RE:RE:RE:RE:ZOOM meeting next week with Ryan JacksonYour concerns are understandable. There have been significant delays at Newlox. However, when I look back at the chain of events/evdience, I put the majority of the blame on supply chain issues post-COVID and into 2022. At this point I have countless touch points on this, including numerous companies and supply chain managers who have all confirmed that to order industrial equipment/chemicals/etc over the last 2+ years has been incredibly difficult (i.e. 1-2+ year wait times).
For Newlox, this came in the form of their ball mill for plant 2. They had a ball mill secured, but given the scarcity of this component, someone else offered a much higher price and the supplier reneged on the deal. That left Ryan scrambling to find another + having it shipped to Costa Rica, which all obviously takes a lot more time.
These supply chain distruptions also affected the scale up of plant 1. When scaling up new industrial processes it's almost a given that you're going to run into hurdles. For Newlox this came in the form of an adjustment to their reagent. In normal times they could probably have this reagent procured in a relatively short time. Unfortunately during this supply chain havoc, it took way longer.
With all of this said, could communication have been WAY better? Absolutely. And Ryan acknolwedges this. He has admitted that he failed to factor in enough buffer time and uncertainty for post-COVID issues. My hope is he's leaerned his lesson.
So the last 12+ months have not been ideal. But I also don't look at what happened in regards to delays and believe we should be discounting the success of this company to the extent the market is. Ryan on the call had no hesitantion and was very confident when asked about his confidence in plant 1 and plant 2 fully scaling.
Plant 1 is at around 50tpd and Ryan is still very confident in hitting 80tpd. But this isn't even the real story here. It's plant 2, which will SOON be fully constructed and starting to be commissioned, with the ramp up beginning this year and full production likely early next. That's the story because it's an incremental 20k oz of gold (vs. 2.5k oz) and is also the model they are using for plant 3 (in Columbia).
Luckily, plant 2 is way more straight forward with a consistent ore (vs. variable tailings). So the ramp is should go smoother.
All in all, an investment comes down to what you're paying for it. At around 2x next year's EBITDA potential (around $11M), I think the market is factoring in way too much risk here. Why couldn't this stock trade at 10x? ESG friendly + trajectory to double EBITDA each year going forward. If I slap a 10x valuation on plant 1 + 2 EBITDA that implies a $0.65 stock price or over 300% upside. And this is a near term situation. 2023 is 5 months away.
That's a lot of potential upside over a very short amount of time.
Hope that helps.