Member Info for southwesterner

It's interesting the original "Roadmap update" post has 28 recommendations, and bamps21 reply "I hope you don't mind me being critical but your timelines are too optimistic ." - has only 4. It seems there is strong propensity for people to recommend what they want to hear, rather than what is true?

Bamps21 is right, there is no way on earth that in Q1/22 production will be commencing @ the main ore body at a rate of 5-6Mt/year. That is absolute fantasy. We're looking at a vertical depth of around 420 metres to the top of the orebody. Development rates may be possible at 250-350m/month depending on strata conditions, but you have to take account of the fact not all development is straight line, you have to put in mucking bays and other such ancillary works. I'd be surprised if they put in a decline at more than 1:8 average considering this is to be the main haulage route for production, and bends/corners usually at less gradient, so overall you are looking at > 4500m of development (incl. mucking bays, ancillary etc) to the top of the orebody, which @250m/month is 18 months, or 13 months @ 350m/month. Either way it brings us well into Q2-3 2022 to reach the orebody and start development on it, which is not inconsistent with what Newcrest have said thus far. At that point, as I've said all along the initial extraction will be SLOS of the upper crescent zone which is high grade, probably at a 2-4Mtpa rate, but to reach full production will take at least 8-12 months of stope and infrastructure development, so it will be well into 2023 before full stoping production is reached. Meanwhile if you wanted a SLC, you are looking at an additional 2 years of development.

Also, a bit of a technical digression. There is some talk about single and double "drill road-header". There is obviously a degree of confusion here. Roadheaders and drill rigs are two completely different methodologies for tunnelling. A roadheader is a machine which uses a rotating picks in a cutting head to "scrape" the rock and then loads it into trucks behind, in what is more or less a continuous mining process. Drill rigs (or tunnelling jumbos) - drill holes in the face and these are then charged with explosives, in a more cyclical process. In Australia, no one has used a roadheader for decline development for many, many years - its all done with jumbos/drill rigs. This is partly because of the limitations of how hard a rock roadheaders can cut, but design improvements over recent years have increased their ability to cut up to 140MPa strength rock. So it will be very interesting if they do decide to use roadheaders for the decline at all. I've got experience with both methods, but like I said Australian decline contractors are very drill and blast based. Barrick Gold have had some success in decline development in Nevada using roadheaders though in recent years, so it can work.

Back up to 26c or 15.2p in Canada, even with a consolidation in copper/tin prices...

May 10th even... before someone spots that and starts another ridiculous conspiracy.

"I saw your reply Tommy. However, it clearly states that one director has sold the 500k shares he bought in March, yet the others have more or less doubled their stakes. I did read it originally as wholesale selling, but items 2, 3, 4, clearly mention acquisition of shares and growth of holding."

I would honestly be amazed that anyone could possibly genuinely draw this conclusion from this. The RNS was absolutely crystal clear. It spelled out the numbers of shares sold per Director and the sale price (4.18p), and then explained that "All the shares which were sold were issued in March 2021 following the exercise of share options". The numbers of shares sold correlate exactly with the number issued, and the number remaining afterwards (200k for Bill H) correlates exactly with the holding value in the last annual report.

The people going down to the notification tables, which were obviously copied and pasted with box 4b not changed correctly from the March RNS - and trying to use that to argue that Directors have been accumulating shares, are being absurd, and I would really question the judgement of anyone who seriously thinks that scenario is plausible.

The Directors issued themselves shares on March 16th at 2p, and sold them on May 18th for 4.18p. Anyone who thinks otherwise at this point is either being deliberately obtuse... perhaps thinking that denying the obvious will help the damage control, or must be more than a bit dense.

Personally, as I've explained, I don't have a problem with the share issue and sale, because this has given the Directors a bit of salary, without depleting AYM's limited cash reserves. What I have a problem with is the general lack of action in terms of progressing projects.

Actually, thinking about it again, because it raised £70k of new capital, but the Directors made a £60k take on it (equivalent of salary) the net cash improvement - in comparison to paying the Directors in cash, to the group, is £130k, not £200k. Still, same principle.

