Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
They must just be pinning all hopes on CMEC buying the rest of the coal project now and then all running for the hills?
We’re due $20m in historic costs when EDM finally pull their finger out…so long as CMEC go ahead with the project, vs a £5m mkt cap I still have a slither of hope I might make some of my money back here.
It’s all or nothing on the coal project now!
It would appear Scoot has saved the day. Good to see it was non dilutive to shareholders or I may have flipped my lid.
Poor Scott is up to his eyeballs in the company but to do that he must have some confidence in the main project no?
Have to say, I thought NCCL was going to end up a green Co but looks like coal project still main focus!
mcmullank - instead of making assumptions and throwing your toys out of the pram based on conjecture, why don't you just seek some clarity. Emma is open and does respond to emails. Just ask the questions to the person who can answer them, simple. Yes it should be in the RNS but its not so get over it, I've done it for you....
Good Afternoon Emma,
Firstly, congratulations on officially becoming a gold producer. A fantastic achievement by all involved and no mean feat given the hurdles presented over the last 18 months.
I wanted to ask for clarification on two points relating to the last two RNS's:
1. With regards to the first gold pour of ~14.5kg, I note that in the 17th Sept RNS, the ore stacked on the leach pads was noted as below. Could you please clarify that the full 87,300 tonnes of material (or more) were not used to produce 14.5Kg of gold, as that would imply a recovery rate of around 0.17g/t of or (using 87,300) or potentially less? Assuming the full tonnage has not been used for the first pour, will there be sufficient gold produced to meet the December repayment of 8kg?
"The Company has mined 133,000 tonnes of ore and 385,700 tonnes of waste and stacked 87,300 tonnes of ore on the Heap Leach pads. Whilst this is behind our initial forecast schedule, we are now stacking the balance of the stockpile at a consistent 120 tonnes per hour"
2. In the latest export license RNS, I note the below comments in the RNS:
"GoldStone Resources Limited (AIM: GRL) is an AIM quoted gold exploration and production company. The Company commenced production at its wholly owned Homase Mine November 2021. When at full planned production of 2000oz pcm GRL expects an AISC of
Located ~15km north-west of AngloGold Ashanti's Obuasi mine, in the mineral-rich and highly prospective Ashanti Goldbelt. Homase Mine is a series of shallow open pits producing approximately 25,000oz pa of gold, with a recently commissioned CIC treatment plant, for the Heap Leach operation. First gold was poured in November 2021, and the Company will be ramping up production during the first quarter 2022"
Is this full planned production number of 2000oz pcm and 25,000oz pa a retrospective "equivalent" number for 2021 should the first gold pour have been completed when originally anticipated? My confusion comes as in the interim results the below was stated, so is 25,000oz an extrapolated figure based on the first pour but the plan is still to ramp up production to nearer the 50,000oz pa through 2022?
The Company expects to increase the planned gold production from the Company's original guidance of 14,400 ounces, stated in the Definitive Economic Plan ("DEP") announced on 19 June 2019 to around 50,000 ounces of gold per annum within the first year of production, which would represent an increase of more than 300% from the original production schedule.
Clarity on those points would be much appreciated.
Kind Regards,
This could also put a spanner in the works for the IPO. As of 3rd Dec (coincidence in the date?) all new listings need to have a min MCAP of £30m FCA have increased this from £700k. A great move to stop people like LC rinsing PI's with shell companies/lifestyle companies!
https://mondovisione.com/media-and-resources/news/uk-financial-conduct-authority-confirms-new-listing-rules-to-boost-growth-and-i/
mcmullank - I don't think you give the BOD, especially Bill Trew the credit they probably deserve for their experience in the industry. Here's Bill Trew's bio....
