End of year letter:
December 19, 2016
Fellow Investors,
I want to start with the one word that I feel best encapsulates not just this past year, but our entire history as a company: “credibility”. We believe that the way to create genuine value is by setting realistic goals and then delivering on those goals. As we head into our final year of development, our business model will continue to reflect a company that knows exactly what needs to be done in order to achieve all of our goals.
At the start of 2016 we set ourselves some very significant targets. In every case, we achieved those targets and met our budgetary expectations, all of which proved accretive to our market capitalization.
Some of the significant milestones from this past year included:
• Full integration of the Johnson Camp Mine into our company; the facility remains in good working order and will allow us to commence production via a low-cost, staged, ramp-up;
• Filed state and federal permits that are progressing well through the regulatory process;
• Raised significant capital at a premium to our then market price; these funds are expected to see us well past the targeted construction decision;
• Completed an Updated Prefeasibility Study and a Feasibility Study; both of theses technical reports highlight the industry-leading low operating costs, low capital costs and small environmental footprint that should make our project one of the most attractive new copper mines in the world.
These accomplishments reflect the quality of our management team. We have the experience and business acumen necessary to take the Gunnison Copper Project into full production, and that is exactly what we intend to do.
The next big milestone ahead of us will be the receipt of operating permits. Permitting is one of the biggest issues facing a pre-production project, and we remain very confident that our operating permits will be received in keeping with our track record of achieving milestones on time and on budget. We are very proud of the quality of our community out-reach program, which we initiated over five years ago. Additionally, we know that our permitting team, led by VP Sustainability, Rebecca Sawyer, has the capacity and experience to deliver on this key milestone.
I offer my appreciation for all of our investors and stakeholders who have maintained their support. Heading into the New Year, our goals remain the same: we are working towards a resounding technical and market success. There is no reason why we cannot accomplish both and we will be satisfied with nothing less.
Kind Regards,
Stephen Twyerould
Present & Chief Executive Officer
