Member Info for southwesterner

"The overall net smelter return (NSR) for the three concentrates, including the silver and gold precious metals contributions, is expected to total more than $270 million at the forecast metal prices used for the base case models."
You will note that since then Gold has moved from their base case of $1275 per oz to almost $2000/oz.
Also the other base metals have moved up plus they now have a mineable resource some 5 x larger.
So I will spell this out again. 270 x 5 x a bit more = what???
billion dollars ish?
yep imo"

Im afraid this is incorrect. On a number of fronts.

Firstly, all base metal prices have not moved up. In the Study, zinc was $1.25/lb, now its about $1.08. Lead was $1.00, now its $0.82. Coppers gone up from $2.50 to $3, and silvers up from $17.5/oz to $24.

However, unfortunately, zinc is the largest Net Smelter Revenue (NSR) in the project, especially dominant in the early years, and combined with lead, which has also gone down - is around half the total revenue. Gold, which has gone up the most, is unfortunately the smallest of the 5 metals in terms of NSR within the mine resources. So overall, when you look at the total package of metals - the current prices over the overall metal package are almost exactly the same as the 2017 Scoping Study.

And then furthermore, and more importantly, this oft repeated nonsense about a 5x increase in the assets. Let me clarify. There is a (nearly) 5x increase in the quantity of ore they plan to mine, from 2.1 million tonnes to 10 million tonnes. This is because of two factors - firstly they are now including "inferred resources" in the mine plan, which is not permissible for a PFS but it is at a PEA level. And they secondly they are reducing the "cut off grade" - this will lower the grade of the ore they mine. This is because they are including more low grade ore in the resource. They have not "magicked up" an additional 8 million tonnes of ore without doing any more exploration. They are simply planning to mine more of the deposit than they were before.

So, to explain what this means precisely in practise - the 2.1 million tonne indicated resource was at around 4.1% zinc, 2.2% lead, 0.6% copper, 46g/t silver and 0.5g/t gold. ($130 NSR / tonne)

The 10 million tonnes ind+inf resource would be at around 2.2% zinc, 1.2% lead, 0.8% copper, 24g/t silver and 0.3g/t gold. ($80 metal value / tonne)

You'll also notice that most of the grades have almost halved, except the copper has gone up slightly, this is due to the inclusion of the copper rich Northern Copper zone, Garth Daniel and Deep Engine zone which are all inferred resources and were thus not in the 2.1 million tonnes.

Overall, the effect is that the 10 million tonnes contains around 3x as much total metal value (at current prices) as the 2.1 million tonnes did in the original mine plan, not 5x. Net Smelter Revenues will be around $800m.

Having completed my re-modelling of the project economics a few days ago that I posted that I was doing on 14 Sep '20, I have been impressed with the potential here, and have bought in. I was slightly concerned in the Annual Report to see a reference creep in to completion of the PEA by the "end of the financial year" (which is 31st March 2021), but the announcement today that Micon has been appointed to complete the PEA, and it is planned to be finalised over the next two months, is fantastic news. Suffice to say in my opinion, with all the work done on this to date, this is a realistic goal.

What matters though is the economic models indicate that there is huge potential with this project to come up with fairly spectacular economic outcomes - at current or sensible metal price predictions. Ignore the rampers and their "500% more assets" - that simply isn't true. There is 5x as much ore to process, but there isn't 5x as much metal. But nonetheless, by "frontloading" high grade, and scaling up the production rates - I see clear potential for a payback of under 3 years, an IRR over 40%, and a Net Project Value approaching £100m. This would be a huge improvement on the 2017 Scoping Study, which had an NPV of less than £30m. Taking a new approach to this asset in terms of scaling up the production rates, will create incremental volume in lower cut-off grades, and what you end up with is a major asset. Parys Mountain could be looked at as something more analogous to Sulphur Springs (Venturex Resources, Western Australia) or McIlvenna Bay (Foran Mining, Sasketchewan) - albeit slightly lower grade, but without all the infrastructure costs from being in the middle of nowhere. Both of these companies are essentially single asset companies, and are currently valued at £15-20m, although they are more advanced in terms of they are both at Feasibility level. However with AYM sitting at £3.5m, clearly there's very reasonable potential to expect a revaluation here, very much depending on the results of the PEA, but if it's done right it could be very strong. So I think there's clear potential value here, and I also think that if AYM can demonstrate the true potential scale of this asset in a PEA, it also becomes of interest to the mid-tier miners/smelting companies, and that could open a lot of windows of opportunity in terms of JV's to progress without further fund raises etc. So yeah I think the PEA should be able to demonstrate a much larger scale project, with potentially outstanding economic outcomes (rather than just the "robust" outcomes of the 2017 study) - and we could well get it in 2 months now, so I think AYM is a better proposition now than it has been for years, hence my opinion/recommendation.

