August 5, 2025 • 43 mins
We kick things off with Australia’s bold indication to set arare earth floor price – a page right out of the US playbook – and then dive into the big question: Will the government step in to rescue all our struggling smelters and refiners?
Then, we pick a part the most interesting content fromDiggers & Dealers, including funny takes, companies to watch plus the big themes.
Companies mentioned: PNR, VAU, RMS, EMR, PMT, WTM, SMI, BTR, MM8, RXL, TCG, JMS, OBM, CMM, GMD, GNG
……………
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Introduction
(00:37) Aussie rare earth price floor to come?
(11:24) Diggers highlights
(13:24) Pantoro
(15:55) Vault
(17:27) Ramelius
(22:02) Emerald
(24:40) Patriot
(25:05) Waratah
(26:01) Santana
(27:31) Brightstar
(27:58) Medallion
(29:53) Rox
(31:43) Turaco
(32:37) Jupiter
(35:54) Big theme: bigger mills
……………
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PARTNERS
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Like I, I think we we can safelysay we are in a new paradigm.
Yeah. This is arguably the biggest
thing that's happened in the commodity space in many, many
decades. You know, gone back a long while
to find something as sort of game changing as this.
God, I realised that just there.Oh, Oh my goodness.
(00:22):
That was that could have been a,that could have been a disaster,
mate. Money miners, we forgot to press
record the first time but we aregiving it another go mate.
What are we talking about today?Mate, Diggers and Dealers is in
full swing, which we have been watching kind of and we're going
to play out the highlights from the many, many presentations
that are out there just so you don't have to watch like you
know, 20 hours of stuff. It's good having the the strange
sort of come through, being ableto see the ones what's, what's
(00:44):
interesting, what's not and stuff.
I don't think that's new. I just think what's new is that
we're not hungover. Complete change.
We're also going to have a bit of a chinwag about what the
Aussie government has flagged that they're going to do in the,
the railroad space, the the critical material space.
So. This is this is this is bonkers,
mate. So that the what the the
government is now going to copy the US and introduce a price
(01:06):
floor for rare earth, which is yeah, I just didn't think we'd
be here. But it's it's just kind of
amazing how drastically and fastthis whole kind of yeah, piece
of the puzzle is unfolding and what's what it's doing to
equities, what it means geopolitically. 100% like I, I
think we, we can safely say we are in a new paradigm here.
This is arguably the biggest thing that's happened in the,
(01:26):
the commodity space in many, many decades.
You know, we've gone back a longwhile to find something as sort
of game changing as this, not just the price floor like
companies getting equity stakes taken in them from a government
in the US. You know, this isn't China or a
similar type country that we're we're talking about.
So what, what has happened lately is that the Aussie
(01:50):
government has flagged that theyare strongly considering and
they, they might come out with something very sort of similar
in scope to what the US has donewith regard to putting a price
floor specifically for, for rareearth projects.
So they have given a few words and we spoke about this at the
the AF Rs Critical Minerals or the mining summit, I think it
(02:12):
was called. And, you know, the focus is very
much kind of supporting end users with regard to defence and
strategic tech and, and these sorts of things.
And Madeline King, the resource minister, has said that she's
spoken with industry participants.
So we're waiting for a big announcement.
And I think you can, you can peel that back and have a few
(02:35):
different takes as we sort of stand here today.
So one of them would be that theAussie government is just trying
to butter up to the Trump administration.
We know they'd love to do a deal, all these sorts of things.
Maybe there's a bit of behind the scenes aligning of interests
with various governments around the world.
We know the US and the EU just came out with a deal after
(02:57):
Liberation Day a few months backand all these sorts of things.
But it's kind of bonkers. And as you mentioned, it's it's
been reflected in the the pricesof of Linus, of Aloka, of all
these players. The guys in Brazil, they're all
up 3/4 fold. It's it's nuts.
Yeah, I I own shares in a speccyone of them and like 6 months
ago it was the worst stock in MyPortfolio down like 67% and now
(03:20):
it's now it's the best stock in My Portfolio which is crazy.
Probably an indication I should sell mate because.
Probably is it It's bonkers and it doesn't just stop there with
regards to the government getting involved in critical
minerals because we also saw overnight that the the essay and
the Tasmanian government is going to come in and they're
going to award up to $130,000,000 to near stars
(03:43):
smelters at Port Perry and Hobart.
So they are owned by Trafigura and Trafford obviously
threatened that they're just going to walk away because
there's a massively loss making.So it's a a short term Band-Aid
type fit. So there's a lot of jobs at
stake here, hence the importanceof it.
But it's interesting to dig in and see some of the comments
from the premier of SA. So made the case that this is an
(04:07):
investment in the future of the plants and not a bailout, as
well as sort of saying a few months back that he'd argue that
these uncompetitive assets that near star own shouldn't be in
fully private hands. So again, kind of paradigm
changing type stuff like we, we've come from a world many,
many decades ago where the government owned a whole bunch
(04:29):
of assets in a whole bunch of different sectors.
And the world has been on since the the 70s and 80's, the trend
to sell these out, privatize these assets.
And now it looks like we're in the the brink of going in the
opposite direction. Man, it's heads eye win tails.
You lose with with private ownership of of substantial
infrastructure assets these days.
It's I think, I think that's, you know, personally kind of
(04:50):
unhealthy for, for a number of reasons, one not not least of
which is a creates moral hazard.And you've got to have symmetry
of risks. You take equity risks, you know,
even if the market fundamentallychanges, I, you know, I'm a big
believer private capital should wear the pain of that.
And I don't think it's like nice.
It's not even, it's not even strategically like where's the,
where's the strategic angle withthe, with the refinemental that
(05:11):
comes out of that. Don't, don't.
That's not as clear cut as the whole rare earth stuff that's
been going on anyway. Yeah, I mean it, it's a tough
one because so much of our manufacturing has has left the
country and we don't have the ambition to to pull all of that
back in country like the US is very clear about wanting to have
manufacturing and a whole bunch of different things.
We'll see if that actually comesto to fruition.
But as it sort of stands, what are we going to do with a whole
(05:32):
bunch of these things? Yeah, there are some industries,
some some businesses around the country that need the the
products from some of these things.
But I think we need to take it in the context of like why they
are uncompetitive. And there's two big reasons that
come to mind, right. So you've got the huge capacity
build out of smelting and refining around the world.
