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You have written three postings on this BB, and each time you hurl insults at people you do not know - all because your opinion differs from theirs. Not nice. If you seek to be influential then courtesy works better than insults. If you don't seek to be influential your words are just gratuitous abuse.
Hi, Slim, and thank you for your kind comments. I think permitting is Jo’s priority now. He said that part of obtaining the necessary permits is to demonstrate financial viability to the authority in question.
Part of that viability is the mine design being worked on by QME. Their boss, the charismatic Peter McPartland, said that he periodically looks in on a roomful of his people working on this, all hunched over their screens, and says something like “I don’t want to drag you fellas away from your work on Parys Mountain but would you each please give me a concise summary of where you’re up to.” We punters have little inkling of the enormous task of creating a 3D model of the subsurface, and then trying different scenarios (dig this bit up first and create cash flow to move onto that bit) leading to a definitive Feasibility Study so solid that finance is a doddle.
One thing that struck me was that Peter is such a shrewd and canny operator that he wouldn’t be spending millions of his own money on this project only for it to flop.
From everything I have heard and seen, this baby (and also the exciting Swedish iron mine) must eventually cause the share price to multiply several-fold.
My private dream is that we sell Grangesburg for a princely sum and finance the Parys Mountain project from that cash in the bank. (Probably talking through my hat here: none of this dream is based on what the Directors have said.)
Suzki, like you I have been critical of AYM's management's inertia in the past. The message was, year after year, "when market conditions are right" the project would advance to production. Was this a feeble excuse for idleness or was it patience - shrewdly and wisely awaiting the turn of the tide?
I remember Bill Hooley saying that he would often approach City financiers for the necessary backing only to hear (in his words) "oh no... not Anglesey Mining again". Bill wasn't just sitting on his hands. He was ready to set sail when tide and wind were favourable.
Those market conditions have now changed: the market for copper is surging because of the electric car revolution and (as we heard last week) existing copper mines are fast becoming worked out.
Add to this our great good fortune in having Jo Battershill at the helm - experienced in mine finance AND mining operations, not to mention his many other qualities - and the stars are coming nicely into alignment.
Further to the story spotted by Earl of AIM: https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/stena-line-bought-former-anglesey-25065294 and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62958817
Confession: there was no wine or chef or seafood at the 10 Sep Parys Mountain site visit. This was my daft attempt to be amusing. There was a kind of burger van, a nice lady serving tea and coffee, sausage rolls and sandwiches for the hungry.
Mike is a dude.
But there’s a but….
At one of the previous Parys Mountain gatherings my ex said something like, “That Mike bloke over there with the outdoorsy look… I like the cut of his jib.” Trying not to sound peeved, I muttered something like “no offence taken”.
Thank you for your kind words. We’ve long had a cheerful atmosphere in this chatroom, but not at the expense of avoiding discussion of the company’s faults - especially delays.
Did you catch that news item from Egypt a few days ago? A new tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings. The archaeologists had a big shock when removing the mummy’s bandages. Opened his bl#*$¥ eyes! The mummy was alive and made as if to speak. The archaeologists leaned in to catch the mummy’s soft words. He croaked, “Tell me….. I must know…. has Anglesey Mining…. gone into production yet?”
From the 8 September https://www.angleseymining.co.uk/financial-report-and-corporate-update/:
"The results from the 2021 PEA demonstrate that a significant copper-zinc-lead mine can be developed at Parys Mountain with very positive financial returns. The current year is seeing momentum increased with respect to the required elements of a project development. Permitting activities are ramping up, including environmental and ecological studies, tailings management design work is being undertaken, along with confirmatory metallurgical test work and underground geotechnical domain modelling. Further infill drilling – specifically within the Northern Copper Zone is planned.
These activities will enable us to move the project to a full committed decision to proceed to production. As has been said before, these steps do take some time to reach fruition and are key requirements to securing the necessary finance to move the project towards production."
Yes, it would be nice to see "shovels in ground" tomorrow, but it legally can't happen before permitting; the shovels can't arrive until there's money to buy 'em, and that money is dependent on a fully-worked-out Feasibility Study.
Using the Apollo Project as an analogy, Kennedy said "I believe this nation should commit itself... before decade is out... man on the moon..... safely to Earth." He didn't say "Just go to the moon NASA. Skip all the hoo-hah of space suits and all the boring stuff about - huh! - docking manoeuvres whatever they are. Just go."
Traceability and electric cars. One guest was a nuclear engineer. He said "One reason nuclear power stations like Wylfa over there in the distance are so expensive to build is that every single component must be certified - every nut and bolt - right back to its source. Not only the manufacture of that nut but the metal it's made from and where and when it was mined." As a former Quality Engineer in automotive and aerospace, I know how strict traceability is in those industries (to be able to identify a dodgy batch of, say, a safety critical component). Jo said that the provenance of copper is of increasing importance in electric cars and their certification. Supplies from the 'back of beyond', I think he was saying, may be excluded due to inability to prove that they were produced to the required ethical and environmental standards. He used the expression "green copper". Green? Is the guy colourblind? ;-)
Although Jo Battershill held 'centre stage', AYM's Chairman John Kearney made a brief contribution. He reiterated how well placed AYM is to benefit from moves to a 'green economy', with cars and their charging infrastructure needing a lot of copper. John said that he had never been so confident, and mentioned Jo's infectious enthusiasm.
