Member Info for mattlilly

How about DFS before 30 June, with revised metals price assumptions..

Swiftly followed by $900 million copper streaming deal...

And the opening salvo from JCC, BHP, or one of the other 11...?

Dear Bozi...

Why are you here?

You reappeared here in May and have pummeled this Board in the last 30 days...

I haven't filtered you despite your regular attacks because very very occasionally you post something useful or thought provoking, but...

I've just checked your last 53 posts...

They are mainly negative...

38 of the 53 are negative, critical, personally attacking or simply add nothing...

Do you not have another life?

Rodney, stas and others are providing fresh insights and/or indulging in creative debate and thought provoking...

Which is a blessed relief from all the 'green stripers' and the other negativity while we wait for something to happen...

G'day!

So what would you have done FTJNY?

A deep discounted rights issue to fund drilling on the lesser projects...5p?

Noront went for 7 times the price it was only 7 months before

Less than...?

Meanwhile the SP keeps threatening to test 7.30

To sum up the shockingly irrational SP performance, look at this if you have X/Twitter...

https://x.com/messages/1763893809065198077/media/1935948501894230447

And then tell me the SP isn't being suppressed...

I still have JCC as the most likely RT…

You are right that Oyu Tolgui has been fraught but it began open mining in 2011, which parallels the Cascabel plan…the block cave started producing in 2023 and the recent delays and cost overruns have been due to needing to obtain license agreements with Entree and the Mongolian Govt which owns 34%…

There will be no government ownership at Cascabel, which massively impacted and held up OT…

They also have major water issues which we don’t have…

Meanwhile GDX and GDXJ continue to power ahead and SOLG has been left behind…

Tick tock…

Closed at 7.29p...

In its statement, the CME reiterated its "commitment to dialogue, legality, and the responsible development of the mining sector" and affirmed that it maintains the expectation that the agreed-upon technical committees will be established. In its view, these committees are an essential forum for evaluating the tax based on criteria of proportionality, viability, and social responsibility . The Chamber has also publicly requested that the application of the tax be temporarily suspended until the agreed-upon technical analysis is completed.

The controversy surrounding this tax comes at a key moment for the sector. The government has promised to reopen the National Mining Registry , closed since 2018, raising expectations of new investments and the expansion of legal mining activity. However, the union maintains that this reopening must be accompanied by regulatory certainty, respect for the commitments made, and institutional coherence.

To date, there has been no official response from the Presidency or the Ministry of Energy to the union's request for suspension. The date for the establishment of the technical committees announced by the Vice Ministry of Mines has not been made public, nor are there any details regarding the participation of stakeholders, methodology, or evaluation criteria for the measure.

The Chamber of Mining's statement seeks to exert public pressure to resume the agreed-upon dialogue process and technically review the measure before its full implementation.

The Ecuadorian Mining Chamber (CME) denounced the government's failure to fulfill a prior commitment to establish technical dialogue tables to review the implementation of the new Supervision and Control Tax, which has been in effect since June 2025 for formal mining concessions.

In a statement issued on June 17, the union expressed its "concern" over statements by the Minister of Energy and Mines, Inés Manzano , who ruled out the possibility of dialogue and confirmed that the tax will be applied without modifications or suspensions. The CME believes this position contradicts what was agreed upon with the Vice Ministry of Mines and the Mining Regulation and Control Agency (ARCOM) at a meeting held on June 12.

During that meeting, according to the Chamber, a formal commitment was made to establish technical committees to review the measure jointly, technically, and proportionally. The union indicated that this commitment was consistent with the previous signs of openness to dialogue shown by the Presidential team. Therefore, the surprise was even greater when the Minister of Energy publicly announced the immediate implementation of the tax without any room for review. " I am not in a position to negotiate or delay a necessary process ," Manzano stated in interviews reported by the national press.

The Supervision and Control Fee was officially established through a resolution published in early June 2025. According to the Ministry of Energy, this measure seeks to finance mining inspection processes and strengthen the State's capacity to combat illegal mining. The amount is calculated based on a percentage of the Unified Basic Wage (USD 470) per hectare granted , applicable to large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale mining, although artisanal mining is exempt. The amounts must be paid semiannually. For medium-scale and large-scale mining concessionaires, the first installment is due on July 31; for small-scale mining, on January 31, 2026.

The Chamber has stated that it does not oppose strengthening oversight processes, but warns that the measure imposed without technical analysis compromises the economic viability of numerous projects in the exploration phase, which have not yet generated revenue to meet new costs. The organization warned that the implementation of this tax, without technical and proportional discussion, " puts the viability of formal projects at risk and compromises the country's legal security ." It also maintained that it creates uncertainty for investors and weakens efforts aimed at building a sustainable and responsible public policy on mining.

Didn't Nick say years ago that he didn't want to sell Cascabel because of the Ecuadorian tax consequences?

I think you're right novice...modest but steady buys and the SP is up 5% since this time yesterday...

Need to break 7.70 then 8.25...

Thanks PBow...translated the relevant bits...