You know, a lot of that obviously in in China, but that
(05:54):
has led to TCR CS just falling through the floor.
Zinc TCR CS sort of halved from like 1160 down to 80 bucks.
Copper's gone negative. We've spoken about that a bunch.
And then you've got the Australian energy setting and
these are not high margin businesses and you know,
particularly in the in the likesof like aluminium and, and that
(06:16):
sort of supply chain, but it goes across the whole spectrum.
You need to have competitive energy settings and without
that, you don't really have any hope.
So I think as as a country, we need to ask ourselves, do we
want to have this capacity? You know, do we want to be
capable of producing these metals in country?
And if we do, you know, the, thenext sort of thinking is do we
(06:36):
want them to be government funded?
Do we want them to be fully private, privately owned?
And if we want them to be privately owned, right, we need
more competitive energy settings.
It's it's, it's quite straightforward in, in that
regard. And yeah, it's going to require
a bunch of tough decisions. You, you zoom out, you look at
the things in, in Queensland, man iser and everything that
there's a lot of jobs at stake here.
(06:57):
So it's a a delicate kind of subject to to broach.
I yeah, I, I, I can be, I can beunconvinced of the merit of
bailing out smelters broadly, yeah, but but that.
That would imply that you've been convinced at at the minute,
which I hazard yes, isn't isn't the.
(07:17):
Case No one's going to feel feelsorry for the commodity trainer
trainers that own it. But I, you know, point taken on
the the people of their jobs. But, you know, this is, this is,
this is capitalism. Like, yeah.
Yeah, 100%. And, and it's, you know, the
Glen cause the trappies of the world are, are, are one spot,
but then there's the, the flow on effects and, and all the
people downstream and, and adjacent to these which get
(07:38):
affected. So, yeah, it's a, it's a really
tough call because you're competing with China and a lot
of these companies stayed back to their lower cost of capital
and all that, that we've spoken about a bunch.
So it's certainly not an even playing field across the world
to the rare earth. Beat so that that news about a
potential floor price on rare earths coming out of resources
minister it's a little bit more clarity or indication of what's
(08:02):
going to kind of come out of thewhole stockpile and off take
plan. There's no doubt in my mind that
that you know a huge part of this the the benefit there is is
going to be on kind of underwriting the economics of of
any other itself. I look as any other facility
now, what's plagued any other? Well, OK, so, so A, it's a
(08:23):
proposed refinery that's gettingbuilt if it has been announced,
but they still need to, to A, fill it up with, you know,
feedstock that you have high confidence in and then B, find a
buyer of it now. Now I think 2 bits of that
puzzle are kind of coming together at the same time as a
result of this government indication because you've got
the government with a floor price and also going to provide
the the offtake. Well, guess what?
(08:45):
That kind of lets the whole financing be come out.
I'm pretty sure Lindy and they're going to a halt today
because, you know, Luca's going to going to be a substantial
offtake and potentially even financier of, of, of their
rarest Africa, which yeah, which, which will, you know, I
expect to see the feedstock of that be signposted for any other
and, and what are the implications of that?
It kind of just you got this like floor price like that, that
(09:08):
that will undoubtedly incentivize new supply to to
come to market. And I think, you know, I think
we say that almost immediately. If, if, if, if it means that you
know, Lindian's project will, will will now have a, a, a, a,
you know, a pathway to actually being built in the near future.
Yeah, in in their words, it willsort of crowd in private
capital, which is an interestingkind of concept.
But what you reminded me of is another bit of news out of the
(09:31):
States, which is actually reallypositive in my mind because you
remember this, this has started just with MP materials.
This wasn't a universal price floor that that set across the
industry. But the more recent talk is that
they're willing to open that up to a number of other American
producers. Now that is a positive sort of
turn or sort of tack and direction.
(09:53):
And I'm keen to sort of chase that one up and, and see where
that goes because that is a bit more, you know, not picking a
winner and and levelizing it so other people can potentially and
you have some sort of, you know,inkling of, of capitalism there
rather than just picking you outnet winner in MP.
But. Well, it's, it's started with
MP. They're going to have this,
this, you know, wonderful price floor applied to them.
And then the immediate logic is,well, hey, if, if MP is the only
(10:14):
one that kind of gets this, thenwhat if MP just buys a bunch of
other development projects can then they benefit from it.
So then you know you're trying to think of.
That is it character. Is it just mountain pass?
I think, I think now that we're seeing like a a more broad
application of this kind of price for dynamic, Yeah.
Like, like if it was just MP, then my God, the, the merit for
MP acquiring liners or acquiringa lucre is so strong.
You know, just everyone gets theprice for happy days and bring
(10:37):
up a bunch of development stuff online.
I still think like you look at, yeah, the, the MP stock is, is
super high. Like, you know, they, they, they
should buy, buy something, consolidate that sector.
I think the the merit of MP buying a a liquor or Linus is
still really strong. I think the merit of of Linus
buying a liquor is strong. And I wouldn't be surprised to
see, you know, the there'd be a a flow on effect of some other
(10:59):
critical minerals. Well, guess what's going to go
through the roof when a floor price is going to be announced
on another like, you know, nichebut critically important mineral
out there. Like, yeah, I wouldn't, I
wouldn't be surprised to see some some wacko commodities be
lobbied at the various governments of the world to to
also underwrite the development.I I think you're right mate, not
a bad time to start a lobbying business I reckon 'cause there's
gotta be fair people in Washington and Canberra getting
(11:21):
a fair bit of work. Oh gosh, what a great business.
Shall we talk about diggers mate?
Diggers and dealers, how good isdiggers and dealers specifically
the presentations mate, because you get to listen to the the
brightest macro economists gather around and and tell us
that every commodity price is destined to, to go up,
specifically the commodity of the of the of the mine, which
(11:43):
they're the managing director of.
But most and first and foremost,the macro economists that
presented this conference. Not sure if you're aware.
Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head
there mate. And they're they're preaching to
the converted. On the presentation front,
though, that's actually been a little bit dry this year.
Nothing too outrageous when, when you think and zoom in out
of and thinking of Diggers. Like there's been some
(12:03):
commentary in the lead up to, toDiggers this year specifically
because Noosa, like Noosa happened a couple weeks ago,
rolled out of the Noosa conference and into Diggers and
a lot of people, a lot of peoplereally talked up the Noosa
conference this year got a lot of attention.