I think some people here are really making a mountain out of a molehill. One could even say... a copper mountain...

Its very simple, these shares were issued on 16th March 2021, for 2p. And then they were sold on 10th May 2021, for 4.18p. The RNS's were very clear about that; https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/AYM/issue-of-shares-and-directorpdmr-shareholding-rali2knxn2oh87p.html

The number of shares sold corresponds exactly with the number of options exercised on March 16th, and indeed the RNS explicitely says "All the shares which were sold were issued in March 2021 following the exercise of share options by directors". It couldn't be any clearer, yet people are coming up with all these longwinded theories that contradict this very simple statement.

The reality, in all likelihood, is simply that when the notification boxes were being filled out, they copied and pasted from the March RNS, editing the first 4b box to "Sale of ordinary shares" for John Kearney, but forgetting to change the next three.

As for the motivation of the Directors, if you read the Annual Report, they say renumeration may be given in the form of equity options rather than cash. The 2.18p difference between exercise price and sale price, is net to the Directors, and equivalent to salary.

This saves valuable cash for the company, because it not only raised £70k for the coffers when the options were exercised, but it has also saved the equivalent of paying out £130k in wages, thus saving £200k of cash for the group effectively. Very sensible.

I agree with that crooner. And it would be a sensible move overall for the environment etc. But it will come at a significant capital cost, and so it would not be advantageous to AYM to do, unless they got a grant for it. I've got capital costings for similar rail loading sidings on my desk, and I've also got truck costings, I work for a company that moves around a lot of material, so I'm very familiar with all these numbers. In this case, from a financial point of view, you'd go for the trucks if you could, unless you got a grant for a rail facility.

Either way, it simply isn't going to make a material difference to the economics of the mine, which are primarily driven by the metal pricing environment, the mining strategy and milling performance. Whether it costs £5 a tonne or £20 a tonne, to move the concentrates to port, is simply irrelevant in the grand scheme of the project economics. I've said this before, you'd truck the concentrates to Liverpool if you needed to and it wouldn't make much difference. And indeed, as I've also explained, you might have to, as Holyhead does not currently have the facilities to deal with dry bulk exports (aluminium smelter only imported bauxite - an unloading facility is very different to a loading one). As it's cheaper to use existing infrastructure wherever possible, it might make more sense to send it further afield than build new, for these low volumes.

Anyway the biggest project variable by far is metal pricing. That is something AYM have no control over but is looking increasingly favourable as copper approaches its all time record, zinc/lead also moving up, and silver/gold holding up well.

This kind of project is increasingly in demand, there aren't many undeveloped VMS deposits like Parys Mtn with good grades and near to existing infrastructure that don't have some kind of other locational or technical critical flaw. If we look back to some of the better projects I was benchmarking Parys Mtn against a year or so ago, for instance Foran Mining in SK, Canada - and Venturex Resources in WA, Aus - they're both up about 10x compared to a year ago now, and well on the road to development, with new management teams, and $200-250m market valuations, as opposed to $20-25m a year ago. AYM has moved little in comparison, but it shows the potential. The market is getting more interested in this kind of project now in a way that hasn't been the case for several years.

That said, now we're up to a 3000tpd mill potentially, it's a fair bit of concentrate, probably around 200-250tpd - a good bit more than a couple of loads a day anyway, probably up to 10 loads per day. Which still isn't much, its a fraction of your average quarry operation. So the railway could take some trucks off the road, but I think from a cost point of view it'd be preferable to go by road, unless there was a grant available for rail facilities.

Looking good this morning, bid at 10p... I would get in at these prices while you still can...

Tin and copper prices are both closing in on ALL TIME HIGHS. Tin (cash) is $32k/t now, the all time high was $33k/t in April 2011. Copper at $9.9k/tonne, the all time high also being in April 2011, at $10.7k/tonne.

We have lots of (high grade) tin resources at Crofty which certainly should come into play at $30k/tonne + prices, and may also have high grade copper & tin mineralisation at United Downs pending the results of the drilling program. So as I've said all along, there are two plays here, the latter of which we will find out more fairly imminently.