"sorry guys/gals
point taken
anyway,ggp's mcap is almost 900 million,that must be a world first,for an explo comp"

Ever heard of Bre-X? C$6 billion company in 1996, based on a gold deposit in Indonesia that didn't exist. There's a film called "Gold" (2016) which is loosely based on it, might be worth a watch. But if not, just remember, if anyone working for an exploration company you are invested in "jumps" off a helicopter - sell fast.

London has a lot of mining capital listed on it, however it is fairly secondary in the "mining exploration" market. Toronto is the centre for that. There are a number of exploration and development (not in production) mining companies in Toronto right now with market caps in excess of £1 billion. Seabridge Gold (£1 billion) and NovaGold (£3 billion market cap) come to mind, but I'm sure there are more. NovaGold own a 50% share in the Donlin Project, so the market values that project at £6 billion effectively. Ivanhoe Mines is in development stage with copper assets in DRC and PGMs in S.Africa, they are worth £4 billion. Oh and lest we forget, Sirius Minerals was once worth over £1.5 billion on LSE...

Nonetheless, Havieron (GGP) seems to be shaping up as a giant gold deposit. Being 45km from the 20Mtpa processing plant at Telfer is a factor in the value. As soon as Newcrest can get that ore through their processing plant they will. GGP will be left with only 30% of the project after the earn-in is completed, and the market is valueing them at £1 billion, so that means the deposit is worth over £3 billion. Pretty impressive. Also off topic again!!!

Why on earth would the processing plant run on diesel. Of course its going to be connected to the grid. Where are you getting this from, I never said that it wouldn't be. Just like I never said power would be generated from diesel. Diesel will be used mainly in the underground mine to run the trucks, loaders, etc - I was merely pointing out that the cost of diesel to mining operations in the UK will roughly double from 2022 onwards based on the last Budget. Electricity will be the larger energy cost yes. But commercial electricity costs in the UK have steadily risen over the past 10 years on average, maybe there will be a Covid dip now, but it will likely be short lived, as the rise in cost is mainly driven by the increased cost and quantity of renewable energy in the UK electricity mix.

1) This is a total strawman argument, I never said at any point that any "processing" would be diesel powered or that power would be generated from diesel. I merely said that Diesel and Electricity were the main energy inputs into a mining project, and with the loss of the red diesel tax rebate in 2022, and steadily rising electricity costs due mainly to the additional costs of renewable energy, there will be no signficant improvement in the overall energy costs at a mining operation in the UK

2) And then on cut-offs, again this is a total strawman. I said specifically that reducing the cut-off in isolation "will prove disastrous for the economics, unless accompanied by a massive increase in the rate of production and scheduling higher grade ore early." I stick by that, that is an absolute economic fact beyond dispute. If you decrease the grade of the ore, but keep all other variables the same, the mine life will increase but the return on capital measured by IRR and payback will fall.

3) This is the SML board and this is offtopic.

Cheers!

"wres got a blackrock loan m8,on low grade,a lot of inferred and no external BFS. so actually,you can get funded via an internal FID m8"

Nonsense. WRES has a mineral reserve of 30Mt, and that is the basis for the next 10 years of production. Reserves are based ENTIRELY on measured and indicated resources only. The reserves were in place before the BlackRock loan. There is no way you get loans from commercial banks for building projects based solely on inferred resources.

And if you read the relevant announcement; https://wresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20170825-WRES-FID-Report-and-Debt-Funding-Update.pdf

You will also note; "The preparation of the FID report was managed by W Resources Plc and supported by an expert external team of leading industry specialists including Golder Associates Pty Ltd, FF Consultores SL, IDEXMA, ATM and AYMA Mining
Solutions."

So you're talking rubbish again m8!