A lot of the commentary out of Noosa was that, you know, it
was, it was great because you had a more more concise and
condensed and concentrated crowd.
You had more investors and companies sort of only like it
(12:23):
didn't have that trade show feel.
It felt very kind of capital markets relevant.
So with that bit of feedback, mate, things have taken that on
board and actually made a rule about who's who's actually
allowed in the tent, right? And.
What's the new rule mate? So you're allowed to have
investors and companies obviously, and they're pretty
strict on on which service providers actually let in the
tent. In fact, for the first two
hours, only Derek Heard was allowed in in the main tent.
(12:45):
Because Derek heard the championof Sandvik ground support.
You've got to make it a blanket rule, but you can't, because
you've got to let Derek Kurt in.He's the king of ground support.
They are the go to name in ground support mate,
manufacturing and supplying in every sort of nook of the world
got the the Qdao factory here you can see they supply people
from all over the world and and they've got the app, which I
(13:05):
know you love mate big. Fan of the app.
Mines are getting deeper mate. You need ground support to make
them safe. Fantastic ground support solves
all of those problems. And they've got some exciting
updates coming soon, mate. Watch this space.
I'm keeping my eyes peeled. Say hi to Derek because he's
loud in the tent. Go Derek.
Where should we start with diggers, mate?
There's a plethora of announcements and presentations
(13:28):
to to sort of talk through. Obviously a lot of discoveries
being made the past couple days.Isn't there as well?
But Pantora, you want to start there.
I do, yeah. I think we we've each gone about
this by plucking out a few snippets here and there and
hopefully it leads to some interesting discussion.
This is Paul Smelik of Pantoro wrapping up his his Prezzo.
So we started out very, very small.
We had a $15 million market cap,woman bought Halls Creek.
(13:51):
We had a broken plan and we're developing an underground mine
in oxide material. Starting with about 20 of us.
We got to 2016. This is why I really wanted to
show it. I've I've always asked to to
bring this bull back out. This is our opening presentation
at Diggers and Dealers in 2016. The bull keeps finding more gold
(14:12):
and it's getting better and better.
So I. Didn't show that to you before
the audio listeners. There's an animation of a bull,
kind of like the logo of Fantora.
Just you've got to, you've got to.
Watch that one. You'll watch it.
Pooping out some gold. That's that's brilliant.
I yeah, fantastic. Right on smells they, but my
(14:32):
pentor is actually pretty interesting now and kudos to
them. They added $43 million of, of,
of cash and go to the balance sheet last quarter.
They, they, they really knocked it out of the park and yeah,
like, like that quarter saw Norseman cranked at 25, 25.4000
oz produced. So like, you know, they, the
guidance had had in people's head for a long time and been
this it's going to get to 100 to110,000 oz And they, and when
(14:53):
you, when you look at that quarter, you're like, OK, they
got there. They're the only gold mine on
ASX right now with an all time high share price.
Everyone else has sort of peeledoff as all sorts of macro things
have happened. But Pantoro you know, having the
benefit of a of a rewrite on theback of a really strong
operational quarter and an expectation that there's,
there's going to be more, you know more more guidance met and
(15:15):
operational delivery there. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there.
It's it's really good to see them start to check cash into
the bank. Yeah, totally.
And I mean they are going to spend a lot in, in the way of
capital on, on both exploration and development this year.
But but like I do think that's for the, you know, for the for
the betterment of the project. Now that they've got like Scotia
(15:36):
and nameplate providing feed at the same time.
You've got, you know, OK, underground delivering kind of
outperforming actually in terms of what it's providing the mill.
And then that's that's allowing allowing the foundations to to
do the work on, you know, the bull and decline at the same
time as expiration. Yeah, actually a sort of
positive feeling around around the company, mate.
Next up. Len old Aldridge of a vault,
(15:58):
formerly Silver Lake, but I've got I've got to play this one
from from Lenny. By the way, this is just 18
seconds into into the Prezzo from vault.
As a business, we are driven by free cash flow generation, not
aspirational production targets.Remember 2 years ago Raul was
Diggers Prezzo and he's. How could I forget?
That was great. Anyway, so I reckon it's still
in Len's mind and he's like making it make it taking a jab
(16:21):
at Genesis already aspirational production targets.
But Genesis aren't the only onesyou know, These things are are
everywhere these days, you know,or a band are Bright Star come
to mind. But not fault, mate, They're
bucking the trend. Free cash flow.
Free cash flow, don't mind that.Always alert to opportunistic
situations. As I stated on this stage last
year, the life, the opportunities and the cash flow
(16:41):
generation potential of the portfolio means we have no
existential requirement to pursue MNA.
What do you What do you make? Of that, is that what you say
right before you do a big deal? Maybe, maybe.
I reckon, I mean, he started by saying we're always aware of the
opportunistic situations but don't need to do it.
I think, I think they're probably fielded a bunch of
questions in recent history about what's their interest in
(17:03):
Bellevue, they're going to do a deal in Bellevue, yada, yada.
All of the rumors around Bellevue and also the rumors
before that, of course, of a potential deal with Genesis now.
Yeah. So let's let's, let's, let's
wait and see. But like that was the the party
line, the whole thing about Bellevue, that's kind of the one
of the talking points. I think that'll come out of
(17:23):
Diggers. It's just a whole bunch of
speculation about, you know, where, where's Bellevue at?
What's going to happen to that? I think there'll be no shortage,
mate. On to the next one.
Simon Lawson and Zeppe Fulramilis on the stage
together. There was a few snippets from
this one and a few sort of comments that I thought were
were pretty punchy. So first and foremost, you've
got the two of them together andthere's no shortages of remarks
(17:43):
about how the dynamic has changed since last year when
they were sort of going head to head.
But some of the comments from Zippy, from cash flow is going
to be mega to, it's fair to say,3G Millingrade at this gold
price. We are killing it, you know,
they're, they're really feeling themselves, you know, and you
can see that in the in the cash flow that the the companies kind
of made. But mate, you're you're a
(18:05):
Spartan shareholder. So does that mean you're now a
Amelia? Shareholder as of last week.
I am a Amelia shareholder now, mate.
And I think, you know, having said that, looking at the the
comments that you made about Q is really, really interesting.
