Bitterroot Road Ban in Michigan: Final Take

POSTED ON March 20, 2014 BY Thom Calandra
CATEGORY Bitterroot Resources,

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Maybe this is just CEO fatigue. Maybe we will know what happened here when we pull our hearts from our breasts and eat them.*

This "road-ban" about our PENNY-ANTE platinum-group-metals prospector in Michigan, USA, came across screens yesterday evening.

Bitterroot Resources CEO Mike Carr tells us Thursday morning that he and his company were jammed among: 1. a drill program that was not going as quickly as anticipated; 2. an early March closing on the financing that powers that Michigan drilling; and 3. the traditional cold-weather road closures of early spring in the great white northern USA (and Canada).

Mr. Carr of Vancouver is a geologist and has run this company, essentially his own, since the 1990s.

There might be a terrific opportunity here with The Root (BTT in Canada). But we won’t, says Mr. Carr, we will not know if the platinum-group metals targets that Bitterroot controls across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula “Pan Out” or pan in, until Mr. Carr knows it.

“Look,” he says by telephone from Vancouver, Canada, just now, “we were caught between driller delays and I don’t get much warning.” He is discussing with us the road-ban “release” of Wednesday evening.

“We raised money (a couple hundred thousand dollars) for this drilling, and that closed in the first few days of March and sure I could have done nothing and waited until May to start drilling these.”

But he did not. “Would that have been any better? My investors wanted me to get going right away ... and we would be sitting waiting for the snow to melt. It doesn’t cost me any more money and nothing bad has happened.”

Nothing bad, that is, except drill-rig operators who were not at peak performance levels.

So maybe this is a good explanation. Our TCR take is that it is an honest one. I have known Mike Carr for about 13 years.

What would be other good explanations for an unexpected pause in (Michigan USA) drilling when most any winter-clime operator has advance knowledge of seasonal weather patterns that might influence road-load decisions? I looked into this.

One member of our TCR audience who lives in the great white north and is familiar with early spring road closures and weight bans tells us, "Unless one is directly involved in the trucking business, it would be conceivable that with many other things on his mind, Mr. Carr might have overlooked these closures."

That is the kind view.

At any rate, Mr. Carr notes that he was on holiday for a week down south somewhere, and of course, being a CEO of a company that has a lot at stake with this Michigan drill program – maybe the future of the company rides this time, after more than a decade of exploration in various venues, on a handful of promising PGM holes – being a CEO of such a company, he says he was peppered with questions the entire time.

“What do I say? I have to stay quiet the entire time,” he says. “You would be surprised how even seasoned investors think they can get information that is not uniformly disseminated.”

Well, I would not be surprised. Especially if it is among margaritas.

On the timing of the release on this road ban in cold weather Upper Peninsula? “I thought this was material, as folks are expecting a three-week timeline. Besides, this is the exploration business, and poop happens.”

As for the existing BTT opportunity, it is possible we still will see some rich (platinum nickel copper?) mineralization from Target H assays. I was drinking coffee when I spoke with Mike today via telephone, and even though it is t0 degrees Fahrenheit in Vancouver, I have to gather that he was not tending a margarita. Thus: no privileged information here. (And no, I did not ask.)

He did mention, as he has to us before, that Bitterroot’s Target H has a similar geo-setting to Lundin Mining's Eagle mine, which holds proven and probable ore reserves of 5.3 million metric tons grading 3 percent nickel and 2.5 percent copper.

Somewhat bothersome: relatively greater than usual trading (more than 600,000 shares) in Bitterroot yesterday (Wednesday) morning, well before BTT distributed this development about road-weight bans on heavy equipment and trucks.

BTT shares in Canada weakened on the bid and the ask sides Wednesday.

I own BTT shares, close to a half-million shares, at a higher price than the current 4 cents Canadian.

I await more details from Michigan. Likely in May, with select intercepts perhaps coming to us from Target H in the next week or two.

After the shares weakened Wednesday, the stock market is taking the news in stride Thursday (today).

There is everything at risk for Bitterroot, a company Mike started in the early 1990s. A Michigan drilling miss in October 2013 happened quickly, sending BTT shares sliding, sliding, sliding.

We look to know more.

At this point, it is fair to gather that shareholders must wait longer than another week or so to capture the essence of what Bitterroot has or does not have in its ground up there in the north. We might get a peek if something comes from Target H.

Until then, I must hold my shares, as I beg not to suffer whiplash if drilling resumes and the formation is potent.

So: where is a Farmer's Almanac when you need one, anyway?

The release:

Bitterroot Resources (BTT, TSX-V) has paused its drilling program due to the imposition of seasonal County road load restrictions, which make it impossible to transport drilling equipment and water to the Company's drill sites. Drilling will resume when the load restrictions are lifted in approximately eight weeks, subject to weather conditions. The timing of the imposition of the load restrictions is based on historical weather patterns and do not necessarily reflect this year's persistent and ongoing cold weather in the Upper Midwest.

To date, the Company's "Target H" nickel/copper/PGM target in Michigan has been tested with one 316-meter drill hole. This hole intersected meta-sediments of the Michigamme Formation. Core logging is under way and analyses will be done on selected intervals. Downhole geophysical surveys are also being done.

-- Michael S. Carr

Your friendly,

Thom Calandra

* Stolen from Stephen Crane's poem "In The Desert"
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Thom Calandra

NEVER MISS AN EDITION OF THE CALANDRA REPORT - SUBSCRIBE BY PAYPAL... Thom Calandra is the editor of The Calandra Report, an investment newsletter. He previously co-founded and was founding editor of CBS Marketwatch, one of the world's largest financial Web sites. He also co-founded Ticker Trax for Stockhouse. Thom has a wife and two children, and is based in Tiburon, California. TCR, the newsletter, is a paid report: The Calandra Report for Paypal information. More →

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Thom Calandra

Twitter: @http://twitter.com/thomcalandra

thom.calandra@gmail.com

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