Member Info for howezap

>Simply I don’t want to mislead.

Fair one iceberg, however I think you are doing yourself a disservice if think you have any kind of moral obligation here to steer clear of giving a subjective view in case it may be wrong or misjudged.

Hi iceberg I feel many were hoping for a little more than that on RC/Ascot from you. Pre-concentration, amenability, effect it could have on NPV and cut off grades, importance of reducing carbon footprint and environmental impacts, pathway to DtM with PFS.

There is clearly so much that your valued contribution could have helped assure holders of their continued belief in the project in what has been a very anxious time over the previous 5 months of your obvious and unnerving absence.

Drill Footrot? 4-5k metres of drilling would be far better utilised improving NPV and increasing resource from here on.

That’s the geologist in you!

>> When is the RNS updated expected?

Plant upgrade? Not due yet, but a decision will need to be made in next couple or three months so as to be in a position to have upgrades in place when the shallow oxides have been mined and are into the transitional ore.

Incidentally, further upgrades to increase capacity of plant could also be looked at to reduce LOM hinted at by CB

Small point worth repeating regarding JV agreement at Kakuyu.

As Xtract have already paid back Oval the cash for pre stripping and previous mine work directly up front. Rather than taken from cash flow by reducing our percentage until paid back. Those first revenues will be at full 60% return to Xtract. ??From ‘23 presentation ?Xtract refunded US$90k to JV partner for historic pre- stripping work and a further US$60k for the first month of pre-production mining.

Something decent could come from there, CB has been quite reserved almost playing it down. I think it was Ben who first mentioned it.

Na nothing brewing, is just the fundamentals that are now beginning to show company worth. We still have first gold pour from Kakuyu to follow and updated conceptual study re-worked from findings of pre-concentration study that will give a firm economic assessment of RC pit going forward. That could really kick things off. Plenty of important news to follow to drive market cap up and on. It’s only just started.

We have a couple or so weeks to wait for the pre-concentration study for which the updated conceptual study can then be completed once Capital and Op costs for revised plant are known to produce long awaited NPV/IRR figures. The interim report to ‘Xtract’ would have given the recommendations toward optimisation drilling already, directed to increase tonnage, NPV and asset value.

Q3 earliest for drilling to commence i would say, it’s stated that once results of pre- concentration are known along with the drill planning, they will be able to finalise ongoing plans for BR.
Needs to be paid for too so is not likely to start until after updated conceptual study regardless.

To potentially answer my own question. A repost from couple weeks ago.

HZ >>> Empress have a debt facility in place confirmed by Alexandra W Sherron of up to 50 million with 5million earmarked for any further development work at their 3 producing streams which includes Manica. ??Ties in nicely with CB’s suggestion that a decision will need to be made in the next couple or three months to go ahead with plant extension to accept all other ore types.

From metals investor forum a month ago with Brien Lundin on you tube

Hi Dani
The NPV is not an asset valuation, but an investment guide of worth from its lifetime. But will go a long way to support a higher market cap.

Where caravel are concerned they will suffer huge dilution by giving away lots of their 1.1B NPV to get to development stage. Generally, once an NPV is known, unless a company with an intent to mine it, already has the financing in place to take the project into the development stage some of that NPV will be given away in either huge dilution, or to a partner to achieve that. Where Xtract have a sell on, on valuation there will be a further discount to the acquirer, on top of the discounted cash flow that takes into account the cost to build the mine. The figure is roughly 20% but by reducing the Cap costs with smaller plant the discount on valuing would be less one would assume.

As far as I understand MMP are the processing contractor on all of the gold bearing deposits throughout the concession and xtract receive 23% of all hard rock after tax and costs subject to gold price. The agreement was for NMP to build the plant but not sure if the agreement would be the same for plant mods later to accept sulphides. I would guess so.
Anyone?

Aussies are a mining nation and far more knowledgeable than most uk private investors. I doubt Colin would have been able to have driven the mc there as easy as he did here. They would have seen straight through his early agenda.

Looking back at Caravels copper projects pathway to pre-feasibility study for comparison to show how more favourable BR‘s pathway could be that should see far less drilling required for starters.

Back in June ‘20 Caravel had a resource with 212 million tons of indicated and 104 million tons of inferred resource.

Just prior to this, they had a $2.85m placement for drilling and early stage PFS work. From then over the next two years, they had two further share placements that had raised $16 million for diamond drilling to increase the resource and RC drilling for mostly infilling to upgrade.

Since 2019 to get to the ore reserve that their PFS is based on, 105mt measured (proven) and 485mt indicated (probable) with 1.42mt contained copper, comprised of 7740m of diamond drilling and 20,223m of RC drilling.

The main difference is that Caravel have had the necessity to upgrade, mostly all of their resource to create a positive NPV model due to the general absence of any shallow higher grade zone in their pit model that RC has. So it may only be necessary for Xtract to just create an early phase mine plan to show that the initial high grades will make the mine economically viable. This has generally been the direction that further work is pointing toward. It could well be that only the 191 million tonnes higher grade part of RC would need to be upgraded to convert to an ore reserve that the PFS will potentially be based on.