"and yes,cornishknockers explained the distances apart,for the 3 categories,which ime aware off,
ime also aware of the cost of drilling,$100 to 150 a metre,depending on rock type,location,which of the 4 drill types is used,etc
so ime not sure where you get,an extra 3 mill from,to do extra drilling,to get to indicated"

I said in excess of £2 million. The current drill spacing is approx 100m x 80m, but some in excess of 100m, and to be moved to indicated it would need to be 50m x 50m, rule of thumb for this type of deposit. There are 40 drillholes in the current resource. It would take another 30-40 holes approx to get the required spacing for indicated on the entire deposit. 36 holes average depth 450m = 16.2km. 16.2km x £120/m = £1.94m. Add on assaying and resource modelling costs and your definitely there @ over £2m.

I don't think you'd actually bother bringing the whole deposit to indicated though, just drill the good bits and bring them up, could probably target structures 1, 2, 3 & 9 - which accounts for most the high grade tungsten, and move the bulk of that to indicated for under £1m.

Anyway, Troajan, I honestly don't know why you keep arguing with me... it seems pointless when Im just trying to bring some actual industry knowledge to the discussion here and you just keep shooting it down based on?

"inferred?
the grades are that high m8,why the need for infill drilling.
the average grade is about 50%higher than orm's/thr's/wolfe's
10 times higher than wres
also,the intersections are that narrow,it would be pointless,drilling twice"

This is wrong on so many fronts I dont know where to start.

Firstly, you're comparing a proposed underground operation to openpit. The cost of extracting a tonne of ore from underground at Redmoor will be over 10x the cost of a tonne of ore at La Parilla or Hemerdon. The grades have to be much higher to warrant going underground. If the grades were 0.1% tungsten equivalent at Redmoor, like La Parilla (WRES) - it would be worthless.

Secondly, further confirmation drilling is required to bring the resource (or a substantial part of it to indicated) before anyone will finance the construction of a mine. Do you realise how far apart the drill intercepts are at the moment at Redmoor? In some parts of the resource its probably difficult to be sure neighbouring intercepts are on the same structure, never mind any continuity of grade. Further drilling is an absolute must at some point if the project is to be progressed.

....

I'm talking about diesel for mining equipment, not for power generation.

Of course they will be connected to the grid for electricity, thats an absolute given.

I'm not sure I'd hold up WRES as a relevant example to compare here. Firstly its openpit, secondly its Spain. My direct experience and information is from multiple UK underground operations, and that allows me to tell you that nearly all of the energy used in mining is diesel and electricity. Some natural gas possibly in the processing plant for drying, but unlikely. And then finally, I'm really not sure I'd hold WRES information as gospel, if they knew what they were doing, their processing plant wouldn't be a complete disaster, aka WLFE Mk2.

Shipping costs have fallen, especially during Covid, mainly due to demand-supply, not energy, in fact they've fallen by far more than the energy cost decrease.

And there's no guessing involved, the exact effects of all of these things can be accurately modelled if you have the appropriate costing information, which I do.

Increasing the processing rate means building a larger mill, to handle 3000 tonnes of ore per day, not 1000. By processing more lower grade material, you can make up for the reduction in grade of the ore. A 3000tpd plant will not cost 3x a 1000tpd plant, as lot of the costs are fixed not variable, and the same goes for operating costs, so a 3000tpd will process at £15/tonne instead of £20/tonne for instance.

And no you can't just "increase recovery rates"... that is the amount of zinc or copper in the ore recovered to concentrate. Its determined by the metallurgical recovery factors, which is intrinsic to the type of process used and the nature of the ore... you cant just decrease the grade and expect that to increase. You're likely to lose some recovery on lower grade ore as well, as the concentration factor will be higher. ie. from 5% to 50% zinc is a 10x concentration, whereas 3.3% to 50% would be 15x.

"dont forget,energy costs are astranomical in the mining sector,especially processing/transportation
and they've been almost halved,in the last 3/4 years."

I'm definitely familiar with energy costs in the UK mining sector. Diesel costs in mining won't be a big chunk of the total operating cost, probably about 5%, so it won't make a huge difference. They haven't actually fallen that much over the paste few years, but they could be doubling anyone from April 2022 onwards as a result of the full diesel tax being applied to all sectors bar agriculture and rail. And electricity costs in the UK just keep going up and up, as a result of government policies on renewable energy mainly. So, yeah, there ya go, another fallacy shot down!

"anyway,if theyve lowered the cut off,then they must think it will be,still profitable,else why would they do it."

There's no doubt processing the ore will be profitable, if the operating costs are less than $48/tonne, which is a near certainty, then anything with a value greater than that (post-recovery/smelting charges) - will be profitable. The issue is whether the payback of capital will be quick enough, with these lower value ores taking up processing capacity, to allow the capital to build the project to be obtained. The solution is increasing processing rates.

