Robert Stan: Successful mining operations built over years, not months

摘要

"Mining is a long-term initiative. Successfully mining operations are built over years not months. Grande Cache Coal has been in operation and producing coal for one year now. Our first export sale was about 11 mos ago in November 2004. In the period to Sept 30, 2005 we have shipped nearly 800,000 tonnes of coal. There have been problems along the way. It has taken longer and cost more than was initially anticipated to reach a stable production level. Some problems were unforeseen. Some problems were not totally unexpected. Foreign exchange rates, energy crisis, labor shortages, delays in delivery of equipment and weather problems have all acted against us. Along the way we were optimistic about our ability to deal with these circumstances and our ability to realize production volume increases rapidly. Clearly we were overly optimistic and our expectations have not been met.