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3G With the benefit of hindsight and the bit in the RNS which points out our production in July and August was only over 600 tonnes, we can now see why they switched to Quarterly reporting. They must have already known they wouldn't hit the 700 tonnes a month they needed to make and wanted to hide it as long as possible. It may mean they also didn't make up to USD1.5m in revenue, which adds to the problems. I must have missed the latest RNS... but can you tell me who has taken responsibility and resigned???

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the statement in the RNS "While July and August have each produced in excess of 600 tonnes of payable copper, underground mining in September has been challenged with a change in mining sequence where the root cause was a working capital issue."

The June production figures were announced on the 12th July, and at the same time, TB said they would move to quarterly reporting which was more appropriate.... we all knew that to hit the 7,000 target, we needed a run-rate of over 700 tonnes for every month left in the year. Only now we find out that July and August didn't hit those numbers... "in excess of 600 tonnes??? That sounds remarkable like "nowhere near 700 tonnes", and its difficult to believe they didn't know that at the time they said they were moving to quarterly reporting. I am in a state of disbelief that the BoD and TB didn't hedge when Cu was USD10,500 per tonne or do a capital raise in early July... except of course that was when TB was boasting that new capital would only be needed for development projects.

Thinking of the BoD and the CEO, when Mark Twain said that "A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top", he was really thinking of the Ming Mine in Canada.

In anticipation of the excuses we will get from RMM about how costs suddenly rose (forgetting the money being thrown at new trucks...etc), possibly worth pointing out that from July 7th when the now infamous interview with TB saying they don't need more capital, took place... to today, the oil price has fallen from around USD100 to USD87 per barrel, so I think its a fair assumption that the price of Diesel didn't go up.

Hi all,

I have sent 2 emails to RMM, the last of which I have started copying in the bankers SP Angel as their Nomad, which just might at least make them read them. In case it is of interest this was the last one, which will probably be completely ignored, but anyway.

Dear Tim,

As we approach the publication of the interim results, I hope that the BoD and Toby will address the statement Toby made in an interview with Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA for Metal News.com on 7th July 2022.

“…There are feasibility studies to be done, but just to get into your investors’ minds the type of opportunities that may be there. We may look to raise some of that capital through the markets in Canada as well as in the UK, where we are listed right now. I should emphasize that we are comfortable with our capital structure for the current operations. Any future capital requirements would be for expansion opportunities only”.

The Copper price on the day of the interview opened at around USD7,631 per tonne… today it is USD7,750 per tonne. How could the Company not have internal cashflow forecasts for the business which would have showed otherwise. Why did the Board of Directors not ask about the cash burn? How could the Company make a statement that “Any future capital requirements would be for expansion opportunities only”? and 8 weeks later announce it needs more capital?

I hold 700,000 shares in Rambler and I believe I have been completely mislead. Please pass this message onto your Board of Directors....

Some additional TB comments in an interview by Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA for Metal News.com on 7th July 2022…

“…There are feasibility studies to be done, but just to get into your investors’ minds the type of opportunities that may be there. We may look to raise some of that capital through the markets in Canada as well as in the UK, where we are listed right now. I should emphasize that we are comfortable with our capital structure for the current operations. Any future capital requirements would be for expansion opportunities only.

“…The one area, which we are still working on, very hard, right now and we will get the information together, in the next few weeks, is to give a really strong indication of where we think the Company is, from an economic point of view. As hard as we have been working on improving the performance, in the underground, we are actually working on improving our management accounting arrangements, so we have better financial information to make decisions on….

“This is part of what we have been fixing up this year, since our new CFO came in. But this is going to become a very profitable mine and we are doing this for money. There are no two ways about it…”.

On the 7th July when this interview was done, the Cu price opened at USD7,631 per tonne… today it is USD7,750 per tonne. How could they not see what might happen? How could they make a statement that “Any future capital requirements would be for expansion opportunities only”???????

Hi Stenson, I completely agree. It seems that TB had no idea what the cash situation was... and that is really worrying. Either he didn't care to ask for regular detailed management accounts/cashflow forecasts or the CFO, almost 6 months into the role, still didn't know what was happening - both are pretty dreadful thoughts. You also question why the BoD wasn't also demanding cost information and cashflow forecasts... that says quite a lot about them. What's the betting they either decline to offer an investor conference following the results... or if they have one, they decline to talk about the financing? I now fear, based on their now proven track record of misleading statements, that they thought that the last RNS would be readily accepted by the market and are still trying to work out why investors didn't like it.

ViciousHippo, the statement may have been at a higher Cu price, but I now suspect that TB wouldn't have had a clue whether they are cashflow positive or not. As others have said, if costs were out of control, why didn't they hedge at USd10,500? But if what you say is true; that they preparing the balance sheet for a downturn, why didn't they say that?

I seem to recall sometime ago, one investor asking TB on a conference call about the top 3 items on the risk register, and he declined to answer. That should have given us a big warning. What was the largest holding in my Pension fund in April last year has just become one of my smallest, but the number of shares held hasn't changed and the overall market has also fallen.

