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Dubbs,
It looks like we should get more granularity on costs with the H1 Financials. The below is from the RNS:
In parallel with the operational improvements, there has been a concerted effort to optimise the new enterprise resource planning software system to provide cost analysis for improved control and decision-making. Our interim accounts for the six months to June 2022 will provide guidance on operating costs.
GGG,
Agreed. There are three things that give me confidence for Monday:
1. TB has been buying recently. Not enormous sums but not insignificant either.
2. He has continued to confidently assert the 7,000 which means he must have line of sight on some pretty good grades making it to processing.
3. Statistically we are due a positive break after so much s**t.
Best wishes,
Prof
FTSEinvestor,
Thanks for the correction. That is even better news then.
Best wishes,
Prof
Copper down c.2% from 3.57 but hovering around the 3.50. Clearly it would be nice to see it moving back up but will be good even if we can finish the week above that 3.50 level which would hopefully calm some nerves.
No RNS yet this morning so I guess we are most probably looking at Monday.
I was reflecting yesterday on last year's hedge. From memory it was at 3.7 (please correctly me if I am wrong). I also seem to recollect that it was a condition of one of the creditors/ funders. The reason I bring that up is that if they insisted on it, it was presumably because at that level of copper price it enabled RMM to be cashflow positive - obviously dependant on grade and output, but they were, at the time talking 1350 tpd with the aim of getting to 2% and they will have left, I suspect, a healthy contingency in all those numbers.. I like to think therefore that we will remain cashflow positive at the current copper price with annual production at 7,000 and should be nicely cashflow positive with next year's increase production even before the ore sorter.
Best wishes,
Prof
The trade pattern today looks very strange. Nothing but buys until 1001hrs (with one exception) and nothing but sells since.
The price is holding so makes we wonder if the trades are categorised wrong. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Prof
Unprecedented,
I agree.
Best wishes,
Prof
Hi Nonegspleeze,
My logic goes something like this:
-if they are non-Execs I would expect them to be highly experienced and successful
-if they are highly experienced and successful I would expect them to be reasonably wealthy
-if they are reasonably wealthy with great insight into a company with fantastic prospects then we might expect two non-Execs to hold more than £50k in shares between them.
So yes, while I am pleased that they have taken their entire remuneration in shares, I would like them to have more skin in the game.
Best wishes,
Prof
Good that 2 Directors are taking their annual fees in shares. Also good that they are doing so at a share price 25% higher than current market rate (26.74).
Slightly worry is the extent to which the company feels it is having to conserve cash - although we know cash is tight so all efforts are sensible. Second slight negative is that even after this both Directors still have remarkably few shares. Would be really nice to see more skin in the game by them however they are increasing so still good.
Not sure this is enough to influence the SP either way. However combined with TB's purchase and our major supplier taking shares in lieu of payment we are seeing a whole group of people, seemingly in the know, take more of a stake in the company, and all at higher SP than current valuation.
Best wishes,
Prof
GGG and Loggypunts,
Thanks both for your answers. I guess given the size of K2 it may be more likely to be their investment rules rather than the need for the cash as it would be a drop in the ocean for them. However if their rules are really so strict and applied in such a draconian way that they buy a firm with a market cap just above £50M but then have to fall if it fall below, that does seem illogical.
With regards to the recent fall, and leaving K2 speculation aside, I tend to believe in the mixture of 'everything is down so it is normal that we are too' and the 'fear' theory as emotions get the better of people in what remains a small and high risk stock even if far less high risk than it has been.
We have seen in the past how quickly we can swing from negative to positive sentiment (and vice versa) and how far that can in turn take the share price. Copper moving back up, strong results for June followed by strong results for July, TB putting his hand in his pocket again, not to mention K2 finishing what they are doing - or just a couple of the aforementioned, and we could rocket back up to the 40s with little time spent in the 30s. Hope I am not just trying to convince myself of what I want to be true!
Best wishes,
Prof
What are people's views on why K2 is selling please? Theoretically is could be:
1. This is not about RMM. They need the money for another reason e.g margin calls in a falling stock-market or a better opportunity elsewhere.
2. This is about RMM and they don't believe in it anymore.
3. This is about copper and they believe it will fall.
Personally I see nothing in RMM that makes me feel it credible that K2 would be selling because of reason 2. On the contrary it is looking as good as it has for a while.
Which leads me to believe it is 1 or 3. I seem to recollect someone had mentioned they thought K2 had an even better opportunity elsewhere but can't remember who suggested that and on what grounds.
With regards to 3 I can believe that a possibility but that seems a very short term view given the green agenda and the need for copper and one that would might see them reduce exposure but not exit in full at fire sale prices.
What are people's thoughts please?
Best wishes,
Prof
DJ,
We obviously have a very different opinion on the importance of knowing costs and on the responsibilities of management to shareholders -i.e. management.
Yes I very much expect the company to calculate a cash cost. I would expect it in a ramp up because I would expect them to know it at all times.
As you are currently into telling me how I am come across may I return the favour. You are coming across as patronising - and wrong.
Best wishes,
Prof
Hi MB,
However in April our costs were mostly above 4.6, never below 4.3 and peaked at over 4.8. Today we are at 3.77. That is why where the price of copper goes is in my view now so critical to RMM. You are right however that our output is significantly up and hopefully even more so for this month.