*Early 20th century until tungsten had any value

I think it'll take a bit more than a "small drilling programme" to upgrade the entire resource to indicated. You're probably looking at 40 or more holes, costing in excess of £2m, at a rough guess. I agree right now that isn't value for money for SML.

I think the first thing I always say about this project, is its 11.7Mt at 0.56% tungsten oxide, 0.16% tin, 0.5% copper. Calling it 1.17% "tin equivalent" is fairly pointless. Why not 3.2% copper equivalent, that sounds better and is more likely to be recognised as a decent grade deposit by the market. The obsession with tin is fairly bizarre, given its the least valuable of the three commodities per tonne of ore in the resource. I'm not saying it would be bad thing to have a tin deposit, but this isn't a tin deposit. The "battery materials" grand vision of SML seems to be distracting them from the reality of what they own - a very high grade and large tungsten deposit, potentially with decent copper/tin byproduct credits.

Secondly, all the comparisons to the old Cornish mines need to be thrown out. Most Cornish mines didn't mine tungsten, because it had no value until the early 19th century, by which time most mines were closed. Certainly tungsten was never mined on this kind of scale, it was just a happy accident when they came across some in the 20th century, bar Castle-an-Dinas which was on a tiny scale. This is a new type of deposit, a primarily tungsten mineralised sheeted vein structure - likely predating the later copper/tin mineralisation around and crossing it. This kind of deposit hasn't been extracted or explored for systematically in Cornwall before, so comparisons to historical mining are flawed.

On that note I'm also not as sure about this "western extension". I mean yeah it might exist, but it might not. Until there's a few drill intercepts through it, its just conjecture. Some old mine workings (Blogsters) on the vicinity of the trend of the deposit don't really prove grade. Until there's some drillholes through it showing mineralisation, its just a concept, not something you can really base a plan around, even speculatively.

Overall when you look at this project, the high grades parts of are all high tungsten intercepts near the margin of the granite contact towards the East of the project. Thats where the value is at the moment, and any mine plan should be based around accessing those parts of the deposit first. Equally any future drilling campaign to increase the confidence of resources or add more resources should focus on the high grade tungsten intercepts and extending those mineralised structures.

They have lowered the cut-off grade to $48/tonne of ore, according to the last AYM Report (half year 2019).

What I said was doing that in isolation, would be disastrous for the economics. It would increase mine life, but make all economic indicators much worse, reducing both payback and project value considerably. Its not about higher prices, its about marginal costs and economies of scale. The current market prices are actually down on the base case price assumptions used in the 2017 Scoping Study. You have to consider that although copper/gold/silver are higher than the base case in 2017, both zinc and lead are down - and zinc/lead are the primary revenue source, especially in the early mine life, but also making up around half the revenues over the life of mine.

I'll be rerunning my models in the coming days on higher production rates, but I am confident the only way lower cut-off will result in better economic outcomes is combining it with earlier access to the Engine Zone ore - and much higher production rates. At least 2000tpd but probably 3000tpd will work best. In that case we are looking at Capital costs of £60-80 million, so doubling the capital cost, maybe more. Also a revision to the planning permission, but thats not necessarily a problem. It definitely looks possible from my early stage modelling that this strategy, in combination with rescheduling, could result in improved economics, possibly transformative.

So you've linked to the Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Corporation there... which owns a 7% royalty and 15% equity in the IOC (Iron Ore Company of Canada). A huge corporation, currently majority owned by Rio Tinto, and worth around $10 billion. It produces 50 million tonnes of raw iron ore, producing 20 million tonnes of iron ore concentrate per annum, all shipped through a dedicated and owned 420km railway (QNS&L) and port facilities.

In comparison.... Anglesey's "Labrador Iron Mines Holdings Ltd" is considerably less valuable, currently the market capital of the holding company is $1m. Nothing has been produced since 2013, following a 2 year campaign which lost a load of money and almost bankrupted the company, ever since the assets have been on care & maintenance. The assets are high cost producers, the infrastructure is mainly non-owned, and what they do own is crumbling and run down. Some of the assets were sold post 2013, and of the remaining assets LIMH now only own 51%, because the other 49% was given to the creditors as part of the post-2013 restructuring. So AYM own 12% of 51% of the "Labrador Iron Mines Ltd", not the Iron Ore Company of Canada. Here's their actual website; http://www.labradorironmines.ca/

I'd imagine not given there are no profits as none of the iron ore assets are operational. Thanks for your input though.