Raxfactor, you make some very good points. I wonder if they haven't literally been throwing money at everything without any real cost controls. I missed the chance to sell, but now have no trust whatsoever in the management team. In the RNS they say the problems aren't operational but balance sheet ones... only time will tell if operations really have been okay i.e. that's actually true, but as I said earlier, Cu was lower than it is today when TB made the statement... “Going forward, Rambler will provide quarterly operational updates to the market which is now more appropriate given the condition that the operations have achieved.”... in which part of that sentence does it say... we're losing money and in danger of going broke.

Is anyone able to share Toby Bradbury, Tim Sanford and the RMM Chairman's e-mail addresses? I think they deserve a flood of e-mails asking some very relevant questions, but I can't sent since I don't have their contact details. .

Hi ViciousHippo. I also ran 2 very simple 10 year DCFs.
In the first one I assumed Cu production of 12,000 tonnes next year (with the ore sorter very possible) rising by only 2,000 tonnes a year until 2030 when it flatlines at 25,000 tonnes.
CU price of USD9,000 per tonne next year rising by only USD1,000 per tonne in each of the following years until it also flatlines at USD15,000 per tonne in 2029 (even though I think it will hit USD15000 in 2025).
Costs USD3 per Ib next year falling to USD2.70 per Ib from 2024 onwards (hopefully that's conservative too).
Sustaining Capex USD15m a year (given I don't know the numbers for major capex items, for the purposes of this exercise, I'm assuming we fund larger items; ore hoist, ore sorter, and new plant...etc with USD25m debt paid back at the period end, with an interest expense of USD2m a year)
Tax kicking in at 10% in 2025, and 30% from2026 onwards.
Discount rate of 5%
I think those are all fairly conservative assumptions though they could all be completely wrong.
The NPV assuming only a 10 year mine life @5% discount rate comes out at USD660m, USD4.16 a share or £3.62.
In the second one I decided to be ultra conservative and use only USD8,000 as a Cu price for the next 10 years (in which case I would question why I would have invested in any Cu stock), it still has an NPV of £0.61, which means that aside from a deep global recession, the downside should be non-existent.

When we weren't given the assay results 6 months ago, Enonkoski looked dubious, but that's exploration for you...if its not there, its not there. Incidentally, this is one of the longest RNS's I've ever seen on a drilling programme, without actually saying anything in English for normal investors like me to understand. A simple "we've finished the drill programme and not found anything worth following up on at the present time" would have worked for me as an opening sentence if that is the right conclusion.... ,and then list the long explanation of the results. I wasn't sure if the headline makes clear that Rio have finished, or just this drilling is finished... but there's certainly a lot of detail in "Geospeak". Also not sure if its saying whether there will be any new drilling or if there are any new steps at all. If someone could explain this in English, I would be greatly appreciative!

As IvRoche says... the excitement must be in Disko and Dundas... results this month should tell us something... and they may well have wanted to get this bad (if it is indeed finished) news out of the way before they tell us we've found Voisey Bay Mk II... I wish! DYOR!

Thanks pmanuel. On reflection (I wrote my message this morning in a bit of a rush), I ought to add that I may be wrong about the saving from the ore sorter, because I have merely assumed 20-40% unit cost savings based on that increase in Cu concentrate from the said sorter, but of course unit cost savings would be on processing costs only... mining costs might increase because we would need to mine more ore to fill the plant. The other point I didn't mention was why I specifically chose 20,000 tonnes, not 25,000 which was because of some comments made (I think) by LL about getting a higher PE when you are still a growth stock. ATB and this is not investment advice! DYOR!

Pmanuel, no specific info, my basic numbers are that we need to maintain a run rate above 700 tonnes month just to hit our 7,000 tonne target for this year, and I would be surprised if management didn't give themselves some additional wriggle room in case of accidents (reputationally they need to hit that target); so annualised that is approximately 9,000 tonnes for 2023. Add in the ore sorter and as I see it that increases copper concentrate production at the existing plant by between 20-40%, which takes us up to 11,000 to 12,500 tonnes a year. Add to that the statement in the last presentation saying they are working on "studies to more than double current production" (last page of June 2022 presentation - its not clear whether they mean double the 7,000 tonnes target this year or the 9,000 run-rate) and that gives you some where between 14,000 and 18,000 tonnes... and finally if I recall correctly, at the last conference call TB mentioned that this mine has the potential LT to produce 25,000 tonnes a year (someone please correct me if I am wrong). We'll only get a better idea when the 43-101 comes out, which is why it is so important, but that's where my numbers come from.