Best wishes,
Prof
GGG,
Thanks for your well thought out post and re-sharing the previous year's costs. I know that we have these retrospectively however my concern remains over the lack of visibility over current costs. When TB was asked about them on the last call he did not provide additional clarity. We have had generic statements about being cost neutral but I would like to see the detail. I would also like to see guidance for production costs per pound but also AISC. Most miners provide a cap and collar for the year on both of these. Now I get that with the turnaround we are operating in a fast moving environment however I would still like management to have a stab at providing them. If they don't know even a bracket for expected costs then shame on them. If they know if but don't share it with us as shareholders then that is equally poor.
I don't broadly disagree with your workings on the numbers although I worry whether inflation could have a slightly bigger impact. We know RMM have to truck the ore a significant distance and with the inflation in oil that will therefore hurt us more than most.
Roll on those production figures!
Best wishes,
Prof
I would love to share the unfettered optimism of some on this board - but I don't.
That doesn't make me pessimistic about this share - I am just very uncertain.
It seems to me that the cause of the low share price has changed over the past month or so. Throughout last year and earlier this year we were marked down because of uncertainty over output. Could be get enough ore out the ground and then refine it into enough copper to have positive cash flow? At the 7,000 tons p.a we are being guided to, at the previous copper price that was considered a slam dunk and with room to spare.
Rambler Management have played a blinder in getting us to/ nearly to this production position and I believe next year we will be well above the 7,000 (no sure if we will hit it this year but think the market will be ok if the trend remains good). The last month's production was nicely up and I agree with the views that we should be significantly up again this month. For me over 600 is a definite, over 650 probable and over 700 possible (all barring black swans of course).
The problem now is a tumbling copper price which every cent of fall coming straight out of profit. Now if we knew costs clearly then we might feel a little more reassured but we don't have great visibility on them either. Only that we expect them to fall as the tons produced ramps up.
So to me the key factor at the moment for our share price is the price of copper. I know mid term it should do well given its role in the ecological restructuring of the world economy and operating model that will take place. However my worry is the short term. Recession is for me a certainty although a recession in itself is not necessarily something that bad. It just means 2 successive quarters of declining GDP so if you have 2 quarters of -0.1% it matters little (other than we usually expect significant growth) but if we have 2 quarters of -3% then it is clearly very bad. With regards to the green agenda which requires shed loads of copper I am also unsure. On one level we are seeing signs that it may be slowed down as countries focus on other issues (war in Ukraine, cost of living, COVID...) but on another level if there is a serious recession then a public works programme entered on the eco agenda, and therefore needing copper, could be just the ticket.
So I remain unsure of where we are going price wise short term. Like all here I am eagerly waiting the next production results which we should see within the next 10-14 days and hoping there are indeed as good as I am expecting, that copper does not fall further, and that the combination of these two factors is enough to turn the trend upwards.
Best wishes to all in these nerve testing times,
Prof
DJ,
Glad to see our numbers line up.
Best wishes,
Prof
If we do 1350 per day for 350 days at 2% average grade with 96% conversion then we get to just over 9,000 tons per annum (9072 tons).
If the ore sorter adds 30% and it is in place to enable a full year of benefits then that gets us to 11,794 tons.
Now it is possible that they will exceed their target of 1350 average per day but we are still a way off that. It is also possible that they will exceed 2% grade however both these numbers are the ones the are guiding us to.
Personally I would be very happy with close to 12,000 tons in the year and I think the market would be too.
Best wishes,
Prof
Doog,
I think you hit the nail on the head. Who knows/ cares about the short term price movement (well me obviously for one but only because it feels good)? The key question as a shareholder is are we backing a company that is on the way up or the way down. The answer to that question, over the 2 year timeframe you mention, is, to me, clearly up and I would expect remarkably so.
Mishaps are always possible but the risk reward seems very firmly in our favour at this share price.
Best wishes,
Prof
Gower,
Particularly as it was impossible to buy any serious quantity first thing.
Let us hope that all the parts are in place now for a rerate that will only speed up over the coming months as further evidence of the strong position is forthcoming. I can understand why, even after today, some will still be nervous. We need all those nerves to disappear to see a really strong move up. Having said that we have seen in the past how fast RMM can move on good news and frankly some of the news in the past that saw 10s of pence gains was not as good as today's in my view.
Best wishes to all,
Prof
They were mining this month at 1.65% average grade but because they blended with the surface stockpile that reduced it to 1.58%.
Combine that with the following:
770L and 790L UFZ: Production activities continue in this area. Secondary ground support has been a focus in May to protect the high grades expected out of this zone in June.
And it suggest we could see some additional grade increase for this month which combined with a full month of 1350 tpod should push copper produced comfortably into the 600 tonnes for the month.
The arrangement with the previously reported rented crusher was concluded and normal crushing operations resumed at Nugget Pond as of 6 May 2022, with average throughput of 1,292 tpcd from then until end of month. I thought the following was interesting:Plant availability from 6-31 May was 99.2%, resulting in an average throughput of 1,303 tpod during that 26-day period. Eight of those days saw throughput at or exceeding the daily target of 1,350 tpod, with a peak throughput of 1,400 tpod achieved on 16 May.n.b: tpcd tonnes per calendar day tpod tonnes per operating day