Some more articles for your perusal;

https://moneyweek.com/investments/commodities/industrial-metals/603055/metals-mining-stocks-digital-economy
https://www.mining.com/commodities-of-the-future-most-linked-to-green-and-digital-transitions-report/
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/tin--the-forgotten-foot-soldier-of-the-energy-transition/

Now, there is no need to be sarky!

I'm just clarifying there are no primary smelters for those metals in the UK (and probably the last one to close was Avonmouth in 2004, which incidentally is where the zinc/lead concentrates were sent from the Parys Mtn pilot plant in the early 90s), that your link to aditnow refers to historic smelters most of which closed in the 19th century, and that the rail link will have a negligible impact on the viability of the operation. You can have whatever thoughts you want, and ascribe whatever value to mine you want - I'm just telling you the facts. Feel free to take them or leave them!

The rail line is more or less completely irrelevant to the project. It does AYM no harm, but probably wouldn't normally be used for the volumes and destinations we're looking at. It would be a marginal decision in terms of cost savings and a loading/unloading facility would be a substantial capital cost, so would likely need a grant to even be worth considering.

Regarding smelters, are you joking or genuinely stuck in the 19th century?... the UK has minimal heavy industrial and raw material processing capacity today, there isn't a single zinc, copper or primary lead smelter left in the whole UK, nevermind in South Wales - that's a historical list. All of these concentrates will be exported, some to Europe, some further afield.

Up another 7.5% close at 21.5 cents (12.6p) on TSX today...

Tin price (cash) up 10% today, closed at over $30k/tonne on LME.

CUSN closed up 15% today on the TSX, now at 19.5 cents (11.3p).

I would guess they should be intersecting the target zone imminently, within the next few days, and maybe we will get some pictures of the drill core if we are lucky! The semi-massive sulphide targeted will be visually very apparent, so it should be pretty clear from just looking at the drill core if the target lode is present or not. If there is a lot of core with visible sulphides, its highly likely they have hit high grade copper again. Full assays will require core logging and assays, and will likely take a few weeks to come through, I wouldn't expect full assay data for the first hole until June.

The fall here was overdone, the assets are worth 4p even just in a fire sale. It would be good of course to hear something about what is next with Parys Mountain though. But yeah this was never worth 10p without a credible plan to move it forwards, equally its not under 4p. Where are all the crazy "tenbag" rampers now that were hear a few months ago saying 90p here we come - and that I was a paid deramper etc? They didn't understand what they bought, they were out for a quick buck, they were wrong, have abandoned ship, sold - and thats part of why this has gone down so much. Oversold.

As LONGWAIT aptly summed up; "The financial markets behave like manic depressives. That's why so many people buy as the top and sell at the bottom."

But yeah this is worth 5-10p for sure currently, so I'm back in at the sub 4p prices. Quality assets in the current market. LIM worth something now clearly, a few million $ for our stake for sure. Grangesberg probably a pipe dream due to excessive Capex, but who knows. Parys Mtn potentially worth quite a lot now. Look at base metal prices in GBP, things have never been better than they are now.

Great news that this is underway. Given the sulphides are very visible in the core, hopefully they will post photos of the drill cores when they come out, and we will have an idea pretty quickly whether they have found the continuation of the lode. Assays will take a few weeks though of course.

Copper and tin prices in GBP very strong, couldn't be a better time to find a copper-tin deposit in the UK!

"I am mindful that the company needs either more diluting share issues or Juno to continue with loans - (both may continue or not) to remain afloat Which is why I think an income stream would be a massive comfort. I accept that more reports showing increased resources would be ideal- but in a nutshell are you saying that off the reports todate you don't consider a sale of Parys or financeable as it stands."

Realistically, there is no doubt whatsoever that Parys is not financeable right now based on existing work to date. Its not a matter of opinion, no one that knows *anything* about the mining industry could possibly (and honestly) claim it is in a position to be financed right now. That said, it is an advanced project, it has demonstrated broadly positive outcomes in a range of scenarios, and it has significant exploration potential on top of that. But no one is going to put this into production based on the current uncertainties - some processing testwork done 30+ years ago, and about half the resource used in the PEA is inferred for a start, thats a complete non-starter for financing.