People have kind of forgotten about it, I think, in the
excitement of what they've done with the Spartan deal that sort
of dominated the last sort of six months.
(18:25):
And I think Penny had always sort of taken the cake in terms
of grade, but to see Q just dominated is kind of
interesting. We are killing it.
So for anyone who has any queries about our ability to
bring projects, including Delgaranga into production
quickly and make a return, I have this little case study.
Two slides on the Q project. We acquired Q in October 2023,
(18:51):
which was at the time essentially a series of drill
pads and by diggers. Last year August 24, we'd
completed permitting internal external approvals and we were
mining the pre strip of the break a day pit which you can
see on the bottom left. If we move forward 12 months,
(19:11):
remembering that we mined first door in October, we've mined
almost 100,000 oz at 10 grams per ton at an all in sustaining
cost below $800.00 an ounce and generated almost 288 million in
free cash flow. It's.
Remarkable that that's paid itself off already.
Yeah quite impressive indeed mate.
Like that that's a that's remarkable.
(19:32):
I mean the fact that they acquired that like October 23.
I remember talking about the deal.
I remember you know anyway, it'sjust remarkable how quick all
that happened so kudos to them. That is backward looking Helm
ever JD and I think like the thething you've always got to
contextualize with with Rameelius is what's
forward-looking and when Q like if Q is already up forming penny
well it kind of tells you where pennies at so how much yeah Q
(19:55):
itself doesn't doesn't it was a pretty definite deposit in my
life there. So they're going to have to have
a period of a couple of. A couple of years or already
months of relatively, you know, lesser cash flow than than than
has been expected historically. That that's been the knock.
You know, Edna May is no longer producing.
It's just sort of sitting there now and we know Penny is a a
(20:17):
very short my life and these sorts of things.
And obviously they think Dale Granger can can feel the gap
there. We'll sort of see yeah, in due
course what sort of numbers thatadds to the the production
profile specifically from that sort of 28 to 2032 type time
frame when you're all in sustaining cost went to over
(20:37):
3000 almost doubled and the the production really dropped off.
So they'll be looking for that to fill that gap and we'll sort
of wait and see by the end of the year what the numbers look
like around that. Yep, and that's not the only one
from this speech, because later on we get the great man Mr.
Simon Lawson, who is a natural speaker I think he was made for
presenting it to. You over the moon that I get the
(20:58):
chance to go and drill down there with my team and integrate
with the Remilius strategy and also leverage off some of those
amazing cash flows because for awhile it was looking pretty bare
and now covered and and you know, Mark's been putting a lot
in the bank. So I'm quite happy to try and
spend some of it finding some more gold.
(21:19):
Hang on. I like it.
It does fundamentally does speakto AI suppose like an
amalgamation of two different cultures in Remilius and Spartan
and and you you're seeing that pro forma now trying to find the
find the middle ground on higherexpiration spend then, you know,
has historically happened from Remelia.
So we're focused on free cash flow generation and really
(21:40):
cutting costs from every part ofthe business where where
necessary to maximize free cash flow.
So, yeah, like and then they're navigating that they've got a
bigger expiration budget for thenext financial year, which is
supported by the by the by the spot and kind of perspective on
things. And yeah, it'll be kind of
interesting to see if they have the expiration success to and
and stick with that strategy. Absolutely, mate.
(22:01):
Came to see where that one goes.Next up, Emerald Morgan Hart
presenting at the end of Monday and there was a couple of
snippets here that I think are worth playing mate.
Start with this bit here. To be paying them something like
25 to $35 million a year of tax and rallies.
We paid them $52 million this year in taxes and rallies.
The the second biggest taxpayer in Cambodia.
By the time we're doing our second project, we'll be well
(22:21):
and truly the number one taxpayer in Cambodia.
Isn't that remarkable #1 taxpayer in Cambodia?
That really is. I had no idea about that.
Yeah. But it's always striking when
you hear about these somewhat like obscure gold companies that
are operating obviously in a developing country, the
proportion of GDP that they contribute to to to where where
they're operating and, and that flows through the tax revenues
(22:43):
and everything like that. I found that a pretty
interesting thing. Yeah, super, super impressive.
I thought the presentation from Morgan was impressive all round.
And they're, you know, a team with a great track record.
There's this little snippet thatI think's worth playing as they
sort of shift where they're they're going to, they're going
to go from pulling in 2G per tondirt to 6g for a for a little
period. So there's a bit of sugar there
to be pulled. And this slide, if you look at
(23:04):
the top right hand corner there and and you look at the
intersections there, the 15118 at 19118.4429, that's what we
intend to bring into production underground next year.
We think of the second calendar half of next year, we'll start a
a decline from the northern partof the pit.
That's the first or it goes through and we we expect to
increase the production at off by replacing 2G open cut
(23:25):
material with 6G open cut material on a percentage basis.
Pretty pretty straight talker, isn't he, Morgan?
He he sure is, mate. And there was one more snippet
that, yeah, you plucked out. I found this striking, I think.
I think I've actually seen Morgan speak to this phenomenon
before. But yeah, if mining with this
simple everywhere in the world would be amazing.
Mammat is the other growth storyI've been talking about.
(23:46):
If you look at that slide on theleft, that was Ochbow in in
2011. That's the footprint that Oz
Minerals actually found. On the right hand side is
Mammat. Same footprint, same geological
signature die right, intrusions into Hornfeld's Meadow
sediments, same illegal miners. I've moved them off of Ochbow.
Five years ago, they moved into Mammat.
I've moved them again this year,150 of them, 150 families of
(24:09):
them. And then now another project
we've got to the north, which I always tell my geologist, which
I've got 50 of in his team, thatmaybe we should be following
these guys rather than me payingtheir money in case.
Isn't that pretty funny? Like, yeah, it's just just
following the artisanal miners where they go makes a lot of
sense, doesn't. It it works in in quite a few
different countries mate. Imagine, imagine having yeah
(24:30):
imagine the same artisanal miners kind of you having to pay
for them to be moved three timesand you know, you build 3 mines
as a result of that. It's pretty easy kind of
exploration story when you when you think of it like that.
Next up, mate, Ken Brinson of a Patriot.
Pelucite is to cesium what spodumain is to lithium.
Think about them kind of in a similar light.
