a loading facility 15 KM away and a town already in place. Do you know what the expense would be if we hadn't secured one of the best spots to load our minerals in Townsville? You'd have to have a share issue just to pay for the extended rail to your facility, believe me! I was told THUS FAR CDU has saved almost 100 million in outlays. And that's not including what we COULD have spent without our strategic location. You think half a BILLION dollars is a lot of money?? Start a mine!

That's why I always smile at companies like SFR and QML. If you can put down the impressive "inferred" numbers long enough (they are good!) go and take a look where the property is located. Maybe start jotting a few numbers down in regard to infrastructure. Try to price the road, rail, building a plant (out there) port setup, power etc etc... If you knew what it would have cost to extend the rail IN TOWNSVILLE to a site we would have been forced to take had BP not (look into that too I think it was BP) renewed the lease, you'd fall off your chair, and that's a km or two. Now go price one for how many HUNDRED km's!! Hey SFR may go to $10. However, I'll start buying when the company decides to start releasing numbers that it is going to actually have to spend to get that copper to our friends in China :-)

Then there's QML. Again I don't know if the stock price will hit $1 next week. However, you tell me where they are going to get the money to do this alone. It's like the old timer who owns the best block in Sydney. He can jump up and down all he likes about building the next Q1 but everyone knows it's going to take someone else to pull it off. Eventually he'll get a lot of money for the block, but he ain't getting the value of what he thinks the Q1 is worth simply because everyone knows he can't accomplish that. For instance you think Xstrada are going to give them the power (did you know they control it up there?) very easily? Just ask CDU! Well they better have a lot of copper to justify the 15 million $ generators like us! I'm not sure how far along their mining licence is but that's a 5 yr process I'm told. Wonder what the price of copper will be in 2015? Better be good for an outlay of a few hundred million!

You see these are the things that make or break companies. Sure the critics will bash me and say anyone can get the $$ if the minerals are there and they might be right. What I'm saying is where would you rather be putting your hard earned $$ at the moment. I'd rather HAVE the equipment and the infrastructure sorted and be able to deliver the product (which isn't 5 km underground) in a decent market is all I'm saying.....sorry to bore you all :-)