Labrador is low capital but high operating costs, we've seen already that this makes it very vulnerable to price fluctuations and the last restart was a total disaster which has destroyed the credibility of the asset to the market. Does it have any value, Im honestly not sure. All I do know is that AYM could have sold their stake in Labrador when it was worth a small fortune, and failed to do so (conflict of interests from the BoD). Today its more or less worthless, even in the present higher iron ore pricing environment. The key is whether that pricing environment will be sustained, the market obviously isnt sure about that at all. LIM's total market capital is worth under £1m, so the market thinks its worthless. I saw some people here got excited by it going up by 30% or whatever, little do they realise that is just the spread on those shares. May as well hold onto it for now and hope iron ore prices remain $120+ for the next year, and perhaps by then the market will re-evaluate it and decide its not worthless, and AYM might get something for its 12% stake. Highly speculative but not impossible.

Meanwhile Grangesberg is immensely high capital... in excess of $500m to develop. Grangesberg actually had a PFS published on it in 2012, before AYM bought into the project. The IRR (pre-tax) was quite reasonable, but there was no mention of payback, and the underlying assumptions in pricing were not published. No mine plan schedule to optimise there, as the orebody grade is fairly homogenous. On paper this project is more advanced than Parys Mtn as it has a PFS and a mineral reserve was declared in that. However, the actual PFS has never been publicly published beyond a summarising Press Release from what I can see, and it does not stipulate what iron ore pricing assumptions were used - which means its more or less impossible to ascertain what value if any Grangesberg has in the present market. One would assume that if the PFS showed any real value, it would not have been kept under wraps. Given the capital costs to develop are absolutely huge, and AYM has done absolutely no work on the asset since acquiring it, letting its option to buy a majority stake expire, so it now only has a right of first refusal... I'd suggest again this asset is probably has no value. We don't know the operating costs because they have not made the PFS public, but the capital costs per tonne of additional iron ore concentrate capacity are very high compared to most iron ore projects on the market, so its probably a non-starter. And it doesn't really have enough scale anyway, it would be less than 10% of LKABs (Swedish state iron mining company) current production. The only way this will gain any value is if LKAB decide they want it to supplement their future optionality, and even then I doubt they will pay that much for it.

If we look at the predictions I've made in the past, they were actually on the optimistic side of the actual results, for instance in relation to the 2017 Scoping Study. The real chasm is between some of the ludicrous predictions made by investors/rampers here and the reality. I do not believe for a second the Parys Mtn project is doomed. I am fairly confident it can be made to work, but that doesn't mean it will in the near future.

I've called it a "marginal" project in the past, that only works in a higher base metal pricing environment - but in that respect I am talking in relation to payback of capital, not operating costs. That is a crucial distinction, which is then relevant to appraising the iron ore projects. I am not saying higher metal prices are required for the cashflow of the project to be positive, the operating costs are lower than the revenues even at metal prices well below current levels. That isn't the issue - the issue is the payback of the initial capital costs. That is what is blocking financing. You don't just need to make an operating profit to finance a mine, you need to make a massive operating profit, especially in the early years - and even at lower metal prices, which then gives the financiers confidence they will get their money (and interest) back no matter what difficulties - internal (technical, mining, processing risks) or external (metal pricing, exchange rates, etc) are encountered. So all the people saying we need to stop doing studies and just "get on with it" - are missing the point entirely. There will be no mine until AYM can demonstrate to potential financiers that the payback of capital is completely robust under all scenarios. What AYM can do to change this is... either discover more high grade ore that they can bring into the mine plan early on (drilling exploration) or reschedule the mine plan so the high grade ore is extracted earlier (optimisation study). They should also really be looking at flotation testwork to increase the smelter payment terms for the concentrates.

The QME study was originally tasked with optimising the plan by scheduling the high grade ore first. But they have decided also to decrease the cut-off grade, which on the face of it totally counter-intuitive. If you decrease the cut-off, it means mining lower grade ore. That reduces payback, in isolation. So all this talk of "10 million tonnes woah isn't that amazing" is utter stupidity. Its 10 million tonnes of lower grade ore, which will prove disastrous for the economics, unless accompanied by a massive increase in the rate of production and scheduling higher grade ore early. I'd expect the production rate must double to at least 2000tpd to make this plan work, maybe 2500tpd. That doesn't mean you get double the metal production by the way! It does mean you need to amend the planning permission. Will it work? We will see if the Report ever comes out.