(24:52):
Right, Love simple analogies. Got to speak to me like in
simple words. Love simple language.
Mind you, I didn't actually knowwhat spodumain was five years
ago, but now? Now I do.
Now you're in the nomad. Now I know what polysite is as
well. Next up, Waratah.
So this is actually the the intro to the spiel from from
(25:12):
Waratah our. Next presenter probably.
It couldn't be better timed. I'm just looking at the share
price. It's up 41% today, so pretty
exciting time for Waratah Minerals.
The intro there from Andrew Quayle.
Well today mate. So this is the second day dig
because that was day one. Second day dig is our share
(25:33):
price is up another 20%. It's up 62% since dig is kicked
off, which is remarkable. One of those one of those day
one exploration success stories,mate.
But you know, jokes aside, I'm kind of paying attention to what
happens before retirement and spare.
It looks like they're they're onto something interesting.
Looks like they're doing, you know, good exploration work
there and it's, you know, in a good post code.
(25:54):
So yeah, but the day one dig is effect, good news effect is as
strong as ever. Nonetheless, love it.
And Sam Smith of Santana, have you ever heard him speak before?
I have not, no. Well, yeah, you're in.
You're in for a treat here, JD, because he did the pretty
uncommon thing in the world of of mining presentations.
At the end of his speech, instead of wrapping up with the
(26:16):
investment highlights, he sharedan anecdote.
This project in years to come will be the pride of Cromwell
and will reignite the Central Otago Goldfield story.
And I know this is going to be true because we've had over 1000
job applications in the last sixmonths.
And I met one of those applicants in a pub in Cromwell.
Last time I was there. It was a truck driver driving
(26:39):
from Wanica 2 1/2 hours to a neighboring project.
She had to buy a caravan. She couldn't afford a room to
rent, 2 1/2 an hour drive to getto work.
And when I told her that I work for Santana, she got all excited
and said, Sam, if you can get that project up and running, I
can be at home every night and back to my kids sleeping in my
own bed. And that's why we're building
(27:01):
this project, obviously for our shareholders.
But those people in Cromwell, every family in Cromwell, Wanica
and Alexandra will either have somebody or know somebody that
works at this project in years to come.
For a moment there I forgot I was watching a Diggy's
presentation. I thought it was a Ted talk.
So, you know, well done for doing things a bit differently,
Sam. I don't mind a little bit of
(27:21):
that. Not even behind the stand, just
roaming around. Yeah, like even the delivery was
Ted Talk S, wasn't it? There was no lectern involved.
It was getting emotional. There you go.
OK, now, now to the funny stuff.I don't know if you've heard
Alex Riviera's natural voice, but it doesn't sound like this.
A number of M&A transactions haspositioned us with substantial
mineral resources. We have just under 4 million
(27:43):
ounces of resources pro forma across the Eastern gold fields
in the Murchison districts of WA.
We do have a strategic focus nowto pivot from what was a very
corporate heavy. Journey for the last two years.
I have a Go have some water, Alex.
Maybe a lozenge as well. I.
Thought it'd be interesting if we talked about what we actually
found kind of interesting from all of the, the prezzos that we
(28:03):
did watch. Like any companies that we
thought like, you know, we should start thinking about in
a, in a, in a new way or a new light, or maybe get an
inflection point or, you know, like we think there's, there's,
there's some interesting part ofit.
Maybe the story's complicated. Yeah, I think, I think there's a
few that make the cut. I know Medallion is top of the
list here for you. Why don't we start there?
Yeah. Well, I, I, I thought I watched,
(28:25):
I watched Paul Bennett's, you know, talk on, on Medallion.
I thought it was, I thought it was pretty interesting.
Like where was he in a like a gold bull market?
Medallion is an advanced developer in that next wave of
developers that could make theirway to be, you know, a producer
in, in the near term. They won't dig his effect again
with, with Medallion. But this was deal related.
It wasn't a new deal, but the, the, the deal that they struck
(28:46):
with IGO about a year ago to gethold of Forestania, that's now
binding. They're getting the whole
Forestania nickel operation. So that's the concentrator plus
the whole what they call the FNRtenure.
Why is that important? Well, the, the, the Cosmic Boy
concentrator comes with a flotation plan already.
And that means Medallion can prioritise it's sulfide or is it
Ravenswood, which, you know, they've done plenty of work to
(29:06):
understand. It's got really good grade and
the gravy though with the with the deal is just the FNO tenure
piece of piece of that equation that that includes 33 registered
gold prospects plus three historical oxide resources,
which I did not know until listening to to Paul Bennett
Prezzo. Yeah.
And my, my curiosity is just learn more about what those
(29:27):
historical resources are becauseif they can also support, you
know, a mine plan that that kindof makes the whole, you know,
the whole story. Like, yes, super, super
interesting. It's a bit of a sleeper.
It's only $150 million market cap, but you know it could, it
could experience the the near term rewrite effect that we've
seen at the likes of Maker go through themselves.
Yeah, Yeah, I'm with you there. Bit of a rewrite or already from
(29:48):
the the very low base they came from, but it's true.
Yeah, I'm totally with you on the on the trajectory there.
I think the next company rocks actually falls into a a similar
type category. So yeah, 200 mil market cap at
50 in, in cash. I think that they're doing a lot
of good things there as well andthere's good energy and sort of
speed about how they're operating at the moment.
(30:09):
Unfortunately from them, the thething I'm going to call out
isn't necessarily related to theoperations and what's happening
there at you and me, but I thought that was an interesting
comment from the boss field widening here that it's worth
playing out loud. From the coverage we have from
Canaccord, EUR and Petra, we're about half our target share
process on that base case. And if you go to that long case,
which is what they're expecting to say out of our study, we're
(30:30):
looking at another 3-4 times growth if both projections come
true. What?
Do you think mate? Oh, yeah.
As I, well, there's always like all those rules about what
you're allowed to talk about is,you know, potential forecasts
and stuff that you put out to the market.
But if the brokers put them out,mate, we can still direct it.
We can still direct the market. Share price has gone up four
times. Oh gosh, yeah.
(30:51):
Not conflicted at all. You know, you and I, we cut our
teeth on the South side and we, you know, we just knowing how
the sausage is made, like we don't actually hold these price
targets with any weight. Yeah.
And it's not to say there's not great things happening at the
company, just not much weight inthose ones.