"He has since gained over 37 years' experience in the mining and engineering industry worldwide. In 1986 he founded MAED Limited, a specialist project management and engineering design company specialising in constructing gold processing plants for the gold mining industry. Under his leadership, MAED has designed and constructed 23 gold processing plants around the globe including Mali, South Africa, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines. He was Chief Executive Officer of Oxus Gold plc, where he oversaw construction of three new gold mines (Amantaytau, Vysokovoltnoye and Jerooy). Since then he has held a number of other executive and non executive roles at listed and private mining companies where he has continued building and refurbishing Gold Mines. He is currently chairman of the MAED group of companies and a director of Gold Mines of Uganda and Paracale Gold Limited. "
He isn't just some cowboy who stumbled on some gold in his garden and built a washplant to extract it. he is a veteran of this game. Can you hand on heart tell me that if there was a risk of 50 40 or 10% efficiency, with liabilities due (in physical gold) in a months time that they would exhaust their stockpiles of ore during that process? You would logically use a sample of your ore to test what the grades coming out of the elution facility are Vs the in ground sampling.
Emma hasn't helped herself as usual with her smokescreen of information BUT you have to trust that these people know what they are doing. A lot of hurdles here have been due to regulatory issues as opposed to ineptitude around the mining process itself.
As I said, the previous production schedules are not worth the paper they are written on - don't disagree with that and we have seen miniscule gold versus what they anticipated to produce in the first 8 months.
What I am trying to put across here is some logical thinking around the notion that the full stock pile of ore was used to generate 14.5Kg of gold.
The ore has been tested for gold content and a resource estimate produced based on that. The grades in the ground haven't just been made up as a finger in the air number. Some simple maths suggests if that ore pile of 87K tonnes (or more) has produced that 14kg of gold, yield is 0.16g/t or lower when the resource estimate has proven over 1g/t.
Of course the yield from production will not match in the ground sample yields, but only extracting 10% of that grade seems absurd no? Which is why I personally am fairly confident the full stockpile wasn't used for first pour....plus with the Dec payment due, it would be a poor judgement to put everything into the commissioning runs when you know it is likely to be inefficient.
mcmullank - Whilst I agree it would be good to have some concrete numbers about how much ore was used to produce that 14.46Kg of gold, I do think you have a very glass half empty outlook here. Lets just think logically for a second and look at what we know:
17th Ssept Operational Update:
"The Company has mined 133,000 tonnes of ore and 385,700 tonnes of waste and stacked 87,300 tonnes of ore on the Heap Leach pads. Whilst this is behind our initial forecast schedule, we are now stacking the balance of the stockpile at a consistent 120 tonnes per hour. We have temporarily paused further mining whilst the existing stockpile is being depleted, and expect to recommence shortly."
So lets say at a minimum there was 87,300 tonnes of ore on the heap. A gold pour of 14,460g gives a yield of 0.165g/t and the more ore you assume, the lower that grade. The initial production schedule RNS'd in May of course didn't materialise in terms of output but they quoted grades on average of around 1g/t. So if the full stockpile was used to produce that amount there are SERIOUS issues.
That leads me to be fairly confident this was a gold pour driven by necessity to pay off the loan and was produced as part of the commissioning process, which will not have used the full stockpile of ore. Would you really use all your ore (which has been tested for grades as part of the JORC resource process) to test a new plant built in 6 weeks? Of course not - the potential wastage due to inefficiencies is not a risk worth taking. Test it using a portion of the stock pile, assess a yield, tweak where necessary and keep working that until a consistent, acceptable grade/yield is produced.
Also - lets not forget there is 8kg due to AIMS in Dec....you think they are silly enough to run the risk of defaulting on that? I would say the next few pours will be part of an evaluation process to test the plant efficiency and improve (they're smart people so will have kept ore on the pile to facilitate that I have no doubt.
Sometimes just a bit of a step back and some logical thinking can really help put a sensible perspective on things!
Although Emma really doesn't help herself at times...comms are poor here.
Absolutely - the negativity around the last RNS was unjust IMO. Of course we would have all loved the finer details but it wasn’t about that. The plant was put together in quick time, this was about getting a pour done ahead of schedule and proving the process works.
