Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
It is classic negotiating tactics, but letting it get to this point shows a lamentable lack of skill on behalf of management: when in doubt, string discussions along. Playing hardball at this juncture is just madness.
I only hope that Coris can demonstrate their superior skills and get things moving again tomorrow: if not for us, for their major investors who really won't be pleased.
What a result if this ended in management changes: that would double the SP overnight: merely wishful thinking on my part!
Agreed that grade is a significant factor, but generally, if production halves, it is because grade is poor: barring accidents and wet quarters, volumes mined and processed are usually reasonably consistent, but the grade is poor.
Kouroussa is expected to be high grade, so fingers crossed that the grade is improving and we not only achieve name plate capacity, but also commercial production ie profitability.
If you halve production, it virtually doubles AISC as the operating costs are, to a large extent, fixed, regardless of production.
POG is significant and current levels should more than compensate for a small miss on production, but not of the magnitude you suggest.
LL
You have misread the article, which refers to the debt repayments that they HAVE to make each year ie their repayment commitments. As you so rightly say, they can probably service that commitment out of a single quarter and will therefore have free cash flow to pay down debt sooner or additional projects such as Dugbe or even pay dividends.
"they shouldn't have a problem making their debt payments of about $25M per year."
Odey long gone as a shareholder from Hummingbird and by the looks of it, Jupiter (wife's outfit) has also come off the register finally.
This is going down on relatively small volumes and moving with the gold price. Failure to hedge even part of the output is most unhelpful, but should gold bounce, the rush to get back in will have this back at 20p in short order.
If it follows the Yanfolila progress in the first few months (where the first pour was at the end of December and by March, capacity had been nearly reached with 9.9k oz.) we should be seeing a couple of K oz in July, 6/7 k oz in August and close to nameplate by September.
Understandably, the company is being cautious about setting up those expectations, but we could be looking at close to 20k oz from Kouroussa for Q3.
Selling Cora was utterly bizarre: they build a plant and dispose of an adjacent licence which would have provided much needed plant feed.
Compare that with Dugbe, where they took great care to acquire an additional licence.
So which is the right strategy or is there no strategy at all? The story that they could not fund the exploration is pathetic, as they then went off and invested in Bunker Hill, hardly a core asset in comparison with Yanfolila.
There was a meeting in Rome between high ranking Mali officers and the tribal leaders in northern to discuss the Algiers treaty.
Without the internal assistance, the extremists will have no foothold in Mali.
Effectively, the Mali military are going for the negotiated settlement which the civil govt. failed to implement (apparently, because the centralist Malians in the south don't want some form of devolution in the north).
It is clearly not good news that Pasofino is coming to the end of the period when it has been parked up in Stalker's capable hands.
The SP here tells the story: HUM is at an all time low and raising our 51% of any post DFS finance (either equity or debt) could not have come at a worse time.
Still, we have the cheerleaders for the abysmal management, mindlessly ignoring the damming verdict delivered both by the SP and the professionals: both of the company's analysts have halved the company's target price to 15p and Berenberg made it quite clear that there is no confidence in management. Regardless of what we think as individuals, the serious money, the IIs , will not invest in a company where the company's own brokers have written management off.
Whilst the POG can obviously play an important role in significantly improving HUM's current position (profitability and therefore SP), why are shareholders so willing to ignore the elephant in the room?
Thanks for the link, Soutie
FWIW, I thought that the COO, previously quite wooden, was now showing a really good grasp of Yanfolila and where it is going. I particularly liked the details re the UG at K/E with the haul road in place in the existing open pit and then linking it in to expected drilling results ie. uppermost in his mind was grade.
I was also unable to join.
Was my question answered
Comparison of the “New Mine Schedule “ grades and recovered gold in ozs. as per RNS dated 29th February 2016 with quarterly operating results to date and remaining reserves for K/E and K/W and explanation of variances.
As per the RNS dated 29th February 2016, reserves for K/E and K/W were further upgraded to to 7,039,000 tonnes containing 709,800 ozs, grading at 3.14 g/t. With the new mine schedule (for these deposits only) that 3.14 g/t is the LOM grade stated and was to have resulted in recovered gold of 656,000.
Looking at a schedule of the 17 Quarterley results from Q2 2018 to Q4 2021, only 2 Qs have exceeded the average grade of 3.14 g/t, a further 4 Qs have an average grade which exceeds 2.5 g/t and the remaining 11 Qs are significantly lower than 2.5 and deteriorating further.
What are the main reasons for this continual significant deviation of actual grade from that set out in the optimised mine schedule?
What is the overall expected shortfall on the expected recovered gold of 656,000, given gold produced to date and remaining in pit reserves for K/E and K/W are less than this total?
When is Phase 2 ie GW, SW and SE to happen given it was scheduled from year 5?
The received wisdom on the ground is that Burkina Faso joined the coup party because sanctions on the ground against Mali and Guinea are ineffective.
I agree, Bushy, that the Eu are meddling old biddies and the fox just got in the hen house.
It is possible that the non colonial Russians may be less controversial and Goita has a better chance of healing rifts and then presenting a united moderate Muslim front against the northern extremists without the old colonial power involved.
Bushy
Hum has no cumulative retained earnings.
What you see per the accounts is distributable reserves which came from a capital reconstruction scheme with court approval, to transfer share premium account ie share capital to distributable reserves. (it is allowed, providing creditors are not prejudiced).
As per RNS 26/10/2018 the Q3 2018 report
"Update on cancellation of the Company's share premium account ('Cancellation')
The Company is pleased to announce that it has now received court approval for the cancellation of the Company's share premium.
As previously announced, the Cancellation has the effect of creating distributable reserves, which will enhance the ability of the Company to pay dividends and buy back shares."
Playboy, they could always lease the plant to Cora until POG does make the remaining reserves/resources economic.
Alternatively, HUM could get a decent, hands on mining engineer as CEO and increase the scale so that the current operation is profitable.
Dan is a write off, but there is value in Yanfolila.
That bodes well for Pasofino.
Instead of the usual city flippers, a decent institution placement with an organisation that is at the cutting edge of new era sustainable technology and brings expertise at the design stage.
Stalker building strategic partnerships with like minded engineers to bring technical solutions to old fashioned mining.
It is evidence of a clear analytical approach to the project: instead of"green wash" this will be the real deal delivered in every aspect and enhancing the environmental approach and project economics simultaneously.
This wont get taken private: management have a small % and a track record for asset stripping. Why pay when they can just transfer assets at an undervalue to another entity in which they have a significant holding?
The real understanding re HUM itself is that the management is a bunch of chancers who know that Yanfolila will be highly profitable if the POG goes exponential (as many of us here expect). Instead of setting out the true picture, they consistently lie. They bank on the retail nature of their shareholders to see that they are not held to account and covid has made it difficult for our voices to be properly heard at the AGM.
So, the takeover rumour starting again and HUM at a ridiculously low mc.
Majors are not usually interested in small mines, but Dugbe is of course, in quite a different league and with Ian Stalker in charge, it has credibility.
Kourroussa also looks capable of significant expansion and the grades are really attractive .