I'm very keen to see that the DFS come out for the rocks by
the end of the year. The pits are being de watered
there and there's going to be rigs going for underground
(31:12):
drilling soon. Obviously much cheaper.
You can go at it much quicker. So like I said, think things are
happening quite quickly and I think, you know, with the the
whole, you know, semi refractory, you know, stain that
it had sort of on it for a long time, people just sort of
steered clear. But I think there's a yeah,
there's a lot of good things happening specifically on a
(31:32):
metallurgical front there as well.
So. I reckon they're a lot like odds
on favorite for, you know, firstto bring in the Albion process
to Australia. Yeah, yeah.
A lot of work happening on that,on that front.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, mate. Let's go to Africa.
Yeah, I thought Toraco was was super interesting.
I'm kind of kicking myself that I haven't done a bunch of work
on this earlier, to be to be honest, because it's already
very expensive stock. But but this is going to be a
(31:55):
prime acquisition target. Like, I mean, they're proven,
proven up by FEMA. They only acquired this 18
months ago and in that time it'sgone from zero to 3.6 million
oz. It's kind of remarkable in Cote
d'Ivoire, like Cote d'Ivoire is an attractive jurisdiction and
you can also just sit comfortably knowing that you
know management will. Will.
Well, of course, accept bids to maximize shareholder value.
(32:18):
Like they've, yeah, they've soldcompanies before to, to
prospective acquirers in that region.
It's part of the world where youdo get bids.
So yeah, I just, I just think that's it's been a remarkable
value creation story in a very short period of time and just
just disappointing myself for for never really doing the work.
Yeah, it's been a big winner. Next up, I want to talk about
(32:38):
Jupiter. So Ding Ding Ding on your part.
I I believe I. Still own?
Yeah, I still own shares. Yep, Yep.
So Jupiter's interesting and I think, you know, by and large,
people don't care about mining at all, people.
Mining in general. Mining, Yeah, yeah, it's a very
small part of the investment world.
I think manganese mining is an even smaller subset of that.
(32:59):
It's maybe like 110th, maybe less, yeah.
And that manganese mining in South Africa, granted it's a big
portion of the market, is an even smaller subset.
So there are limited numbers andinvestors that this kind of
appeals to. I know Rusty mentioned it the
other week and we've obviously spoken about Jupiter a fair few
times over the past 12 to 18 months, but.
(33:21):
I bought those shares in expectation of the the great
manganese, you know, supply squeeze which unfortunately did
not eventuate. I learned a lot about manganese
though in the process of that. Especially learn how responsive
supply can be. It did well for a while, so
don't completely knock it, but Ithink I think this is a really
interesting place for consolidation because where they
are in the sort of Kalahari belt, in the kind of
(33:42):
northwestish of South Africa, there's a large portion of the
world's manganese comes out there.
And this slide, this sort of picture they show here, and this
sort of snippet from the presentation captures it really,
really well. In that photo, you have 5 of the
top 10 producing assets in the world today and all of the top
(34:03):
remaining mine lives of already producing assets today in that
photo. Obviously when you have that
situation, there is an opportunity to combine ownership
and Dr. consolidation value. Everyone who's familiar with
this situation can see that it'sbeen challenging for various
reasons, but that is part of Jupiter's strategy.
(34:24):
We think there's material value available from executing on that
strategy. What?
Do you think, Matt? It's I think it's like the the
rationale is, is sound, you know, all the Domino's gonna
have to come together and yeah, unfortunately it's like the, you
know, the, the, the smallest piece of that, that whole
puzzle. You know, you don't you're
offering the the mercy of of other people's timelines and
(34:44):
things blowing out and everything like that.
And I know that the recent transaction with with Exaro not
only becoming, you know, Jupiter's largest shareholder,
but also buying the JV partner at Chippy, it reignites
speculation and about what couldhappen there.
And in the case of Exaria, like they've been talking about
buying a manganese asset for a long time and they made them
(35:05):
move on the JV partner. You know, there's, I think what
the, the MD there is, I'm alluding to is the, the
potential for Jupiter be next, which I think there's, there's
good merit to that. It's just trying to predict the
timing of that is, is an uncertain thing.
But as a shareholder like I don't, I don't mind waiting that
out because they they pay a healthy dividend along the way.
Yeah, I, I think you've sort of knuckled down the investment
(35:28):
case right, right there. Whenever you see sort of pit
walls like we saw there that sort of stand between two open
pits, you think, God, that's stupid.
And there's some synergies therejust to to knock that down.
But yeah, interesting. Later in the presentation, they
they spoke about perhaps being avehicle with Exaro to go on
gobble up other things as well. So let's see what kind of
(35:49):
happens here. I think being sort of paid to
wait, like you, you touched on there isn't the world worst
thing in the world. I thought, I thought be useful
to wrap it up with just. It was one of the key things
that I, yeah, observed kind of, you know, playing playing a
bunch of these presentations to dump to X speed.
I just thought 11 inescapable theme was meal expansions.
I don't know if you picked up onthis, but my God, is there a
(36:11):
massive theme of meal expansionsat the moment right now, like be
it or a band I like in Luke Grace speech, he's talking about
the the fact that they're actually million constrained
right now. They're doing a study to expand
their meal to 3,000,000 tonnes per annum.
I even remember like earlier in the year, there were, there were
rumours that like you know, or aband about even consider a
(36:31):
second meal in a different part of their, their tenement
package. But there was this quote from
from Luke Craig and he effectively said, you know, you
can increase your throughput, your throughput without actually
adding operating costs. You kind of just adding mining
costs and haulage costs because you're benefiting from economies
of scale. The theme is so pronounced at
the moment, especially with these elevated gold prices, at a
(36:53):
time where construction costs have somewhat moderated from an
inflation perspective. Just look at the GI engineering
share price mate. You've taken the words out of my
out of my script or a band. They're not the only ones they
look at Vault, right? So they were an earlier early
mover on the whole mill expansion theme.
(37:14):
And and yeah, I mean, like King of the Hills, it's already
expanding on its way to seven and a half million tons per
hour, which is an enormous size plan.
You could put evolution in the same category as being a bit of
an early move. I mean, when Garry's expansion
has actually already happened and not having an expanded
profile allows them to to to bring online and all body, which
(37:34):
is I think, you know, it's got awhole like 25 kilometres to get
to the mill itself. And yeah, kind of have low
enough cost to to warrant the whole thing.