As for the iron ore projects...

As for that sustainability report from Horizonte Minerals, if a load of fancy pictures and graphics is what it takes to convince you of something then its fantastic. But it's practically all about how much $$$$ they are splashing locally. There's no calculation of the carbon footprint of the nickel, and no comparison to other mines in the rest of the world - probably because openpit nickel laterites are well known to be absolutely terrible in that respect. It just says; "The GHG emission forecast is under review and we look forward to providing more information in future." I bet they do. And no one cares anyway it's all just a smokescreen of bs to keep people happy, the project will be developed if the $ numbers add up, not based on "sustainability". As for transport, it even says in the report...

"The ferronickel product will be transported by road to the port of Vila do Conde in the north of the State for sale to overseas customers."

The port is 1500km away. So they are transporting 50kt of ferronickel per year by road over 1500km across Brazil. Thats the same volume and further than driving the concentrates direct from Parys Mtn to most smelters in mainland Europe (Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany, etc). Does somewhat undermine your argument.

Oh and finally... the biggest problem AYM will likely have is the permitting (of any port) for handling the concentrates, particularly lead concentrate which as a dry bulk is a bit of a nightmare for port handling frankly due to dust emissions. That could prove very challenging. One solution would be to offtake concentrates to Boliden, take it by (sheeted) truck to Holyhead, and then on the RoRo ferry to the port of Dublin. The port of Dublin handles zinc and lead concentrates from Tara (over 250kt per year) and has the specialist equipment to do it. 5 million tonnes of freight moving on trucks from Dublin to Holyhead (or vice-versa) every year, this would be 0.3% of that. It would certainly be the lowest capital cost option and wouldn't require permits. A small ship loader and warehouse at Port Penryhn would be the second cheapest option. I don't see how using the huge jetty at Holyhead and fitting that with new equipment could possibly be made to pay for these volumes.

pickedpeck - I'm not sure you appreciate the nuances of the transportation (or mining) market. This is a high value metal concentrate that will be produced in tiny volumes, not a low value bulk commodity. The metal concentrates will be worth more than £800/tonne, so the cost of moving it around by road, practically wherever you want in Wales, would be a tiny % of its value. I work for a company that moves around millions of tonnes of lower value dry bulks by road and rail in the UK, sometimes over 100 miles, so I'm not speculating here. A typical modern mid-sized quarry will move 600kt-1500kt or so of aggregate by road. Only the larger quarries are normally rail connected. At Parys Mtn, we're talking about 50kt of high value metal concentrates. Not millions of tonnes of low value aggregates which is absolutely routine in all local areas. The transportation by road simply is not the "sustainability issue" you are making it out to be.

And as for all this stuff about sustainability and the IFC and World Bank. The IFC and World Bank are going to have absolutely nothing to do with the financing of this project (should it ever occur). It'll be financed by a base metal commodity trader, an integrated mining-smelting company, or most likely private equity and specialist mining financiers - no mainstream commercial banks will ever touch this project with a bargepole no matter what QME can do to the economics I'm afraid.

And as for Holyhead, deepwater port on the doorstep, it sounds great doesn't it. But in practise, its probably completely irrelevant. You have to appreciate the practicalities and scale of this project (which you obviously don't). Parys Mtn will produce not one, but three metal concentrates (containing precious metal byproduct credits). The largest by volume will be zinc conc, and copper/lead will be very roughly around half of that each. The jetty at Holyhead was for offloading large quantities of dry bulks for the aluminium factory, and its currently used for cruise ships and "projects" (read oil/gas/wind turbine ships) - no dry bulk has been exported from Holyhead for over 10 years. And its just completely the wrong scale anyway, its designed to dock 25-30kt ships. Think about the fact this would be producing lets say 30kt of zinc concentrate, 15kt of copper conc, and 15kt of lead conc per year. Those concentrates all have to go to different smelters, so they cant go on the same ship. You'd only have 1 ship worth a year of zinc conc, and 1 ship every 2 years of copper/lead conc. And you'd need huge undercover stock grounds at Holyhead. What would that do to your cashflow? Completely unworkable. Much better to take the metal concentrates to Port Penrhyn (Bangor) which is the same distance from Parys Mtn, and put it on 2-3kt coastal ships (mainly destined for Europe). One boat every 2-3 weeks, much more workable.