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I was looking at todays RNS against the one issues on 11th Feb. Just over 700m of access have been added in that time and today we have access on 4 levels. The 1072 level was estimated to go 58m into the vein in the Feb RNS, today 40m are complete. Gold mineralisation is high and in line with - and slightly higher - than previous mineralisation found on the other levels. The mineralisation appears to extend further than is covered in past resource estimates which will be tested at the other levels - in other words, as was always planned, the LOM will expand beyond 6 years - the aim of course is 20 years plus at 50,000Oz per year. To put that into the context of numbers for those not so familiar with mining, that is over $1.3Bn of gold revenues at todays prices.
Looking at where the company is one would hope that stoping will either commence this year or certainly very early into next year. Progress continues - we eagerly await the increase in Oz sold that will drive this SP much higher.

Hi TBTT,
I am the same with XTR - I ran the numbers a few weeks ago after the last decent RNS on their Explorator project and it is clear as day is day (unless Gold goes crazy) that they run out of money before it generates revenue in Feb 2020 (more likely to be Oct-Dec 2020). So it really does suit CB to have another project to wrap a fund raise around. That said once they are generating revenue and the fund raise is complete it becomes an interesting proposition partculary with Gold increasing and a little Copper project to progress - nothing earth shattering but with timing and the likely undershoot and overshoot that will occur with the SP it will be an interesting proposition.
GLR and Star Zinc is much more of a banker. I saw your posts on the GLR board and broadly agree. The fund raise you mentioned looks about right, I think the upfront costs will be pretty much zero due to contract mining but your take on when cash will be received looks spot on. From an NPV perspective I have not calculated it, with a LOM of only 6 years NPV's get a little sketchy - who is holding the baby at the end as the NPV decreases with every year of the 6 ! But I believe Ka****u will come along and extend that life considerably. I sit on a 4p target price but can easily see the market overshooting this and that excludes Glenover and Ferber.
How many projects will CB try to back onto Sable - well put it this way, the GLR board mentioned if JLP would buy GLR. In my mind the answer is no because it is not a strategic fit - JLP is neither an explorer or a minor. However, next year when generator cash, GLR might buy BZT who are desperate for cash and have the exact same deal as GLR on the Buffalo project in Zambia. Which I think answers your other question - how many projects will CB try to get on the back of Sable - as many as he can and that brings us nicely to value of the Sable asset for JLP. The future keeps looking brighter for JLP and, I thought I would never come to say this, but the CB strategy in Africa seems to becoming clearer !!!

Kalengwa to Kitwe is 264 miles or 6 hrs by road which means 8-10 hours in reality. Kalengwa to Kabwe is 400 miles or 9 hours by road which means 12 hours plus by truck. No rail links are visible on Google maps. This sort of distance might have worked for processing Ore at 20% plus but I very much doubt that it will work for tailings. Much more likely that a local tailings plant will be built with concentrate transported to Sable - who builds and operates that plant is another question - the expertise lies with JLP so this could be a renting out of technology operated by others ????

As we know CB is an "opportunist". It might not be a bad deal for XTR to have a marginally profitable tailings plant but with the poential of a high grade copper resource on site. Those invested in mining for many years will see the same story of 99% of Aimers - "we are buying an asset that was mined in the past but hey ho we believe that they have missed a large part of the golden nugget because we are smarter than they are. We will do some geology, some soil samples and the some drilling and hope (pray) that we hit something. In the meantime please Mr.Market will you give us lots of money so we can drill it - thanks". When it works the pay offs are very big, when it fails (as most do) then it's onto the next project - or have I just become cynical over the years !!

What is clear is that CB is upping his exposure to Zambia which is good news for all and indicates that the Zambian Mining Authority must be very open and positive in the conversations CB is having with them.

Hi BB, I was using the Financial Year rather than the Calandar Year i.e. First 6 months of this FY are July - Dec which are reported in the Intermins released about March 2020. I am not expecting any great shakes when the Finals for 18/19 are released in Nov'19 - a profit yes but nothing that will necessarily propel the SP much above 4p. EPS will likely be below 0.2p but a profit is a profit and the base line moving forward. Hence why others on this BB talk of keeping the purse strings tight and hopefully funding expansion through cash rather than equity - it is not until 2020 that we start to create lots of free cash flow.