But in this gold price environment, happy days.
Then throw like West Gold's expanding Higginsville,
Capricorn's expanding Karla window, you know, also Capricorn
acquired wired are and there's some commentary in the market
about a, you know, potential duked in like scenario where you
(37:56):
have two meals in that in that area.
So that that that means that another meal's going to be
refurbed or, or built around that area to to warrant that
genesis. Like look at what they're doing
at both BNR and Laverton. In fact, the the the front page
of the Genesis like deck at digsand dealers is long or that is
(38:16):
like how they're framing the presentation.
Jumped at it. Yeah, right it.
Does and the flip side of long or is well, you're short milling
capacity. Oh, now it's got to be cynical,
man. Well, I'm just, you know, like
if you're long or yet like, you know, yeah.
Anyway, it's, it's it's why they're a growth story as well,
because they're long or they're going to expand capacity and
they're going to expand capacityof both Leonora and Laverton,
(38:39):
right. So right now they have 4.4
million tonnes per annum in milling capacity, 1.4 of that is
Gwalia and, and 3,000,000 tonnesper annum is, is thanks to, is
it Labourton, thanks to the restart of the day scene
operation there. Now, when Tower Hill comes into
the mix and they they've kept the, the, the guided timelines
for Tower Hill, they say that, you know, that's kind of all
(38:59):
those work streams. You want to plan that.
I think, you know, you're going to expand your, your, your meal
to, to warrant the extra feed that you're able to feed it.
Now, you know, I'm believing thepeople in the market that are
saying that that could in two stages get up to 3.5 million
tons per annum. And that's a pretty substantial
increase in that meal. You know, if they obviously
(39:19):
don't do a deal with Volk in theinterim Genesis, they're also,
yeah, doing while embarking on an expansion of Laverton mill as
well. And that the ability to do that
kind of comes out of the fact that they've now acquired Focus.
So a bunch of work has to go into the focus assets, but
there's there's a lot more feed that can actually warrant, you
know, lower processing costs andand, you know, better, you know,
(39:41):
better economies of scale as a result of the the consolidation
of the the Laverton land packagethere and the whole.
So I think, I think, I think that mill in labor could go from
3 to 3 1/2, maybe even even 4IN time, like let's see what
happens, the rationale. All in economies of scale game,
right? Totally.
All those costs down. And I feel like that, that the
(40:05):
rationale to do it is, is so clearly articulated in this
chart that which I love inside the one of the Vulk
presentations. And they, they basically just
chart up the, the processing costs of, of all of the
different, you know, gold, WA gold operations and, and on the,
the, the X axis, you've got the throughput right.
And you know, obviously trends down and to the right.
(40:26):
So, you know, the larger you meal, the lower your processing
cost because of economies of scale.
In addition to, to everything I've talked about, like there's,
there's other new builds on the on the radar, like, you know, we
talked about all, all refurbs. We talked about medallion
earlier, like, you know, think of Capricorn, Matt Gibson, in
addition to the other stuff Capricorn is doing Emerald, the
bull's eye, eventually the grey eventually like Norman starts
(40:48):
KCGM expansion is like got one more year left and that'll start
commissioning on its way to 27,000,000 tons per annum.
So look, there's a, there's a lot happening in the mill
expansion like space. And yeah, I, I think to your
point earlier made, it's no wonder the GR engineering share
price is $4.00 for the first time in in history.
So yeah, it's pretty remarkable.It's good for Geo engineering.
(41:09):
Probably should do a for that one, but.
Crazy, yeah, makes you kind of think about the picks and
troubles way of playing the mining cycle, the particularly
the gold price environment and company that makes gold pints is
in obvious way. But there's a few other sort of,
you know, in the weeds ways of of playing that that kind of
(41:30):
strategy. And it's great for those
businesses around it that are that are doing well and
hopefully setting them up for themselves up for a long time to
come with this, this sort of boom in in gold.
Yeah. And bucking the trend So
interestingly, like all of thesestories of all these gold
companies, it's all we're long or we're gonna expand throughput
and we're a growth story. Again, interestingly, bucking
(41:50):
the trend, and I do respect it, is is Paul Smerley for Pantoro.
The processing plant as we're operating, I think it's really
important for people to understand, I get all the time,
why don't you just make the plant a whole lot bigger and and
throw a whole lot more material through.
The real value at Norseman is inthe in the very high grade
material and we see much bigger margins from those high grade
(42:12):
undergrounds. And so hopefully you can see
those tables and what the grade does in that plant.
We see it as being a very real opportunity to add two
additional underground mines over the next couple of years,
bring that feed grade up from the circuit, 3 grams that it is
now to somewhere between 5:00 and 7:00 grams a ton.
Isn't that interesting? It's different perspective and
they're in a different position because they're, you know,
(42:34):
they've got high grade underground potential.
It's going to take a bit of timeto get it.
But once you can get more tons from your high grade underground
into your mill, which is I thinkit's only a little bit north of
1,000,000 ton gram processing plant, there might be up to 1.5.
I have to double check my numbers.
But yeah, there's no interest inactually expanding that, just
putting more or you know, lower grade material through through
(42:57):
it. It's all about just how do we
get more of the high grade underground mines online so that
we we maximize the grade going through the mill in the first
place. And those strong margins and
cash flows, enforcing them and the good time is, is what will
support you as a business when times are invariably not so
good. Yeah, that's going to now.
That's going to be an interesting time when times are
not as good as they are right now in the gold market because
(43:19):
everyone's recut their reserves at these, you know, like 4000
Australian Gold Prize. Like like, yeah, not not
everyone. But the new normal mate, don't
worry about it. It's a remarkable, remarkable
thing that yeah, we'll see how that unfolds over time.
Fantastic mate, I hope all the money miners enjoyed the the
Digger's wrap and a massive thank you to our partners Sandy
Graham Support and Cross Boundary Energy, Ooderu Ooderu.
(43:43):
Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot.
If you thought any of this was anything other than
entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read out a
disclaimer.
Like I, I think we we can safelysay we are in a new paradigm.
Yeah. This is arguably the biggest
thing that's happened in the commodity space in many, many
decades. You know, gone back a long while
to find something as sort of game changing as this.