"Although that being the case (accepting I have little knowledge on these matters) i must admit I don't understand why company has commissioned sequence of reports each pointing that there may be more inferred resources rather than commission a make or break survey."

Truth is these reports have cost next to nothing in the grand scheme of things, and to an extent are just a way of passing the time and making it look like something is going on. That said, they have successfully demonstrated the project conceptually at the larger scale, so it has added some value. But overall, if you look at spend over the past few years, it has been negligible. These reports aren't costly, it is extremely small costs involved. The underlying resource model hasn't actually changed since 2012, they have just demonstrated the project can be mined at a larger scale with a lower cut-off grade, thus increasing the resource available for mining. Generally this "sequence of reports" has been a positive exercise in proving the potential of the project, but whilst they have improved the scale and NPV of the project, the critical limiting factors remain that the payback/IRR metrics are relatively weak - and this may need to improved before they will be able to access the required finance from the market to fund a full Feasibility Study. That will involve both further drilling and other technical studies and will cost £millions, likely £2-3m at least. This is nothing new, I've been saying this for several years, and nothing will ever change these fundamental facts.

*any intersection of the "new lode" around 001 may be barren or lower grade

"It looks like a CT14 they have on site, which is good for depths well in excess of 1250m." - yeah that'll do it then, cheers.

"With reference to GWDD-01, its quite possible that it missed the vein altogether and went down the hanging wall, its also possible there is no continuous structure. Its going to be interesting to see the rests for sure."

I understand the idea that 001 missed to the south of the "new lode", and thats perfectly plausible, but my point is there were several deeper high grade intersections in GWDD-002 in addition to the new structure, whereas GWDD-001 had only one intersection of fairly poor grade even though it wouldn't have missed those deeper structures as well. This is indicative that the siting of GWDD-002 to the west could be more favourable in relation to mineralisation controls throughout the sequence of veins intersected, so any intersection of the "new lode" around 002 may be barren or lower grade. I suppose all will become clear over the coming months...

honestbob; "I think worth mentioning, as you perhaps aware, the company has a history of reports showing more resources over the years. Each expensive and followed usually by a price increase which seeps away, as we have seen twice recently. Rather than have yet another one (which might not have any better results) do you not think energies and money would be better spent getting into production and some cash generated."

No, basically this isn't how the mining industry works today, except in exceptional circumstances where the ore is readily accessible and there is existing processing capacity nearby. Modern mining projects are so capital intensive, with so many fixed costs in building a processing plant of any size, that you need scale. And thus you need large resources, and you need detailed engineering and geological understanding. That is how you add value in junior mining industry, by building a project that is financially credible and incrementally mitigating risks. The days of "getting into production" on a small scale and expanding based on cashflow are long over, it will never happen. And its hard to pitch Parys Mountain for financing when it has so little spent on it in the past 30 years, and so much of the work that was done is so dated.

Whilst you may feel that Parys Mountain has had a lot of time and money spent on it over the years, the reality couldn't be further from the truth if you compare this project to its peers. Parys Mountain has had no exploration drilling done on it since 2005-2008, and even then this was a fairly limited programme, looking mainly at the near surface White Rock Zone. The reality is the scale of resources at Parys Mountain are much larger than this as seen from the recent PEA the operational capacity of the project has been increased 6x since the first scoping study in 2007. The only way for the potential to be realised is a much greater investment in exploration to realise the potential of the deposit and expand the zones delineated and the confidence.

In particular the higher grade deposits of the Deeper Engine zone and Garth Daniel zone, constitute a lot of the project value in the PEA, but they are all inferred resources, so it will very likely be necessary to increase the confidence of these, and any stepout drilling to expand them will also increase value significantly. The Northern Copper zone is also a very credible exploration target for increasing confidence and scale in the current copper focussed market.

I know its not what long suffering shareholders will want to hear, but this is the truth. There is no get-rich-quick scheme here, you will have to sink more capital into this to realise any value. If AYM don't believe in the project, their best option is to sell it or JV it with someone who does want to spend money on it, of which there must be options out there because this is a quality asset.