I wouldn't say damp squib personally. It is a monthly operations update not a 6 monthly financial update so I was not expecting any detailed numbers. For me it is just pleasing to see regular updates.
In terms of the SP, JLP will only really move after good financials - or since this is AIM a few weeks before the release of them. Sure there will be a few peaks based upon RNS's but it is now down to the numbers. The first 6 months of this year will see some good results but these don't get released until the Interims in Mar '20. Next year Kabwe kicks in and ramps up during the first 6 months giving a boost to the finals in Nov '20 and then Kabwe will be at full pace when the Mar '21 interims are released. If that is Jam tomorrow then so be it but that is the way it works. The Jam today stories are either the ones that have spent years in the doldrums preparing for the Jam or the ones that get spiked on the promise of Jam - there is certainly money to be made on both of those if the timing is right, get it wrong and you lose big. JLP on the other hand is a much lower risk investment with a general uptrend over the next few years - albeit at a slower steady pace.

I seem to recall a while ago we had the discussion on Chrome earnings and assumed that DCM fine chrome ran at a loss for the last quarterly update of about £250k. It gave us "assumed" margins of over 50% but of course that is very dependent upon what the concentrate price was at the time. I work on margins of less than this in my model but I think that is conservative since I expect JLP to get more out of Platchro than £4.3m of earnings / year. For the final qtr of this year I see the earnings from DCM at about £1.2m / Qtr.

Indeed MH - we know who has 2 Copper projects in Zambia - Mr.Bird. It was always my thoughts that the only reason he got these was Kabwe. These projects, I would have thought, are not mature enough to provide Copper to Kabwe, although they are both old projects so there may be tailings around. Either way there is no shortrage of Copper in Zambia for use in a refinery.

If the Copper uses the combined crushing and grinding processes with Zn, V205 and Pb then it also has shared costs and thus higher profits. An interesting development with a potentially new revenue stream and good to see them trying to get the maximum out of Kabwe.

Still profitable chart topper. There were specific reasons for the rise and fall over the last 18 months - take the chart back further to take out the spike and slump to get a better feel. Vanadium miners are still profitable at these levels and we are not mining - we are not even crushing and first pass milling as those costs are already incurred for the Zinc. Naturally a much higher price gives extraordinary margins and over the next 2 years there will be more upward pressure on the V price than downward pressure - I am not expecting the past highs though !

Not wildly wrong at all TBTT - a good analysis of some of the points and a follow up from MH's post. Hopefully it helps people to see that there is a process in all of this which often takes much longer than we often expect.
On the GLR front - and realising quite a few people are invested in both JLP and GLR, including myself - their upfront costs should be close to zero with the use of sub-contract mining - it's a simple process of dig, crush, transport. Obviously some costs associated with the SML. I see the risk of dilution not from the costs of mining more from the timescales it will take to get the SML, process the ore and get paid whilst the admin overhaeds are eating into the cash resrves. It will be tight that is for sure.

I looked into David myself after DJF's comments, seems he is a very experienced and respected mining engineer. Avocet looks to have failed due to a high debt and a high cost per ounce of gold extracted. Probbaly would be a touch unfair to lay that all at one persons door !! I think the positives are that Galantas are employing key people that will help to optimise the business which bodes well for the future.

MH - I was was just trying to paint the picture of the history and why JMG's experience can make money out of the facilty where others have failed. I saw the Zambian authorities approach as just strong arm arm politics in order to "negotiate" a bigger slice of the pie. Economics (money) always trumps politics, if Glencore could have made significamt money from Sable it would have continued. I wonder if Copper had been closer to $4.50 per lb would it have frozen it's Copper projects - I very much doubt it. These issues mysteriously go away when there is money to be made !!

Well as an investor in both GLR and JMG I certainly hope Kabwe flies otherwise GLR's Star Zinc and Kashitu are worth significantly less. They are not large enough to support there own refinery and there is no other refinery close by to cheaply transfer their ore to.
From a history perspective and why Glencore sold it we have to remember that Sable was originaly a Copper Cobalt refinery and this was the intended use for Metorex when they purchased it in 2006. A three fold increase in the Zinc price convinced them that it was more profitable to process the Zinc tailings. In 2011 Metorex were the subject of offers from China and Vale - Vale did not want Sable and they wanted Metorex to dispose of it before any purchase. Glencore purchased it as a Copper Cobalt operation - at the time Copper was almost double its price now and on a steep upward curve with no signs of slowing down - we all now what happened to Copper from 2012 onwards ! Zambia is rich in Copper - anyone know a person who has recently invested in 2 Copper Cobalt operations in Zambia through GLR and BZT?!
With the depressed Copper price and a major change in strategy for all major miners over the last few years, Sable was just not a core asset for Glencore, Copper prices were too low for the volumes it would obtain from the plant and it does not have JMG's experience to operate a Zinc tailings facility - equally the Vanadium recovery circuit will be a world first for the way it is being implemented - this is JMG's expertise. Rather than a conspiracy to sell a "duff" plant this is something that we see day in and day out in mining (and other industries) the sale of a non core asset to a company with the time and expertise to turn it into a core asset of their own.