Now is the time to start ramping up production, understanding what the grades/yields look like at scale, tweaking processes where necessary. Then they can let the market know what consistent figures to be expecting for a fully ramped up production.
Also - good to see the export license get approved fairly sharpish. I guess the Ghanaian govt now have a vested interest with GRL producing!
Let’s not forget - The December gold loan payment due is 8kg per the schedule. 11 of the 14 poured cover Oct and Nov so there’ll need to be another pour in Dec.
I would imagine we’ll see an updated production schedule at some point this month as a result…now they’re back at the mining and processing on double shift. I’m more relaxed here now and actually looking forward to 2022 with GRL!
Sirspread - you spend A LOT of time posting on a bb that you aren’t invested in. Fishing for a single figure entry.
There’s not many rose tinted glasses here - yes the odd wild sp prediction - you get that on any share but the fact of the matter is GRL have a class asset and are now a producer. The worst of the delays are behind us it would seem and it’s now time for the ramp up and to see where this company can go.
I feel you’ve missed your chance here so would greatly appreciate it if you go back and join your little circus of deramping friends and jog on, clown!
I do agree on the export paperwork, that's a strange one you would have thought they would have in place but never know, you may have to have physical assets before you can apply...who knows but its no biggie at all, GOLD IS THERE!
As for the yield, with the speedy build of the plant I would anticipate it is at far from max efficiency and will need some tweaking over time. This pour is almost a proof of concept. They'll probably start to quote a yield once they have some more consistent numbers to base it off.
MrAdventurous - in fairness to him, first patient was dosed 11Aug in the UK and IND filing submitted in October…that’s fact so to assume there is 2 months of data available (to either guide the decision to file IND or add to the application) isn’t a wild claim.
You would suspect they wouldn’t bother filing if they weren’t happy with initial data!
Someone with more experience than me in this field would need to confirm but I believe this process is different for different types of test. I.e. claims on variant detection don’t use the same process for PCR and LFTs for example. For a HUA LFT I would expect Avacta to need access to live patient samples, not lab grown version or frozen ones for exmaple
Sirspread isn't even worth responding to. They've built an elution facility in 6 weeks, it can be seen on the GRL twitter pics, it's not a fantasy. So why have they built that.....to pour gold and in a hurry. Yes there's been hurdles along the way but there is no doubt a gold pour if happening.
A case of when and how much, not if....I would expect some gold by end of Nov, even if not in the quantities hoped, just given the plant is newly commissioned, it will need some tweaking of course.
Workers there are now on double shift...they're going at this hell for leather no doubt about that. Very relaxed about GRL, will be a producer in a matter of days or weeks.
Think someone is just a bit peeved they have had to wait a bit longer than they expected....typical AIM investor, wants their 1000% in a day and when it doesn't happen they cry as they missed the pump on the next crypt or NFT fad!
Let’s just take that idea a little bit further too.
C19 AffiDx has a limited life at the kinds of volumes we’re talking about here and hope we see. 20m per month may be for say two years. That will dwindle - we know that.
So £480m profits from that. This has to sit on balance sheet as a war chest given long term diagnostics revenue will not continue at that pace. Although the business will no doubt provide some useful revenue as product range expands.
Now the issue on the therapeutics side is products can’t be commercialised and produce revenue until they have been the full length of the process clinical trials/reg approval etc. That’s a lengthy process.
Yes we have LGChem Daewoong on board to help fund early stage development which is when you need them the most, but as some point Avacta will want to become more independent.
As products move into next stages, more trials, staff, facilities, regulatory costs grow and that costs serious money over a long period of time.
When you don’t have a guaranteed income stream (think like an accountant here) say COViD just stopped in 6m/12m yet you’ve already paid that cash out in dividends. That’s irresponsible when you have another business line to fund. As an investor how would you feel if Avacta came to the market for a discount placing to fund Tmac/preCision and the reason was we have no cash as we paid it out in dividends.