"1 Responsible and modern mining. With projects like Cascabel (Imbabura), Cangrejos (El Oro), and Warintza (Morona Santiago) , the country could raise up to $10 billion in two to five years, according to estimates by economist and editor of Análisis Semanal, Walter Spurrier . The key is to eliminate absurd red tape, open the mining registry, avoid creating new taxes or fees on the activity , and prevent the state-owned Enami from trying to become a new Petroecuador."

"To achieve this, it is necessary to replicate models that have yielded results around the world, and even in Ecuador itself. These are mines that have minimized their environmental impact and generated employment and entrepreneurship in their areas of influence.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por EL COMERCIO. Si vas a hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cita la fuente y haz un enlace hacia la nota original en la dirección: https://www.elcomercio.com/opinion/editorial/ecuador-afinar-estrategia-atraer-inversion-extranjera/"

"2.3 Cascabel Project

The estimated duration of the project in its initial production phase is 26 years. 16 Mine construction is expected to begin in 2027, with an estimated production start date of 2031. 17

The total estimated investment for the development of the Cascabel project amounts to USD 4.497 billion. Between 2012 and 2024, investments totaling USD 329 million have been executed. For 2024, an investment of USD 15.0 million had been scheduled; however, as of the fourth quarter of that year, execution reached USD 27.7 million, significantly exceeding expectations.

As of the fourth quarter of 2024, the company generated 1,412 jobs, of which 353 were direct and the remaining 1,059 indirect."

Is that re ExploreCo? If so they don't need to do that until an IPO surely?

Too early for that...annuncethe structure, which projects are included, latest drilling resuts and any actual or prospective partners...

ExploreCo could become SOLG Mk 2 after SOLG Mk1 is bought...

Sorry Rodders I was posting my reply to PBow when yours landed.

I completely agree but it doesn't warrant FCA or other investigation and you'll get your answer soon in the DFS...

Plus hopefully some ExploreCo news and drilling...

And thanks to you also PBow...

I think RT is being unrealistic here...hundreds of Directors of especially AIM companies seem to get away with murder by overpromising, inflating, misleading, financial shenanigans etc.

I think FCA have more/bigger fish to fry

And I agree...they will update the figures, the assumptions and the sensitivity analysis in the DFS...which will be accompanied by the copper streaming deal...and then we can all stop worrying and consuming airtime with intelligent speculation...

Tick tock...

I understand what you are saying Rodney but:

1 Who defines a material move in NAV

2 We can pretty much do the calculation ourselves, i.e.unless the metals in the ground have increased by assay (but the current presentation is showing the same amounts), we can apply the curret market prices and DCF calculations to arrive at a revised NPV...

So I don't think they're withholding anything material and...

They can't be accountable for different levels of knowledge between one group and another when the data is there for discovery and recalculation

Nor different levels of understanding of metals, minerals and markets

At the end of the day we are fortunate to have you and Stas e.g. putting in the hard yards

But keep posting your authoritative and informed views

Well done for hanging in since 2020 Bonkersman...

A painful wait and I sincerely hope your patience is richly rewarded...soon...

Thanks Rodney...I wonder how many companies are falling down on this...

My guess is that the sensitivity table has been removed pending the DFS and substantially revised NPV and IRR based on inclusion of Tandy revised estimates; much higher metals prices; and announcement of $900 million copper streaming funding...

All by 3oth June...

"They sort of know that none of the other big holders are that interested..."

Seriously...? They have to be interested...

I implore you Bozi and everyone else to take 5 minutes out and read the article I posted earlier in detail...

https://www.mining.com/the-mad-scramble-for-copper/

Its conclusions are stark and, despite being a year old, its conclusions are stark. I take the following out of it...

1 ALL the serious existing copper/gold miners and the prospective new entrants, eg. Barrick ("copper is the new gold") have to be looking at Cascabel. There is alsmost no other project like it in the world...

2 Its not just the major miners, with declining capacity and insufficient or no projects to fill their future production gaps...

3 The Chinese smelters are buying into mines; they are so desperate for supply that Smelting Fees have collaosed and even gone negative...almost unheard of and beginning to have an effect on the copper price directly

4 The smelters copper dearth means it is no bad thing that SOLG have not yet completed the copper streaming deal yet...potential funders will be climbing all over each other to fund the remaining $900 million to build the mine...tick tock...

5 The Junior explorers have what they need and a Junior Miner Bull market is long overdue having not been seen since 2011...it will be fuelled by M&A...have a look at how far GDX (up 107%) and GDXJ (up 114%) have come in the last year...both at 12/13 year Highs...

6 Starting more than a year ago, the owners of projects have become reluctant to sell out and we've seen more 'stake taking'

So I see much more consolidation in the copper/gold space so you can't rule out any significant player having run the rule over SOLG...

And ironically when they see the scale of the value dislocation, some of them may even be nervous about bidding for fear of being blown out of the water and losing valuable time, resource and 'face'...

So I'll leave you with this quote from the article:

"As the number of mid-tier and major miners on the selling block is reduced, these major miners moving towards the bottom on the mining food chain and earning into junior held projects, will increasingly become the norm. Juniors own the world’s future mines, they are the ones the few left standing majors will have to buy, or partner with, in order to increase their reserves."