Another investor and I spent two hours at the mill/mines yesterday with Mr. Dotson. This was my first trip down to the mine and I can say that my experience was very similar to others that have posted here.
We first locked the truck in 4x4 and drove up on a bluff so he could show us the boundaries of their property. I believe one of Mr. Dotson's biggest accomplishments was to consolidate all those claims into one of the worlds largest.
Next, we saw their new maintenance shop where there were quite a few large trucks, front end loaders and other large construction vehicles.
We then drove all over the property and saw multiple mines with obvious indications of substantial mineralization. We could see the evidence of past mining operations which were halted because they didn't have the kind of equipment that exists today.
We then toured the mill. This is one very impressive facility. I asked what the price tag was for the construction of the mill and was told it cost about $60 million. We were then told that had the mill been constructed in the traditional manner it would have cost over $100 million. The savings were realized through building the mill w/o using the traditional methods and designs. Mr. Dotson felt that the experts (e.g. Hatch) will be amazed and perplexed that they were able to pull this mill off in the manner they did.
Mr. Dotson predicted that as soon as the mill is operational in the coming weeks, that it will be featured on the front pages of mining publications all around the world. He told us earlier that the mill is what will make the property worth so much more than it was. Ore bodies in the land are not worth much unless you can process them efficiently.
We met the person in charge of security. She is also a Beaver County law enforcement deputy and her gun served notice that she was very serious about her job. Security of the mill seemed to be on Mr. Dotson's mind throughout our visit.
There was a large truck that delivered some electrical components while we were there. I don't believe it was the Toshiba component that is so vital to the startup but I got the feeling that would be delivered in the next week or two. We were told that there are approximately 150 employees working on a typical day.
We were told that when the price of copper is low they will stockpile the lower grade ore bodies and process the higher grades so they will still earn a very nice profit. They are finding large quantities of ore bodies that are 2-3 times the percentages of their first project Hidden Treasure which is 2-3 times the percentages of Rio Tinto's Bingham project.
We were told that the lower price of copper will result in a contraction of supply that will ultimately benefit CPRK. The mines that are closing around the world were nearing the end of their operations anyway because they were running out of ore. Mr. Dotson believes the demand for copper today exceeds the supply and that the prices will rebound quickly.
A few of the "nuggets" that we discussed include:
1) The company is working on a few deals that will improve the capital structure. This includes recovering a substantial number of shares. I asked about the Company increasing the authorized shares and was told that they have a plan to avoid that.
2) It is clear that Mr. Dotson is very agitated about the manipulation of the shares and would like nothing more than to catch these people with their pants down.
3) Mr. Dotson was very optimistic about the geo thermal opportunity that was recently disclosed in the press release. He was not able to speak about it freely but said it could add significant value to shareholders.
4) We were told that the reason there wasn't any press releases for a while was because they were negotiating with their debt holders. The new terms will be much better and will be retroactive. I believe that was the first domino that needed to fall and that we will now see some things happening with some large institutions.
5) Apparently there was a recent appraisal done by a potential investor/customer that valued the project at $600 million. That would be $.24/share and does not factor in the potential for substantial amounts of additional ore bodies which are being found all over the property.
6) Mr. Dotson discussed the possibility of moving the stock listing onto a Canadian exchange once they get to a point of having a steady operation and after they execute their plan to recover some stock.
Overall both of us were very impressed and felt reassured that our investment would be a very good one. However, we feel the time projections for the mill start up may be a bit optimistic and have factored in Feb/March as being more likely than Dec/Jan. We may be pleasantly surprised if they get there sooner but we would prefer to have our expectations exceeded rather than be disappointed if they have to extend the dates yet again. If it does take 4-8 more weeks to get the mill fine tuned, we feel that will not have a significant impact on the long term value of our investment.
Hope this helps.
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