MND Update from Vancouver Conference May "World Resource Investment Conference" was ghostly quiet in Vancouver-Juniorland was quiet. No one decided to attend and I counted only Mandalay, B2Gold, Silvercrest, Avino & Petaquilla as the producers there, plus a bunch of exploration Juniors which no one is interested in during the current market.
It is either a bottom or the sector is in trouble. Lowest attendance for a Cambridge House Conference (they put on a Jan and May/June show each year in Vancouver) that I have seen since I started going in 2008. I can't even imagine that say 2004-2007 was as bad as today. Here is update from Mandalay:
- Greg from IR there only. Good info for an IR guy
- PEA for Cuffley Lode coming in June which is intended for the board to be comfortable with a capital investment in Costerfield. I did not clarify but I think the investment is in ramp/underground development only but this will allow them to increase througput from 340 tpd to 500 tpd (again I think the Mill can do this and Capex for Cuffley Lode development). Another plus is Cuffley Lode ore is higher grade than current mining area so cash costs will come down from both grade and throughput. If you remember thePrecious Metal Summit presentation from Brad about a year ago you will remember he said that "we expect cash costs to bottom out eventually around $750 per Au-equivalent oz at Costerfield". They might be around 900-1000 now.
- CEO (Brad)/COO (Mark) have already looked at several acquisitions and gotten through to second or third stage of DD before identifying a "red flag" issue. They are working hard to find the next mine. They expect that the opportunities like Costerfield and Cerro Bayo which they acquired out of the 2008 Financial Crisis wreckage will start to emerge in 3 months.
- In hindsight they should of kept their silver put program but they didn't. C'est la vie.
- Previous dividend of $.01/quarter is discretionary. New policy of 6% of prior quarter's revenues is non-discretionary. Market yawned at the update even when it equated to 3.2 cents/year if you annualize Q1-2013 revenues, vs. $.04/year with discretionary policy.