John and QME's Peter McPartland flew in by Bell helicopter. ("Will the owner of that electric Toyota next to the helipad please move it?" asked Don McCallum, too polite to add "cos it's about to get sandblasted!")
In contrast to that splash of glamour, the toilet facility had been nailed together from chipboard and needed only a sign saying "Dunny" to make us think of Kalgoorlie or Wagga Wagga.
Environment. The great pits which were opened up a century or two ago barely scratched the surface. AYM's operations will be carried out mostly underground - not just the tunnels and stopes but even the crushing and concentration will be in sheds which are (or will be) buried. Local residents will hear nothing. The great "Jumbos" which will whizz around underground may never see the light of day.
Water runoff at the historic workings is extremely acidic (pH 2) and the flora and fauna are adapted to these harsh conditions - indeed it's an "SSSI". As part of the "environmental baseline" studies required for environmental permitting samples are taken which stretch even to DNA sampling of "ephemeral" pools which fill with rainwater and then drain away. There are caves inhabited by the splendid red-billed birds called "choughs". They will not be affected.
There was some discussion of sending AYM's concentrate to market by rail rather than by trucks. This concentrate will be shipped to smelters somewhere in Europe via Holyhead port. If I understood correctly, local MP Virginia Crosby is keen to see the existing railway used for tourism but Jo has informed her that its economics can be boosted by 60,000 Tonnes of mineral freight.
Traditionally "tailings management" (waste product in a water slurry) has been a matter of pumping it into evaporation pans where the solids settle to the bottom. Nowadays there is a hydraulic squeezing process whose output is dry-ish bricks or slabs which can be stacked. (I didn't quite grasp what happens next - cover up the stacks or sell them for building materials.)
On the subject of by-product, the Swedish subsidiary Grangesburg has, in addition to its iron ore, a by-product called Apatite. This is a precious source of Phosphorus for fertiliser. The European market is at present supplied from Morocco, from Belarus and from Ukraine. For Grangesburg to fly, c$400m is needed and it may take 4 or 5 years. Obviously to make that scale of investment. partners would be needed.
Drilling and analysis: Our young geologist, Jake, was in attendance. Where visitors expressed an interest he was happy to take them into the Core Shed where samples were neatly laid out in trays. Some of them, that is... in recent months many hundreds of metres of these smooth heavy grey cylinders have been extracted by the drilling rigs and indeed there was a heap of discarded ones outside. I pocketed one which now sits on the mantlepiece. I was rather expecting Jake to be a main speaker ("Now, listen up everybody.... I'm going to tell you about the marvels of kryptonite pyritees...") but it didn't happen.
One guest asked, "Aside from the familiar copper and silver etc, what rare earths might we have beneath our feet? Many of these come from Russia and are more scarce since the outbreak of war." Answer: "The assaying laboratories only test for what we ask them. Each sample costs us 52 Euros," (I was thinking, huh, that ain't much) ".... and we have sent thousands and thousands in for analysis in recent months" (cripes, that IS much!) ".... and if we order them to test for Cerium, Indium, Gallium or Yttrium they will do so at extra cost."
One visitor asked, "Compared to other base metal deposits in the world how good is our deposit here?" Answer, "The worldwide average was 1.1% until recently and this has now fallen to 0.5%. What we have here is a splendid 2%. As a shorthand we include the zinc and lead in this figure, using the expression 'copper equivalent'. "
Earlier Jo had beamed and said, "The drilling results show some STELLAR concentrations - some very high grade areas - narrowish - and some very big layers at a decent grade." And then, to me, the quote of the day: "There's some really really juicy stuff!"
One of the visitors at yesterday's Site Visit was a local man and clearly keen to see Amlwch's declining fortunes reversed. He said, "We had 11,000 inhabitants - now down to 3000. Our school had 1100 pupils - now down to 400. If and when the mine reopens, will this be work for a bunch of fly-in, fly-out incomers or will there be work for the locals?" Answer: "We expect to employ 120 people directly and there's usually a 3-to1 ratio with subcontractors and caterers and all that, so maybe 360 indirects, making around 500 people. Some of the skills we need will of course be so specialised that we'll have to recruit from outside. But experience says that farming and fishing communities are ideal for what we need." Jo didn't quite say that if you can drive a tractor you can drive an underground Jumbo. (Didn't quite say it? No, I just put words in his mouth, naughty me!)
