RE:Valentine project from H1 2025 now to H2 2025 I was expecting maybe a few cents USD of profit in Q1, so $0.01 USD is a little dissapointing. It will hit the share price tomorrow, but good to see first pour for Valentine Q2 2025 still on track. Some notable post-COGS expenses that reduced the $29.257 MM USD operating income:
- $8.933 MM in Marathon transaction costs (already accounted for in the adjusted profit of $0.01 per share)
- Foreign Exchange loss: $1.618 MM USD (it is what it is)
- Other expense: $2.584 USD (not sure what this is, cant find an explanation for it)
- Taxes (current): $7MM USD
- Taxes (deferred): $4.183 MM USD
So paying all of their 2023 taxes, plus some historical deferred taxes (not sure what that's from) in Q1 and the FX losses would add up to another $0.02 share (Expectations $0.03 EPS, actual $0.01 EPS). I know taxes are not one-time things, but from an operating standpoint he company only pays taxes in Q1 so the rest of the year will be free from the tax man. Full year 2024 production and AISC hasn't changed, so unless Calibre is intending to miss their annual guidance for the first time in their history, there is reason to believe that mine development costs are being front loaded in H1 with more Ozs, higher grades and lower AISC in H2.
The last Marathon cost update was in Q3 2023 - $70 million due to:
"Marathon Schedule and Cost Underestimation"
A 14% CapEx increase in 2 quarters. Now we know why they got rid of Manson; they probably felt he had a role to play in underestimating the real costs to make the company more palpatable for a buyer, but I'd guess Calibre didn't much appreciate that.
Pan:
"During the quarter, 6,760 gold ounces were produced. Production lagged plan as a result of placing ore on the last (highest) leach pad bench, which results in soluble gold taking more time to percolate through the heap leach pad and time to be received at the refinery."
26% more waste rock mined and 23% less gold bearing ore mined vs Q1 last year. The company will release a new Pan mine model this quarter, so we should be able to see whether the lower production here over the two quarters is actually just mine sequencing or a new normal. Nevada feels like it's going to underperform until they get Gold Rock developed, but the focus and money is going to go to Valentine so we'll see how much work they put to Gold Rock for now. I'm still waiting for the "multi-milion Oz" Carlin style deposit under gold rock to be drilled.... but seeing as they've not mentioned it at all in a long time, I'm guessing they drilled it, it wasn't what they hoped and they quietly stopped talking about it. Same thing happend with the exploration alliance with Rio Tinto.
Nicaragua:
Total Cash Costs and AISC for Q1 2024 were $1,337 per ounce and $1,555 per ounce respectively, as compared to $1,164 and $1,302 per ounce in Q1 2023. The higher cash costs and AISC were due to lower gold production and sales tied to the sequencing of mining different orebodies with lower ore grades, along with high tonnes moved, higher ore tonnes processed, and higher strip ratios.
The company hasn't changed their full year 2024 AISC guidance, so this ought to be temporary.