The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with London Stock Exchange Group's Chris Mayo has just been released. Listen here.
Have fun at crofty
I have always said that last October this mine was on a knife edge that could have gone either, go back through all my posts if you like. Why you keep posting I will never know, as all you do is confirm everyone's thoughts about you.
Just a health warning on that big intercept, it's drilled parallel to the ore body at present. It's confirmed there is so.ethin potentially very good there and is a great exploration target, but its not a mining target. Yet.
Absolutely, 12 months ago this mine was in critical condition on life support. Its now in its last few weeks of rehabilitation and will soon be in rude health!
This is such a "terrible" mine! I can't find another mine anywhere with comparable grades and widths!
These drill reports are absolutely world class, but on top of that these are immediate mining targets, not some prospect in a remote place with no hope of being mined in the next decade.
By last October, the mine was essentially bankrupt, with no developed ore, little forward exploration and delineation, all mining equipment was knackered.
The turnaround plan was going great until a fall of ground in the only production stope in March - rock falls in stopes are a common occurrence, but when they happen in your sole source of production the effect us devastating and essentially wiped $20 million out of the company this year.
This led to more finance being required in order to get to the new high grade zones, which us where development is now happening and production will be commencing imminently.
Toby's plan was solid, but was knocked off course, which is always a risk in mining, but ultimately rich dividends will be paid in the coming months.
My only real criticism is the communication could be better.
There is a misconception around ore sorting, people tend to visualise the front end machine, but before it gets to that point, the ore has to go through primary and secondary sorting followed by classification, which will then feed multiple ore sorters sorting different size fractions. All of this requires space, which is expensive to create underground.so you have to do a calculation on the capital cost v the op cost of raising the ore and potentially selling the reject as aggregate.
What planning issues? The processing plant has all approvals required, they can start building it today!
Steve Gatley is an interesting appointment. The last time I saw him, he was on top of the headframe at Crofty taking photographs of the "wake" (there was a big March with bands and quite a large party tge day after crofty shut) happening in Croftys Rugby field.
Indeed, I would like to know.
You do realise I said 350 with the ore sorting plant - that would be a 20% increase in staff for a 50% increase in production - I.e. greater efficiency.
Mining is cyclic: - drill, blast, muck, by having multiple production areas, mucking, drilling and blasting are happening simultaneously in different areas. Not having more then one stope is why the mine has never managed to maintain production at 1350tpd.
No I'm not going to predict a share price. Personally I would rather they take another $3 million from Riverfort than slow things down now - if you slow down now, it means a lot has been wasted. That would mean dilution.
Development headings are designed around stope geometries not grade. To have hit that is either incredible luck (we haven't had much of that) or the grade is actually higher than the diamond drilling indicated. You have to remember a diamond drill core is around 2" diameter,where that face over 15m2 - in other words the confidence given from the face is far higher than the core.
The two weeks production figure offers a limited insight, but its very good news, as its showing the development ore from the new stopes are substantially increasing the rum of mine grade by over 50% - remember only half the ore is coming from the new stope development, with the rest from the old stope, so the ROM grade from the new stope area appears to be around 3%.
In terms of copper metal, I believe q4 will be 1900-2000 tonnes and q1 2022 will be 2400-2600 tonnes of copper metal
Did you not spot that the actual copper production rate has doubled over the quarterly average in the last fortnight?
I'd disagree with that assessment canetoad. Why? Because of the metals price cycle. If you want to assess profitability you need to assess with regards to position in the price cycle which is longer than five years.
They also have a rig operating at hemerdon
They have at least 3 rigs in Cornwall and are about to start a large contract for Cornish tin as well, where they have a 33 hole campaign.
The initial drill programme at ID is nearly complete on site, so I suspect they will move that rig to Carnkie.
The latest drilling apication has been approved by the planning authority.