Billy,
The points you raise seem reasonable to me and are things that constantly bounce around in my melon. However, allow me to raise a point that you fail to mention. You make it sound like the poor fools that loaned all that money were duped by MD. The reality is that they are going to receive loan shark type returns for their investment. As I understand it, they loaned about $20 million and that their loans are now worth about $55 million and with who knows how many million shares. Seems to me MD is the one who was duped to give up so much.
As I hash through the past 12 months, it seems to me that MD was blinded by his own optimism and ambition. He would not have signed up for the loans with the people you mentioned if he thought for one second that they would not be operational until now. Those loans have proven to be very very very expensive.
I believe about a year ago he had other deals on the table that would have paid off the bridge loan people but he didn't pull the trigger because in his mind, the terms were not in the best interests of shareholders. I'll bet you he now wishes he could go back and take one of those deals.
I've been to the mill 5 times over the past 12 months and all I can say is that the project is very complex. I can give MD some benefit of the doubt that his earlier projections were not lies. Rather, they were a combination of irrational confidence and a lack of experience building copper concentrator mills.
F18