I think it is called research

Read it in detail Minor and completed the calcs - i prefer to undertake my own numbers and come to my our own conclusions rather than listening to what CB says !! Do the numbers and see for yourself.

GLR could get a pre-paid offtake agreement from JMG for their running costs to cover the first few months. I think CB's costs figures are about right at $2m but his revenue figures seem optimistic. JLP will want a minium 15% smelter royalty over and above costs which would be a very nice $4.8m of profit for JMG. But looking at the costs of milling, leaching and the precipitae costs they will be close to $17m and on revenue of $31m that does not equate to $15m for GLR. I would say it will be closer to: Total revenue $30m. JMG smelter royalty $4.5m. Operating costs $17m. GLR revenue $8.5m. Still very nice for both companies - $4.5m profit for JMG and $6.5m profit for GLR. Add to that JMG's own mixed in Zinc tailings profits as well - what a joy !!

Always difficult to understand why people sell when the companys is just getting going but there are always personal circumstances and the person may have a sub 3p average. What was interesting was that over 1.2m shares were sold at 4.5p but the sp hardly moved lower. Another way of looking at it is that the MM's now have 1.2m shares at 4.5p so that - in all logic - forms the baseline of the sp.

The important aspect now as with all early miners is at what point does the company become cash flow positive? The last placing was to fund working capital through to commercial production - depends what your definition of commercial production is - after development Ore?? - which is scheduled for finish late 2019/early 2020. Until then there will be staedy increases in Oz's per qtr but nothing dramatic but hopefully enough for a positice cashflow !!

Too true Gavster - a steady RNS today showing progress. Q2 output forecast to be more than double of Q1 following the second shift sometime early in Q2. It's likely to be higher due to the lag in producing 25T and shipping it. Concentrate grades a little lower than expected but they will be net of the smelter royalty and will improve as the plant efficiencies improve following this initial ramp up perod. Not sure what the specialised flotation items are but it's most likely they are to increase the recovery and increase concentrate grades. Knowing the conservative nature of Gal RNS's I would not be suprised to see that the Q2 numbers will be higher.
The important question to be answered during Q3 & Q4 is how quickly do those concentrate revenues increase?? As per my point above on the lag and on ramping up, the end of quarter run rate will be significantly higher than 160T i.e. the start of Q3 run rate will already be much higher than 160T. But it's all heading in the right direction, no nasty suprises, just steady progress.

I agree Sumo - and that is because it most likley is !! Although JMG state that they are in discussions with various parties I think we all know who the agreement will be with. Considering also that it is a pretty standard agreement with a few tweaks it really does not take too much negotiating. Any clauses can easily be added such as pending license approval etc. I don't think either party have any great need to sign the agreement pronto - JMG may commission with local Ore and only add offtake Ore after this initial stage is complete - that puts it at late December earlist and most likely sometime in Q1 2020 before offtake Ore is required. GLR's critical path rests with obtaining the license and appointing sub-contractors - both of which can carry on behind the scenes with contractors maybe requiring 8-12 weeks notice to commence work.
I am invested in both companies, I think there is a greater than 50% chance that GLR's money runs out before they get the first cashflow from JMG. That means a fundraise for them later this year - it's always best to undertake a fundraise at the same time as a positive announcement - i.e. off take agreement. Or if I put my shiny optimistic GLR hat on - a short term overdraft facility based upon an offtake agreement and no fundraise.........

Excuse my atrocious spelling in the title !! I would like to blame it on "spell check" - but we all know that's not true !

Don't believe the sea of red trades. 3 of the red trades from yesterday were my purchases from seperate accounts. The system automatically records anything below the mid price as a sell as opposed to a good value buy.