Using back of the envelope numbers, I just make 2 further observations about costs in the near future; assuming we are currently producing 9,000 tonnes of Cu annually, and costs are around USD3 per Ib; based on the ore sorter increasing the percentage of copper contained sent to the plant by 20-40%, with no increase in the volume of rock moved, that implies that unit costs could drop by between 60 and 120 cents per Ib purely on the increased volume of contained copper. The cost of transporting that rock 40kms to the plant is around USD5m. Moving the plant to the Ming mine therefore could save us another 25 cents per Ib of Cu produced by cutting out the transport costs. Just my thoughts adn a lot of supposition I know... until the see the 43-101.

Analytical, just a quick question; if you were making the decisions (and I accept we don't know the exact numbers), would you (or anybody else with expertise) look to keep the existing plant running at max capacity and at the same time buy a second hand plant and build that onsite at the Ming mine, with let's say double the capacity so production continues seamlessly while the new plant is run in (and maybe reposition that old plant at LD when the resource is proved up), or simply accept the downtime required and move the existing plant to Ming and upgrade it?

Peggy, I am at a loss to understand why are you on this BB?

You obviously don't think AA know anything about finding CU.
You've made it clear you don't understand why no major on the planet would sign a deal without knowing 100% that they owned the licences.
You don't believe in this deal or that there could be huge amounts of Cu under the surface of a very prospective area. So be it... but why are you here?
Many LTHs are frustrated about how long this has taken, but almost everyone else wants this to work... and there's a good chance it will; if it doesn't so be it; we all know the risks in exploration.

You are entitled to your opinions; but you are doing something far worse than being consistently negative about a company you don't like... you are becoming a bore. Please go and bore someone else.

Very exciting indeed; sensational spot! Hopefully we'll get some form of update at the H1 results which have to be out before the end of this month, but I accept what happens in sanitising the Cadastre is out of our hands. Two observations; 1. the longer this all takes, the more it delays Zambia's own development, so they must want it to happen as much as we do. 2. Fulmar and Seisnav... the info you have both shared recently on this BB has been extraordinarily helpful. Thank you both very much indeed.

And that Moon may be where we completely disagree. As long the Cu price doesn't fall another 15% (for a sustained period) we should easily be able to self finance from FCF and if necessary a little more debt, though once the ore sorter is installed, things get much easier. We have no need of some greedy major getting in cheaply... And I'd be very surprised if the ore sorter costs more than USD12m; and I am always surprised by how little it costs to move an existing plant (of our size 40km) or buy a second hand one to install onsite. Again, increasing capacity to 3,000 or 4,000 tonnes a day is not a huge number... the largest number is probably redoing the vertical hoist (depending on its existing condition) and bear in mind every time we make a capital investment, unit costs keep coming down.

To me, we only require a partner when analysts are valuing RMM based on rising future production of +20,000 tonnes p.a... and btw at that point LD is easily self-financed... and hopefully we are talking +USD6 per Ib for Cu and unit costs of a max of around USD3 per Ib... at which point anyone is most welcome to pay a ridiculous premium for the whole company.... we'd be throwing off pre-tax cash of USD130m a year and post tax (I'm assuming we're paying the full 15% federal and 15% provincial tax which of course we wouldn't be) we would generate +USD90m post tax and on just 3x multiple that is a market cap of USD276m, or £240m (£1.50 per share... with no further dilution, which is a very healthy return from here).

Unfortunately re your FTSE comment, the smallest FTSE100 company is around £1.8bn+ so we will still be some way short of that! By bigger worry is being substantially diluted to fund the ore sorter if/when we join the TSX .

Hi Kestas, if I remember correctly, its a legal requirement that AiM listed companies have to report H1 results within 3 months of the period end... i.e. 30th September latest. That means of course that the Q3 production numbers (for the period ending 30th Sept) won't be available for publication for another 10 days or so (based on how long the monthly reporting seemed to take to put together), but I'm sure they'll give us some guidance.

Would be very nice if you are right Moon!

With all the macro (and short-term Cu price) uncertainty there's little reason for new investors to buy today, but that should change in under 24 days time when we get the most important info this year... cost guidance. Do I think that cost guidance of under USD3/Ib (I hope its not more) and Q3 production number confirmation will show that we are on track to 7,000 tonnes this year will cause the SP to rise? Yes, a bit and after that we'll move more in line with underlying Cu price movements. Will there be a major rerate? No, I don't think so in this environment, for that we may have to wait until after the publication of the NI 43-101 (with ore sorter and future FCF guidance, incorporating all the recent drill results) towards the end of this year and news on a TSX listing. Wow its frustrating! but some day in the next couple of years, Cu is eventually going to hit USD15,000 per tonne and at that that point, the LT story for all of us Ramblers will never have looked better.

Agreed Mavern. I bought half my position in RMM @ just under 27p back in mid Sept 2021 expecting the financing to close soonest, and then couldn't believe my luck when the SP fell back to those levels at the beginning of February this year and I had some cash available and bought the other half at the same price! I would have taken a fairly hefty wager that short of a global crash, we wouldn't ever see 25p again and OMG was I wrong! How the world has changed, but as long as we can avoid any Snufu's, the story just slowly and steadily improves.