Makes no sense. They are a therapeutics focused business which is capital intensive for prolonged periods. They won’t want to give away huge slices of the pie so need every penny retained to fund the real prize.
Just look at the oncology market size! Forget divis from the LFT test. Everyone here should want the revenue to be put back into therapeutics to give shareholders the largest possible slice of multi multi multi billion dollar markets going forward.
Christ on a bike wyndrum you didn’t even read past the first sentence I wrote!
I’ll paste the relevant part from the rest of it for you…
“To think in 3 years time they will be letting funds out of the door as dividends when the therapeutics side is so capital intensive is a bit of a pipedream IMO.”
They will need every penny they can get to fund therapeutics - which is the holy grail of what Avacta have been doing for years. That saves them going back into the shark tank of AIM for placings.
AS has said himself they don’t plan on a dividend. And as a long term investor here I totally agree with that approach. What they sell via diagnostics, which I think not just C19 but AffiDx long term outside C19 will be very successful, It goes back into the business to self fund (or partially self fund) therapeutics
Pretty simple really. Have a reread of my post wyndrum, its all in there!
"I made it clear that I don’t expect a dividend until at least 2023."
With all due respect.....I think you will disappointed if you are expecting a dividend in the next few years. The therapeutics business will take time to develop and getting those various products to market will take both time and money (and of course there is no guarantee of success although I hope for my portfolio but more importantly any current/future cancer sufferers this does pay off.)
A company at such an early stage in this market needs HUGE amounts if funding which increase as the projects get further down the line. Look at the market they are competing in, it's monopolised by the GSK Pfizer Roche's etc...what do they all have in common....$$$$$.
They just snap up most tech they are interested in as either the small bio cannot afford to progress or they make offers nobody can refuse and bring in house to add further value.
To be in a position to potentially self fund some of their work through a diagnostics business (plus partners such as LGChem and Daewoong) is quite unusual. To think in 3 years time they will be letting funds out of the door as dividends when the therapeutics side is so capital intensive is a bit of a pipedream IMO.
You then add to that the potential for failure of on ore more of these platforms (again hope not but could happen), the business will need to have large amounts of contingent cash on balance sheet for this scenario. As the other option is to come crawling back to the market via placings which help absolutely nobody.
I would bet my hat for the foreseeable there are no divis coming out of Avacta. Value here is in SP growth or a buyout IMO.
Toukankahmoon - Firstly not sure what this obsession with selling in the UK is.....it's been made clear by AS time and time again the market here is fraught with cronyism, goalpost moving, govt/regulatory body ineptitude. Hence why when the cease of selling RNS came out it was accompanied by a statement that this will not materially impact LFT revenue forecasts for 2021. There is no desire form Avacta to be a player in the UK market - well know FACT. EU and APAC are the target markets.
Secondly regarding dividend payments. This is still a relatively small time biotech with some potentially groundbreaking tech and big plans. Therapeutics will cost a hell of a lot in R&D to develop everything they have in the pipeline preCISION TMAC pro drugs etc. You really think Avacta are going to be paying dividends from diagnostics revenues. They will rightly be put back into the business as retained earnings to fund therapeutics. You therefore potentially a fairly rare situation. A small biotech that provides some self funding as well as having partners such as LGChem Daewoong putting up R&D costs as well.
Not sure what company you think this is but Avacta aren't a Roche/GSK (yet) so talk of dividends is laughable and the fact you are trying to belittle Avacta's diagnostics side as not being able to provide a dividend is also comical.
You want dividends, go play on the main indices, plenty o the FTSE100 and NASDAQ. AIM is a high risk/reward market for companies to develop themselves and grow (plus a good portion of terrible lifestyle companies), they're on here for funding.
You got way ahead of yourself with this LFT dividend chat, AS has explicitly said in a Q&A they do not intend to pay a dividend so maybe it's best you sell up and move on here!