Jo drew a distinction between "residential" mines and "camp" mines. The latter, with a bunch of footloose males, can disrupt a community and even strain their own (distant) relationships with the spouse far away and so be less reliable employees. The former is to be preferred by far. And if the anticipated 12-year mine life increases (very strong grounds for believing this), Anglesey Mining will become much more than a transient visitor to this part of the beautiful island; will become a long-term feature of the local economy.
(Still to come: Takeaways on environment, on rare earths, on the electric car revolution, on the allegations of nuclear waste, on underground exploratory drilling (as distinct from surface-down), on the contrast between the helipad (wow!) and the toilet facilities (eek!).
AYM has three strings to its bow - Parys Mountain, a 12% stake in Labrador Iron Mines (Canada) and control of Grangesburg Iron in Sweden. The latter, a major iron resource is beautifully placed.
Unlike LIM which has to operate out in the frozen north and then ship its product at enormous expense through the Panama canal to China, Grangesburg has many advantages such as (i) grid electricity (ii) a nearby rail head (iii) customers (steel works) dotted around northern Europe and hungry for product (iv) the unfortunate knock-on effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Russia's 40MT per annum of ore sanctioned (v) in a stable democracy (vi) Swedish mining minister very keen on inward investment and growth of his industry (vii) PEA (preliminary economic assessment) done and dusted on Jo Battershill's watch.
It is to the great credit of Bill Hooley (Jo's predecessor) that he snapped up Grangesburg back in 2014 and, having acquired 20% plus AYM control of Grangesburg's BOD, obtained an exclusive contractual right to acquire an additional 50%. Note the word 'exclusive'.
For more detail on this subject, and others, visit https://www.angleseymining.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/InvestorDeck10Sep2022.pdf (thank you Vib6er for the hyperlink). The slides which can be viewed online are the ones which were projected to yesterday's gathering.
One of the visitors yesterday asked, "Jo, on a scale of zero to 100, where would you place the probability of this becoming a working mine again?" Answer: "When I joined a year ago I had in mind 95%. Today, with what has been achieved and learned I'd put that at 99%. The missing one percent is related to permitting. This can take anything between six months and six years, and there have been instances in Australia and elsewhere where the seemingly straightforward process drags on and on."
Jo made the point that local support is strong. Present at the Site Visit were people from the local council. And Jo will be speaking at schools about the employment prospects; the careers to be built; the 'portable' skills (e.g., electricians, fabricators) to be acquired at a resurgent mine. Peter McPartland, from the mine-design consultancy QME, spoke of successes in Ireland where the local community's legitimate concerns over noise and pollution and extra traffic can be addressed in "town hall meetings", one of which was held in a pub and lasted four (hic!) days. The glint of Irish humour lightened Peter's otherwise sincere and earnest explanation that partnership and consent are vital; that great mutual benefit is to be had for the local populace and for Anglesey Mining.
There was a lot to take in at Saturday's visit to Parys Mountain, and I have a mass of scribbled notes to transcribe. But here's a starter:
The Parys Mountain deposit is probably only one of several!
The base metal deposits (as most of us already knew) are volcanic in origin, but rather than the familiar notion of a conical volcano spewing out lava from its apex think instead of those undersea bubblers in the mid-atlantic where the tectonic plates diverge. In recent years submarine footage shows a filthy black 'smoke' at the sea bed. When this smoke includes copper/zinc/lead, these heavy metals sink down around the rift and build into fragile hollow cones which build then subside. Jo said, "These bubblers" (if that was the word he used...) "almost never exist alone. There's nearly always a cluster of them."
Looking out from Parys Mountain towards the Wylfa nuclear power station on the coast, several hillocks can be seen within a mile. Nobody yet knows what's under them but, if the "cluster" thing applies there may be lots of "juicy stuff".
Mike, I can answer your question. The Gordon Brown idjits managed to infiltrate the 2017 site visit with a late arrival who abused our openness and hospitality. In the past few days they were claiming to have repeated this schoolboy prank, and when some weird phone calls were made to AYM's Site Manager Don McCallum mentioning an "Eric" I wrote to Eccles: "Dear Eric, I have reason to doubt your bona fides. I'm afraid you cannot join in tomorrow's site visit. Please stay at home."
The site visit had been some six months in the preparation and if a latecomer missed out, well tough.
Today's site visit at AYM's Parys Mountain mine went off brilliantly well. And "the sun shone on the righteous" ;-)There's lots and lots to say.
For the moment though, suffice it to say that by the time the 30-odd attendees went their separate ways there was a lot of contented nodding and firm handshakes. Many of those happy campers were worldly and intelligent, asking pertinent and searching questions and getting direct and meaningful answers from the BOD. (Questions, for example, about environmental permitting, about rare earth metals over and above Cu/Zn/Pb/Ag/Au, about community support and the coming boost to the depressed local economy, about the pariah status of Russian iron ore and its effect on our Swedish subsidiary, about the "juicy stuff down there".)
A Powerpoint slideshow which accompanied CEO Jo Battershill's confident and fact-filled presentation was said to be available on the company website but I'm too dumb to find it. Help!