Member Info for Cornishknocker

You're pretty much bang on, if a JV was signed today, there's a lot of work to be done before a mine can be opened and a lot of work to actually open the mine, Little Deer won't be producing until at least (and this is an outside chance) the end of 2023.

The original 1980s decline was driven in an easterly direction, that is flooded to the same level as the rest of the mine.

When work started in 2008, they turned off just above the water level, and drove it in a westerly direction and tgat has been kept pumped, so yes that section is dry deeper than the rest of the mine.

One of the reasons work stopped is it is getting very close to tge flooded workings of Dolcoath (Not new dolcoath, which is connected to Crofty), which would then mean needing to pump out another large mine! That is something that may come later.

Indeed, but for them they have offered a premium in terms of the the loss of the NPV payment, which at the very least made financing reopening incredibly difficult.

Exactly that VII, as I said yesterday, more often then not these things are a publicity stunt for the politicians - in this case there has been absolutely NO press coverage which rules that out.

Sorry to everyone we've probably completely bamboozled with technicalities.

Here's a link to a photo posted this week of the chairing structure being installed: -

https://twitter.com/GerryGrimstone/status/1408461847368507394?s=19

What you are looking at there is the top of New Cooks, taken from the south winder, with the chairing structure installed over the two North Winder Compartments (note the ore bin behind, that the skips used to discharge into)

I can't argue with what it says there, although thats never been the plan in many discussions I've had over the years.

The biggest issue with that plan is the pumping philosophy that has actually been adopted, which is very different to that stated in the PFS and drives a coach and horses through the plan as it takes half of NCK out of commission during the dewatering stage.

In the PFS, the plan was to suspend a dewatering stage under the shaft conveyances - this would have required the full refurbishment of North Winder (which is a twin drum clutched winder, so basically a sinking winder). The pumps would have been supported by a stage under this, connected by flexible pipes to twin rising mains in the service compartment.

What is actually happening is the submersible pumps are being hard connected to the rising main, suspended from the chairing structure installed over the North Winder Compartments, making those two compartments unusable for the entire dewatering phase - or as a minimum until phase 2 (below 195 fm) where they could be reinstalled in the South Winder compartments, although logistically that would be difficult as for a duration 3 of the 4 compartments would be unusable.

A solution would be to install a either a maryann winder on the Westernmost compartment (one of the South Winder compartments), or a new twin drum winder to replace the existing South Winder (which is scrap, due to cracks in tge main castings plus its archaic), stripping one of the pump columns out of one the Northern compartments to enable North Winder to be bought back into use.

On the PEA costings, decline development is $1290/m, with 4.2m rounds, so call it 4m per round advance, unless you were in bad ground, with 3 shifts, you would certainly be aiming to complete either a muck cycle or drill and blast cycle in each shift, which puts your advance at 6m per day.

That puts the decline development at $4.2 million, which is considerably cheaper than installing a new south winder and gives you far better access, solving many of the problems.

But I guess we will find out.

Just looking at Galenas website, maybe I've been looking at this deal the wrong way. Galena on their website are making a big case for investing in European green economy metals. South Crofty, cornish metals tick that box.

The deferred payments made bringing South Crofty into production tricky, by doing this its made it far easier. If Galena wanted to invest on the open market, how would they have managed to purchase 20% of the capital? And they would have had to carry the project in all liklihood due to tge deferred payment.

I suppose its possible that Galena (who are ultimately a resource investment vehicle) may see it as a way of investing in the tin sector, they obviously saw something in it before.

Just a bit of background on where tin shield and Galena Asset management (which was an investment fund of Trafigura which Mark Thompson was involved in))

In 1998 it was announced tgat South Crofty was to close, which it did in March 1998.

Almost immediately a firm headed by a Welsh man named Wilf Hughes entered into a deal to buy the mine and started work towards reopening. A few months later following failure to make a payment, the new firm was kicked off site.

In 2001 a new firm named baseresult purchased tge mine, with much of the same management as Wilf Hughes had.

Over the following few years much background work was done and a planning submission to reopen the mine was submitted, after a long time this was approved, with the Tuckingmill decline being opened in 2008.
In around 2010 Galena Asset Management came in with a funding package to enable a large amount of diamond drilling from within the decline and the decline was extended.

The end of 2012 saw the metal markets enter a bear market and the funding dried ip with significant redundancies. Galena as part of their funding were the senior secured creditor.

A new company Celeste Copper entered into an earn in agreement, in 2014 following failure to make a payment the mine was placed into administration, with nearly all of the staff including my brother made redundant.

A company named Tin Shield paid the costs in administration until a buyer was found - strongbow exploration, now Cornish Metals.

Part of that deal included the deferred payments to enable tin shield and Galena to recoup their losses.

At tgat point tge only Asset with any value was South Crofty.

Tge steam looks impressive on site

As I said the other day, I believe a deal is ready to be signed for dewatering South Crofty, look at what we know: -

A DtI minister has been on site this week with no press coverage, so the reason he has been there is NOT a PR exercise.

Richard Williams has been in country, at the mine for around 4 weeks - I know this as I saw him coming out of the pasty shop a few weeks ago - so he's probably going back heavier than he came! Ultimately with the covid travel difficulties he's not here on a jolly.

There has been an uptick in PR in the last couple of weeks.

Work is clearly going on in stalling the pumping equipment - this equipment has been on site for a long time, so why start installation now, why working on it over weekends as well as workdays?

