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It was a good interview. Colin had the combination of being both very positive and yet cautious - or maybe guarded is a better word. He seems to have reached the stage where he no longer needs to be a salesman because he knows they have something special, and he also doesn't want to give potential buyers any more public information than necessary.
So after that comment I made a start on adopting Kipling. Only halfway through, but meetings now so I will try to finish later :) I think I might call this one 'If Colin'
If you can keep your stock when all about you
Are selling theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their selling too;
If you can drill and not be tired by drilling
Or being lied about, just deal in facts,
Or being diluted, don’t give way to raises
And yet don’t spend too much, nor speak to Zak:
If you can dream — but not in an RNS;
If you can think—and stop forecasting gains;
If you can meet with Phil and Kevin
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the assays you released
Twisted by trolls to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and insist that Ascot rules!
>> Vast cough cough
@Lucky520 At least you were lucky enough not to be invested in Vast over the same period. I first invested in Dec 2020 and I fortunate to be in overall profit - although less than I hoped by now. However, if I had bought Vast instead in Dec 2020, I would be down 93% by now.
We may have our frustrations at XTR, but I would say that disappointment is in terms of results vs the expectations that were set rather than in absolute terms. We have very good results, just not as amazing as we hoped (yet!)
Consider the Road Not Taken :)
>> if Colin feels the need to eat humble pie because we might have hit the "bonanza" then surely that is a positive or am I missing something
The most positive spin you could put on the interview is that Colin is downplaying RC because XTR want to understand a lot more about Ascot before AA get involved. However, I think iWantThatOne might be on the right track. There was no real need to even talk about RC in an interview about Ascot - he just seem to meander on to RC while trying to think of something to say :)
To be fair to Gixxer, he has been here a long time and suffered quite a few frustrations, so his response is understandable.
I was also disappointed in the 20y x 20m comment, although now you mentioned it, he may well have pulled that previously used phrase out of the air. CB definitely didn't seem himself. He seemed to wander from topic to topic without a clear plan, until about 5m 20s when Zak intervened to focus him a little. It was better after that point. So given how distracted he seems, we should probably postpone judgement on RC size until we get clarity in an RNS.
However, when I stand back and look at the assets, it is still a very good place to be. Short-term frustrations at the lack of clarity and Colin's inconsistent communication should not obscure the actual assets, as laid out in about 100 RNS. Whether we get 2mt from RC, or RC and Ascot combined, or even other prospects, there is plainly multiple porphyries in a great location. Also, you could justify the current market cap on Manica alone once production finally starts.
>> I can't speak for others but one of my frustrations is a lack of clarity.
Yes, I think we can all agree om that. It would be great to get a clear statement on all projects, in an RNS not an interview, with current status and future plans for everything. Similar to the annual report.
Yes, I agree. I think the 30m of almost 1g/t Gold will reset the planning at XTR. If Ascot does have the higher grade crown they are searching for, then it makes a very large difference to the final sale price. It is definitely worth finding out what is down there before making any decisions.
I think Colin needs to state that explicitly, which he will probably do in an interview. The May/June date was in interviews, not an RNS, so an interview seems the right place to update everyone.
As VAST posters seems to be trying to disrupt the board here, I made a more productive post on VAST explaining the benefits of XTR. No de-ramping of VAST, just an explanation of the route to monetization for XTR.
>> 900m (we know we have 900) X 200m X 200m (we know it's not a cuboid but my maths doesn't stretch as far as working out the tonnage of an aubergine or a cathedral) X 2.7 X 0.015
0.15% isn't the average - its the cutoff. All ore with At LEAST 0.15% would be included. The average of all ore above 0.15% would be at least 0.25% and probably 0.3% or higher
I think CB mentioned in one of his interviews that 'Decision to Mine' isn't just something they state, but rather the creation of an NPV model that demonstrates a profitable mine.
Having that alongside the 2mt makes the case a lot more compelling.
The share price weakness isn't due to a sell-off. Today so far, there is more buying than selling but the MMs won't move the price. For example, since 9.14am there has been 1.2m in buys and 134k in sells. Ask over that period moved from 4.625p to 4.645p :)
However, over past days the Bid has been falling with minimal resistance and low volume. Its just MM games, but still annoying.
>> Good post Steve, but shouldn't we also consider the possibility hat AA may not want to buy at all at the probable asking price?
Yes, that is a possibility. There are other more suitable candidates with nearby infrastructure who may be interested. The good thing about the AA buyout clause is that it prevents those other candidates getting a cheap entry before we have proved up the resource.
I am probably going to get accused of being over-positive here, but I am going to put forward a theory for discussion or derision :)
1) CB is normally very enthusiastic and keen to talk
2) He must be aware of the drifting share price and is most likely aware an interview would help
3) He is doing interviews for his other companies
4) Ergo, he either doesn't want to do an XTR interview for some reason or he doesn't believe it matters at the moment.
5) He was very specific and consistent in his view on potential deal timescales (although we know he is always optimistic)
6) Given his consistent line on 2mt being comfortably achievable, he would lose all credibility if that wasn't true.
We have always assumed that CB had the power to decide when to trigger the 2mt, probably by issuing a new JORC. However, we don't know the detail of the actual contract. For once, lets look at this from the perspective of AA. You are very aware of what is happening with XTR, but until the 2mt is 'announced' you can't do anything. However, you also would not want XTR to keep building up that resource beyond that point before valuation, especially if XTR geos were already aware they were past 2mt and were not saying anything. In fact, you might view holding back that information as being against the contract, depending on the terms.
Therefore, AA will want to begin negotiations as soon as there is reasonable evidence of 2mt, regardless of any official JORC, because they want the valuation to be based on the lowest qualifying amount of resource. So maybe AA are pushing CB to acknowledge when he has roughly 2mt based on the modelling by the XTR geos. Or, alternatively, there is an agreement in place to value the resource at a certain point in time, allowing for some limited drilling of Ascot, which is why CB was so specific about the AA deal timing. It would also explain why CB has stated they would go to AA as soon as 2mt was met, rather than continuing to drill.
If the above, or something on those lines, is true, then CB would not care about the share price because the share price would be irrelevant for valuation purposes. In that case, he wouldn't bother giving interviews to support the share price and he wouldn't bother with minor RNS either. He will be focused soley on sorting out the deal because that is where the money is.
I'm extrapolating a long way based on several assumptions, but I thought it was worth sharing :)
JoseMaria was sold in December with a 0.15% cut-off for $485m. They are above 12,000 ft in the Andes in Argentina (so the workers will need to acclimatize and live there), in a seismically active area with an average temperature below freezing, seven hours from the nearest town. Also not the ideal jurisdiction.
If that can work with a 0.15% cut-off, it seems likely that an open pit 150km from Sydney in an easily accessible area with existing infrastructure and a pleasant climate would probably be OK too.
Volume for the last 9 days (all down or level) was as follows (and that includes buying as well):
2.1m
1.6m
1.1m
2.2m
0.5m
2.6m
2.4m
1.7m
0.8m (today so far)
That is 15m in total trades. Even if we assume 2/3rd of that is sells, which is pessimistic, then the total sells would be 10m, or about 1.2% of total shares in issue. Hardly a significant sell-off, yet the share price has dropped about 15% in that period. Unfortunately, the MMs seem to be taking the opportunity to take the price down with minimal resistance.
This is the time when being well-researched is important. Otherwise, the falling share price and some opportunistic trolls and de-rampers are going to spread fear.