After reviewing the various info and discussing the progress I think RockDoc1 has the best summation of the current situation (quoted below.)
I would add:
- The water ingress in the development lateral is not a bid deal and will be grouted in the usual fashion (this is not an uncommon issue.)
- The tons per day processed may well still be between 1,500 and 2,000 tpd but it is not too long until this accelerates and the timing is good in relation to copper prices compared to last year.
- We are hitting high grade ore (5% copper mentioned in the previous news release) in the inferred (wide spaced drilling areas) that they are cutting through as they drift into the actual stope area. This is a great indicator of more to come and unlikely to bea random freak event.
- With the kind of copper prices (and long term outlook for high prices) we will be making a lot of bank. NCU will probably ramp the hoist and mill beyond the planned 5000 tpd once we are accessing the stopes and have the full ventilation in place. This will get us an additional 12 million pounds of copper per year and if copper is $4.50 or greater by then the 77 million pounds mentioned in the last presentation brings in over $200,000,000 in free cash flow ($4.50 - $1.86 cost = $2.64 x $77m = $200 million) undergroud only and with the ability to also hugely expand the underground resource through more drilling.
- It is now a game of musical chairs. The question is not "if" anymore but only "when." Markets look forward and bigger buyers will swoop in particularly after the consolidation. Insiders are blacked out and disappointed shareholders give away small volumes of what are soon to be very valuable shares.
DYODD,
Keep your shares or buy more IMO
All will be well, when this takes off you will not easily get a chair at the table IMO.
Cheers,
Notgnu
RockDock1 wrote: I am speculating, but reading through the detail in the operations update, I can add a few details:
- They state that they are going to blast their first stope this week. So, the mine currently has no production ore, only development ore. This means that the only ore is coming from development headings and any remaining surface stockpile. A development round is worth about 200 tonnes. Most mid-sized operations only can manage 4 to 8 rounds per day, so development would only give them about 800 to 1600 tonnes per day. Likely, only a fraction of the active development is in ore, so development ore is likely significantly less than 1000 tonnes per day.
- Blasting their first stope is good to hear, but to sustain 5000 tonnes per day, they will need at least two and probably three stopes going concurrently. This suggests that full production of 5000 tonnes per day is still a few months to several months away. Ramp up of stoping to full production commonly takes several months to one year to achieve. Their Q3 full production target looks very optomistic.
- Concentrators run best near their design capacity. If a concentrator is run well below capacity, unit cost goes up and recoveries usually drop. So they may be running the concentrator one week a month at near full capacity, when there is sufficient development ore feed. This explains the batching. Batching is really common when there is not enough ore.
These are all normal issues for mine start up.