The deferred payments restructure - while Galena had massive potential income if crofty made a production decision, they had no call on United Downs. Now they do, but the terms on crofty have been massively reduced. If hey weren't looking at dewatering crofty, why would they have cut them into united downs?

As part of the terms of the restructure, Cornish Metals will be paying $4.5 million US in shares to Galena if financing for dewatering is closed and another $5 million if reopening finance is approved, that would equate to another 20% of shares being issued, which cannot be offered to existing holders, hence the special resolution.

All the fencing around the decline gas just been replaced

I may be barking up completely the wrong tree, but I doubt it.

FWIW, I fully expect that drilling will continue at United Downs, in order to put together an NI 43-101 statement.

You're looking at a maximum advance of 7.2m per day, so if we call it 6m average, which on a 1:6 gradient is obviously 1m change in elevation per day.

Assume that you cant advance ahead of the water, due to the inrush risk.

The bottom of the mine is 470fm (850m), however there is a decline already from 380fm (690m) and the end of the existing decline is approximately 75fm (150m).

It's going to take approximately 2 years to drain the mine (730 days) and it will take approximately 3 months to get the water to the end of the decline, leaving 640 days to drive the decline 540m vertically - so yes it works pretty well.

I'm in no doubt that if a mine is viable then the Wheal Maid decline will be used, the point I was making is its not as straightforward as opening a gate and you're in. I'm guessing you're familiar with the ground in the area and it's instability, from opening the portal to getting to the end where last years discovery was is likely to take at least 6 months of refurbishment work, compared to about 2 weeks that was required on the Tuckingmill decline in 2008.

With regards to South Crofty access, I actually think you are missing the plan there, the plan is not for access from NCK but from the Tuckingmill decline - nck is being used for rock hoisting (the most economic form of ore transport for deeper ore bodies), to a conveyor Drift to the mill (to avoid tipping skips on surface). The decline can be advanced quicker than the water can be drained, so straight away every level will have air circulation (down NCK and up the decline), so no there will be no need to hoist equipment down the shaft.

The first reopened level will be 195 for establishment of the permanent pump station, which will be approximately 9- 12 months after the start of pumping.

Cornish and British Lithium - Lithium
Cornish metals - tin and copper
SML - copper, tungsten and Tin.
TW - tin and tungsten

Until the rise, the market cap was sitting at around £28 million. I'd like to think over the quarter with some positive news it can get back to £45 million.

Ultimately there is no such thing as a risk free investment. The biggest unknown we have as investors is tge condition of the mine - we now know at the beginning of the year tge mine was partially flooded, reliant on one source of ore production, had lots of failing equipment etc.

The stope collapse was an unexpected event (but always a possibility, the effect of it was far greater than it normally would be due to the underdeveloped state of the mine. As a result my calculation is the stope collapse has caused a $13.5 million loss in revenue this year. Normally a stope collapse would cost maybe $50,000 in time and resources, with production being replaced with production from elsewhere in the mine.

The mine plan will turn this around by opening up many production areas.

Predicting share prices is a mugs game on explorers is a mugs game, there are far too many unknowns. At some point over $100 million of funding is going to be required - how much of tgat will be dilutive?

On the south crofty front, the decline was a single tunnel that when it was opened back up around 2008 just went to the water (the tunnel continues a considerable way beyond the water, but is obviously inaccessible).

Over the following 6 years, with financial backing from Galena Asset management, a turnout was created just above the waterline and driven level to New Cooks shaft and in the opposite direction downwards towards Dolcoath, the end of it is probably around 80m below the water table - bear in mind the water table is about 60m below the collar of cooks shaft.

On the United downs front the only piece of potentially usable infrastructure is the wheal maid decline. Its a long time since anyone as seen it as the portal is currently under a couple hundred tonnes of rock, which needs to be removed.
The condition inside is likely to be poor as the ground in the area is incredibly grotty and the water tends to be very acidic, so it's likely that the steel arches and wood infills are incredibly rotten.

The next issue is it was driven for exploration not production purposes, so its quite a bit smaller than tge tuckingmill decline.

It's a useful asset, but it does have its issues. Shaft sinking at United downs would be much cheaper than at crofty as its much shallower.

South crofty have a number of key assets including: -

The Tuckingmill decline - this was a decline shaft commenced in the 1980s, that in a drained state extends to about 250m below surface, this will be the primary access to the mine when in production, so there is a lot of work to be carried out to extend it to the bottom of the mine, the maximum gradient is around 1:6, so thats about 4000m of tunneling to get to the bottom, you can expect an advance of around 7m per day on that, so that will take just under 2 years to extend it to the bottom of the mine, which is line with the time to dewater.

New Cooks Kitchen shaft, is a relatively large shaft dating from the early 20th century, this was the main production and access when the mine was last in operation, to construct this shaft from new would cost in the region of $70 Million, refurbishment will cost a fraction of that.

Roskear Shaft is another relatively large shaft dating from the early 20th Century, during last operation this served as upcast ventilation and secondary egress, this is likely to revert to upcast ventilation.

Taylors Shaft is another relatively large shaft, that served as upcast ventilation, for the East of the mine, it is likely to revert to this.

Robinsons shaft was the main access to part of the mine until reorganisation in the 1980s, it is in porr condition and eneded up being used as downcast ventilation, it is likely to revert to this.

Williams shaft is a large shaft dating from the late 19th century and has not been used since around 1918, it is unlikely to be used for the forseeable future, until Crofty enter the old Dolcoath workings.

The value of these shafts is absolutely massive, running into a few hundred million pounds.