News

December 02, 2008

TTM Resources Buys Back Shares And Thereby Declares Long-Term Confidence In The Chu Moly Project

By Charles Wyatt

It takes a brave man to fly in the face of all the whimpering and pessimism that’s doing the rounds in the junior mining sector. But one way of doing it is to spend up to C$3.5 million on buying back your own company’s shares on the grounds that they are totally undervalued. Such a man is Crichy Clarke of TTM Resources, and he bases his action on the belief that buying shares at the prevailing market price will increase the proportionate share interest of, and be advantageous to, all remaining shareholders. It helps, of course, that the sum being spent is equal to the British Columbia Mining Tax Credit that will be received by the company for its two most recently completed fiscal years. But nevertheless the buyback still makes a strong point about Crichy’s belief in the value of the TTM’s flagship Chu molybdenum project. Shareholders should be delighted that they have such a man at the helm, especially when they look around at chief executives of peer companies who are not spending on their projects just so that they can pay themselves over the next few months.

TTM Resources has three other molybdenum projects in British Columbia, but exploration this year has focused mostly on Chu, where an earlier resource estimate showed 388.5 million tonnes in the indicated category at 0.052% molybdenum and an inferred resource of 200.9 tonnes at 0.062% moly. This resource has now been updated following the addition of information from a further 13 holes, which now forms part of the preliminary economic assessment of Chu. In essence a further 17.3 million tonnes...