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Since the RNS stated that Yanfolila is operating within guidance of 75000 -> 85000, is it fair to assume that Q1 should be at least a minimum of 75000 / 4 = 18,750 ozs of gold. I know HUM haven't been 100% transparent with things to date but even they couldn't justify anything less with that statement right? What are other peoples views on this?
The interesting bit for me was "Hummingbird has build a team of underground mining specialist who are developing the mine and will operate KEUG once development is complete". is this a change in strategy and it will be HUM operating the mine and not a contractor?
I'm a bit confused to be honest with how can the processing plant be operating at 100% name plate capacity if Corica hasn't been achieving sufficient mining volume to feed the plant. Dan has said on a number of occasions that the processing plant is operating at 110% capacity in interviews so how can this be possible? I'm a bit confused on how this can be. Any ideas what I am missing?
I know what you mean and I feel the same. The only silver lining that gives me some comfort is that if there was a significant problem they would have had to inform the market. They released a twitter video a month ago which was only a few weeks before the interims saying everything on track. And they have had another $20m of finance from Corus and they would t have done that without good due diligence and to be confident that they will not go bust!
For me they need to report that Karoussa is close to being at 100% throughput albeit with low grade ore being processed and some kind of indication of when high grade ore is expected. I would also want to see close to 5000 Ozs having been poured at Karoussa in Q3. I would want to see around 20kOz at least expected for this year. Indication that Karoussa will be cash flow neutral at worst case for Q4 is required.
Yan - I am expecting a lower output this quarter but I would not hope it to be closer to 15k than 20k. They are moving to operate underground at KE and also moving to a new overground mine at SE I believe (may have got that wrong). It feels like they are opening three mines all at the same time which is really bad management in my opinion. I want to see confirmation that KE underground will be open in Q4 and the new open mine pit is fully up and running. I am expecting a short term hiccup at Yan but I would want to see confirmation that we are through that now and Q4 will be back to normal.
We know that Karoussa is a 1M tonne PA plant which on full scale operation is about 80kOz per month. From Q2 trading update we know that Karoussa had 120,000 tonnes or ORE on the ROM pad. It was also said that this ore was "of initial low grade material from the mining of the top layer at the key KoeKoe open pit." Generally in gold mining I think low grade is deemed to below 1g per tonne. We know that at the time of release of the Q2 figures the processing plant was at circa 68% availability. So even if we assume that the mine operated on average of 34% availability in July, 80 % availability in August and 100% availability in September (which I think are high assumptions) then that would equate to 80kT x 0.34 = 27kT (July), 80kT x 0.8 = 64kT (August) and 80kT (September) at a grade of just 1g per tonne that would equate to 950 Oz in July, 2200 Oz in August and 2800 Oz in September.
I'm not saying that that is what they company have achieved but it does give an upper bound expectation in my view. Also note that there will be a few weeks between gold pour and gold sold so it is probably reasonable to assume that the 1000 Oz sold had been poured by early Sep. According to my numbers above the max that could have been expected might have only been circa 3200 Oz any way. So perhaps not as bad as I had first thought, especially if you factor a slightly poorer grade than 1g per tonne and slightly lower availability numbers.
Thanks BB2 - Tom said to me last meeting that the KE deposit will be mined out by end of Q2 so to be fair to them they are doing what they said they would do which is good. Q3 and Q4 at YAN will be interesting and hopefully they can maintain profitability.
Appreciate your posts. Nice to have some decent chat and posts about the company as opposed to some other dross that you get posted on here. Many thanks for your contributions.
Hi BB2 - at the AGM was anything mentioned about the future strategy for YAN? The last general meeting I went to, Dan talked about moving the strategy for the mine to be a smaller mine but mostly underground as opposed to augmenting the open mine with under ground ore. But in the news article yesterday it is mentioned that "Sanioumale East ("SE") village resettlement programme progressing ahead of plan, allowing mining to commence at the SE deposit, with expectations of increasing ore to mill sourced from the SE deposit in H2-2023." So I just wondered whether the forwards strategy is reverting back to a larger open mine with underground augmenting the ore?
Hi BB2, I can’t make the AGM tomorrow unfortunately. Would have been nice to have made one of these meetings where the discussion was positive for once. Would appreciate a short summary if you get the chance.
The Q1 update explains all regarding what is left to pay and when. I read it as $44m to be paid in Q2 and Q3. They have $7.9m cash, $5.6m gold, and $15m of debt they can call down as of end of Q1. So they just need $15.5m from operational cashflows for Q2 and Q3?
· Net debt position c.US$110.8 million end of Q1 2023 (c.US$105.2 million including gold inventory value) consisting of:
o Gross debt of c.US$118.7 million.
o Cash at bank of c.US$7.9 million.
o Gold inventory value of c.US$5.6 million.
· Further, c.US$15 million remains available and expected to be drawn this quarter, Q2 2023, from the Coris Bank International ("Coris Bank") debt facilities.
· Of the budgeted US$115 million capex for the construction of Kouroussa:
o c.US$83 million has been paid as at the end of Q1 2023.
o c.US$12 million to be paid this quarter and early Q3 2023.
o c.US$20 million contractor deferrals, retention incentives and working capital not expected to be paid until Kouroussa is in full production.
· The balance of Kouroussa's capex to be funded from a combination of the recent Placement, ongoing operational cashflows and available debt facilities.
I'm not actually sure that there are penalties to repay the debt early. At the last general meeting I think it was Dan that said that one of the first things that they might look at is debt consolidation. They couldn't do that if there were significant penalties for early repayment, unless of course it made financial sense to do so. Also I thought the debt repayment was over 2 years not four.
Hi BillyBoy - yeah my take on the VAT is that it wasn't resolved and my impression was that the amount outstanding was pretty close to what it was at last years AGM. I also got the impression that the team didn't think it would be resolved either.