Swissgold. Mate yes there are some problems IMO. Let me answer a...

Swissgold.  Mate yes there are some problems IMO. Let me answer a few of your points to the best of my knowledge. There is also far more known about the numbers but the ASX is allowing them to publicly report right now.  Which i think is ludicrous.

I do have my facts fairly straight and there is stuff that concerns me too. Its mainly about the professionalism of the current management to take this project forward. But again this is also being worked on.

I'm not on the payroll - and yes I'm taking a bath too -probably much more than you
and so are the many people I have got in.
I'm bullish on Cobalt long term but I'm not looking at this just with rose colored glasses.
IMO there are to my knowlerdge potential big hitters with this on their "radar" and "circling it" as we speak.

let me go point by point.

1. SS Reporting -IMO Its not that CLA don't have a fair indication of the capex opex and the costs. Its just that last year with the fall in cobalt after some cobalt companies reported Scoping studies and their stocks were got crushed anyway after the ASX suddenly tightened their rules on what cobalt explorers could report. They applied these new rules to the CLA Scoping study without given any prior warning (as they have done to others since such as E27 and COB amongst others who also cant release SS without more advanced info) . Therefore CLA were not allowed to report their numbers. IMO This is partly managements fault and partly ASX change of rules.- but the root cause was the lower cobalt price.

So Now to report the SS as per ASX rules Im told CLA apparently have to move much of their inferred resources into the indicated category. This entails a lot more drilling in the west side and the in the anticline that will cost around 2.5 -3 mill AUD. The call now is is it worth spending that money right nowin such an environment ? On that I can say that a majority of the directors including Laurent decided It was too much to spend right now in this environment. It was a  hard call and I personally agree with them.

So they do have a much better indication of the Opex and Capex - as do the people now "circling it" and looking at the Data who have signed NDA's. To me, this is a ludicrous double standard in the market caused by the ASX. IMO those groups are there. but so far IMO no one has jumped because the cobalt price has kept falling and the share price as well. So the potential deal keeps looking cheaper if they wait.. But IMO I think we are at a CO bottom now and when/if things start to reverse people will then have to move -if they are going to.

2. Resource upgrade- we may not see this happen either in the near future because again the independent ASX cleared Geos who calculate JORC have also been informed to tighten their rules and only allow those parts of the resource that can be seen as "potentially economically viable" to be counted. This also means the JORC geo may suddenly decide to just use "indicated" not "inferred" resources (which means having more drill holes closer together. and maybe they then decide just to use the highest grade sections. So if CLA submits their last healthy and huge drill results there's a good chance that with his horns pulled in the JORC geo may report a smaller resource- even though of higher grade. They cannot know what he'll do till they submit and they have to report after. so CLA has no input into that decision. So I'm not sure if they will do that or not as per the previous schedule.

IMO let me just say this in my own opinion with many discussions with qualified people(and Swiss gold read between the lines here or talk to my friends there about where I get my info)  it's looking roughly like 500 mill USD Opex and cobalt production costs will be around 50-55,000USD per ton for the cobalt but with the copper and Zinc as extra credits (see my post the other day ago with my numbers). IMO this mine becomes viable at 55-60,000 a ton on cobalt if today's zinc and copper prices are the same. if they are higher that required cobalt figures can get lower and vice versa.


3 other practical issues:
1. Im informed the metallurgy on the potential open pit area in the west where the DOF is oxidized near the surface is currently not as good as they hoped. This is being worked on. According to people I know in the business I've talked to this can be fixed. But as you say -a better more cobalt-savy management would help certainly here and co-operation from such groups is also actively being discussed now.

2.The 20% premium on the cobalt Hydroxide has recently disappeared. This doesn't help the figures for the SS.

4. Management:  
1.IMO the main reason Laurent resigned was mainly for some personal reasons at home I won't speak about here. But from what im told he and the Aussie directors were having a cultural clash.  In my view both sides were both partly right and partly wrong and the truth as usual lies somewhere in between. But this is not a place to discuss this further. But they dids all agree that it's probably best to cut costs go a bit slow. laurent does say to me in his opinion he thinks the resource is potentially much better than they management have made it looks so far. That's why his group is not a seller. he thinks most the problems are overcomeable hes also a long term cobalt bull. for example he loves the fact that the anticline is so heavy in asenic as it implies they are apporaching the feeder zone.

2. I do however think we do need more some more proffesional and cobalt-savvy people on board or as partners at this stage to make this project look more viable and to take the project forward to the next stage. But this is partly why BB stepped down. And directors are aware of this and moving in that direction. I also think we need better attempts at marketing and communications from the company. But again if you call them or email them they reply in a straightforward way. They say the ASX also will not let them make more general forward-looking statements.

Its easy to mention all the smaller problems - but in short almost 90-95%% of the issues they have right now all originate from the low cobalt price. As that rises so does the chance of success for this project. That's the bottom line.

Things of course are not great now- but to repeat what I said this company/project is far from dead. New problems arise and require new solutions. So Swissgold you can either sit their negatively grumbling or try to get on and help fix our company and your investment. I'm in the latter group. So why not call BB or Pine or Aesir Capital and ask them stuff for yourself and tell them what you think and try to help to solve this problem then let us all know too. They are very responsive to shareholders one on one..