prospects looking good

A couple of interesting developments might stir a bit of interest in sleepy little EMM.

The first was the announcement by EMM yesterday (10th Jan) of the appointment of Barry Kelly as a director of the company. As the announcement notes, he has a background of senior management with the likes of Thiess, MIM and WMC, and is currently a director of UQ Holdings Ltd and chairman of JK Tech P/L, both of which provide technological solutions to the mining industry.

I had a quick google around on stuff related to Barry Kelly and the results indicate he is highly rearded in his field and will bring valuable experience and direction to EMM's marketing. My view is this appointment will sharpen the focus of EMM's business activities and improve its prospects in convincing companies to adopt EMM's EMEW solution for their mineral processing.

The second interesting development was the news released by Constellation Copper last night to the TSX of favourable column leach tests for the Terrazas Project. The copper and zinc extraction rates are much higher than the rates assumed in the 2002 technical study - which showed a robust commercial case for development. Of particualr significance is that the leach rates for zinc are over 90% compared to the 77% extraction rates formerly used. Details of the Constellation announcement may be found at:

http://www.summominerals.com/downloads/011...20Copper%20Corp

But why is this anything to get excited about I hear you ask? Number one is that it further enhances the estimated profitability of the Terrazas Project and almost guarantees that it will get up. This alone is a big deal as the technical reports on it have endorsed the EMEW route for the project's zinc (and initial costing for the EMEW plant are around C$23M). Number two is that the much higher extraction rates of zinc (coupled with the recent discovery of significant extra resources with much higher % of zinc than has formerly been outlined) will mean the mine will correspondingly produce more zinc. And it is the zinc portion of the output that the EMEW cells will be used for.

So to me the Constellation announcement strongly suggests that Terrazas just moved a big step closer to development, and so too have EMM's prospects of picking up a monster order for this mine (admitedly down the track a bit).

It doesn't take too much imagination to see how this sort of deal - and others like it across the mining industry - will radically transform EMM from a sleepy micro-cap to a business many, many times bigger.