Another significant difference is that caravel are not going down the bulk ore sorting route, there has been no mention whatsoever from historical news so would surmise that the sortability of their ore type is not amenable to the new technology . Alternatively, they have optimised the delivery system and throughput reducing some CapEx. They have currently raised a further $15m to go to DFS and funding. They currently have a $142m MC without any incoming revenue stream.

>>Many bought in on his forward guidance when the sp was double what it is today.

Yep Andrew, I sure did! Still happy though with all my purchases from 1.5p recently to 7.2p. Lucky enough to have managed to get my average to sub 3.5p. Have you been buying recently, I know you had a mammoth journey in averaging down pre BR which was commendable to say the least.

Ignore all the question marks, remarks are not questionable they have all been identified and reported of course.

It’s just me! ;-)

Ahh yes Cygnus the western lobe identified in the 1st round of geophys! Here’s a reminder of what else is in that sweetie bag.

??That western lobe. ??

The solitary borehole 33 drilled into an eastern outlying anomaly and see it hit 15.5g/t over 2m has great potential and assay summary said it warranted follow up drilling to test strike length and dip. ??

Holes 38&39 identified 2 near vertical mineralised gold structures with indications they increase in width and grade at depth. Also warranted further drill testing.

??Footrot saw two boreholes that indicated was close to a further mineralised porphyry ??

Early indications of deeper porphyry under RC ??The new geophysics identified two ‘new areas’ of interest and also significantly identified a fault up to the north east of RC but here, maybe will see some more drilling to increase resource there. ??

So much potential that will be unlocked once a viable development and mining scenario can be found to present to AA with PFS. Getting to that point is still a priority whilst adding value in the process. BR is a monster in waiting.

What is certain is that only converted mineral reserves can form the basis of a PFS. So infilling to upgrade the part of the resource that will support the initial CapEx recovery phase will have to at some, or a later point need to be done. Recall CB himself even saying in a podcast last year that they will likely end up with a near surface drilling programme.

A Mineral Reserve is the economically mineable part of a Measured and/or Indicated Mineral Resource and is defined by studies at Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility level. They demonstrate that, extraction could reasonably be justified and support a realistic economic assessment that inferred resources do not.

It may be a long haul to a PFS and may not be achievable with just one last drill phase if they are to increase the resource on the margins of RC to increase tonnage there. The most recent comms have just pointed to work focussing on optimising RC, for now at least.

The reality is that before commencement of phase 1 drilling in dec’20 the share price was not too shy of where it is now!

Plenty of upside potential in the hope that any rise up can be sustained. Slow and steady preferred.

Iceberg >>> Re BR-Ascot. My assumption is that they are still trying to find the best npv figure and solution. No point scaring the market until you know what the options are. Tbh, I’ve given up believing what Colin says.

How I read the mining study update, it appears to be quite decisive in that BOS is ‘not’ just an option, it ‘will’ be incorporated, or at the very least is a serious consideration and so any full development options that would have been progressed without the technology would now, not be relevant for an NPV/IRR to have been reported.

Taken from main body of RNS

> Optimal Mining has identified that the economics of the Project can be improved by way of modern ore sorting technology and the full Study will be completed based on further test work already under way on this option.

Pre-concentration will be important for the future viability toward obtaining permits by lowering the carbon footprint of the project by means of concentrator efficiency and the reduction in energy and water usage that will have to satisfy AA’s ‘own’ ambitious Sustainable Mining Plan targets of a 30% improvement in energy efficiency and a 50% reduction in fresh water abstraction by 2030, if they are to even consider taking up their option to buy BR back.

Any deeper thoughts?

Someone’s got to! with many more disgruntled investors here than happy chappies (and chapesses) at the moment. A month to wait for results of pre-concentration study, had interim report is amenable just looking at recovery losses from sorting so is looking more promising that not.
None taken

Cheers FtF
I’ve spouted a fair bit about it recently, I agree not all ore type characteristics are going to be amenable, but how I understand it the pyhorite in the ore gives the technology a good chance of better separation. The main goal will be to reduce Cap costs with a reduced throughput as is hoped as much as 50% reduction of the mill feed of the waste rock, and subsequent increase in head grade will improve the economics significantly, resulting in less pit optimisation drilling up to PFS for starters.

The huge advantage over incorporating into an existing plant is a ‘potential’ ;-) new plant can be tailored around the technology to streamline efficiency of the whole circuit. Smaller mill etc to save on power and op costs.

Watch this space, and do pop by anytime to play bat and ball ;-)

Of course I do, and how’s Ted? What do you make of Optimal recommending going down the modern ore sorting route? Thrill us please

Hi Dani xtract need to show to AA that an initial mine development phase will pay back CapEx and be profitable. The NPV and IRR will show the economic viability of that initial phase supported by a PFS which is a much more thorough study level than conceptual that demonstrate that, extraction could reasonably be justified.

The rest of the JORC resource from outside the pit shell at RC and Ascot etc including the other licenses will be sold with inferred parts being discounted more so, than any measured or indicated parts. Think it was theiceberg that stated that majors will only pay for what is in the JORC and inferred parts are discounted by 50%

So ultimately the more of the resource that is upgraded to indicated or even further to measured by further infill drilling will command more value. As with any of the resource that is not drilled enough to be classified yet, if it can be upgraded by drilling, the extra tonnage can then be included in the JORC resource estimate.