God, I realised that just there.Oh, Oh my goodness.
(00:22):
That was that could have been a,that could have been a disaster,
mate. Money miners, we forgot to press
record the first time but we aregiving it another go mate.
What are we talking about today?Mate, Diggers and Dealers is in
full swing, which we have been watching kind of and we're going
to play out the highlights from the many, many presentations
that are out there just so you don't have to watch like you
know, 20 hours of stuff. It's good having the the strange
sort of come through, being ableto see the ones what's, what's
(00:44):
interesting, what's not and stuff.
I don't think that's new. I just think what's new is that
we're not hungover. Complete change.
We're also going to have a bit of a chinwag about what the
Aussie government has flagged that they're going to do in the,
the railroad space, the the critical material space.
So. This is this is this is bonkers,
mate. So that the what the the
government is now going to copy the US and introduce a price
(01:06):
floor for rare earth, which is yeah, I just didn't think we'd
be here. But it's it's just kind of
amazing how drastically and fastthis whole kind of yeah, piece
of the puzzle is unfolding and what's what it's doing to
equities, what it means geopolitically. 100% like I, I
think we, we can safely say we are in a new paradigm here.
This is arguably the biggest thing that's happened in the,
(01:26):
the commodity space in many, many decades.
You know, we've gone back a longwhile to find something as sort
of game changing as this, not just the price floor like
companies getting equity stakes taken in them from a government
in the US. You know, this isn't China or a
similar type country that we're we're talking about.
So what, what has happened lately is that the Aussie
(01:50):
government has flagged that theyare strongly considering and
they, they might come out with something very sort of similar
in scope to what the US has donewith regard to putting a price
floor specifically for, for rareearth projects.
So they have given a few words and we spoke about this at the
the AF Rs Critical Minerals or the mining summit, I think it
(02:12):
was called. And, you know, the focus is very
much kind of supporting end users with regard to defence and
strategic tech and, and these sorts of things.
And Madeline King, the resource minister, has said that she's
spoken with industry participants.
So we're waiting for a big announcement.
And I think you can, you can peel that back and have a few
(02:35):
different takes as we sort of stand here today.
So one of them would be that theAussie government is just trying
to butter up to the Trump administration.
We know they'd love to do a deal, all these sorts of things.
Maybe there's a bit of behind the scenes aligning of interests
with various governments around the world.
We know the US and the EU just came out with a deal after
(02:57):
Liberation Day a few months backand all these sorts of things.
But it's kind of bonkers. And as you mentioned, it's it's
been reflected in the the pricesof of Linus, of Aloka, of all
these players. The guys in Brazil, they're all
up 3/4 fold. It's it's nuts.
Yeah, I I own shares in a speccyone of them and like 6 months
ago it was the worst stock in MyPortfolio down like 67% and now
(03:20):
it's now it's the best stock in My Portfolio which is crazy.
Probably an indication I should sell mate because.
Probably is it It's bonkers and it doesn't just stop there with
regards to the government getting involved in critical
minerals because we also saw overnight that the the essay and
the Tasmanian government is going to come in and they're
going to award up to $130,000,000 to near stars
(03:43):
smelters at Port Perry and Hobart.
So they are owned by Trafigura and Trafford obviously
threatened that they're just going to walk away because
there's a massively loss making.So it's a a short term Band-Aid
type fit. So there's a lot of jobs at
stake here, hence the importanceof it.
But it's interesting to dig in and see some of the comments
from the premier of SA. So made the case that this is an
(04:07):
investment in the future of the plants and not a bailout, as
well as sort of saying a few months back that he'd argue that
these uncompetitive assets that near star own shouldn't be in
fully private hands. So again, kind of paradigm
changing type stuff like we, we've come from a world many,
many decades ago where the government owned a whole bunch
(04:29):
of assets in a whole bunch of different sectors.
And the world has been on since the the 70s and 80's, the trend
to sell these out, privatize these assets.
And now it looks like we're in the the brink of going in the
opposite direction. Man, it's heads eye win tails.
You lose with with private ownership of of substantial
infrastructure assets these days.
It's I think, I think that's, you know, personally kind of
(04:50):
unhealthy for, for a number of reasons, one not not least of
which is a creates moral hazard.And you've got to have symmetry
of risks. You take equity risks, you know,
even if the market fundamentallychanges, I, you know, I'm a big
believer private capital should wear the pain of that.
And I don't think it's like nice.
It's not even, it's not even strategically like where's the,
where's the strategic angle withthe, with the refinemental that
(05:11):
comes out of that. Don't, don't.
That's not as clear cut as the whole rare earth stuff that's
been going on anyway. Yeah, I mean it, it's a tough
one because so much of our manufacturing has has left the
country and we don't have the ambition to to pull all of that
back in country like the US is very clear about wanting to have
manufacturing and a whole bunch of different things.
We'll see if that actually comesto to fruition.
But as it sort of stands, what are we going to do with a whole
(05:32):
bunch of these things? Yeah, there are some industries,
some some businesses around the country that need the the
products from some of these things.
But I think we need to take it in the context of like why they
are uncompetitive. And there's two big reasons that
come to mind, right. So you've got the huge capacity
build out of smelting and refining around the world.
You know, a lot of that obviously in in China, but that
(05:54):
has led to TCR CS just falling through the floor.
Zinc TCR CS sort of halved from like 1160 down to 80 bucks.
Copper's gone negative. We've spoken about that a bunch.
And then you've got the Australian energy setting and
these are not high margin businesses and you know,
particularly in the in the likesof like aluminium and, and that
(06:16):
sort of supply chain, but it goes across the whole spectrum.
You need to have competitive energy settings and without
that, you don't really have any hope.
So I think as as a country, we need to ask ourselves, do we
want to have this capacity? You know, do we want to be
capable of producing these metals in country?
And if we do, you know, the, thenext sort of thinking is do we
(06:36):
want them to be government funded?
Do we want them to be fully private, privately owned?
And if we want them to be privately owned, right, we need
more competitive energy settings.
It's it's, it's quite straightforward in, in that
regard. And yeah, it's going to require
a bunch of tough decisions. You, you zoom out, you look at
the things in, in Queensland, man iser and everything that
there's a lot of jobs at stake here.
(06:57):
So it's a a delicate kind of subject to to broach.
I yeah, I, I, I can be, I can beunconvinced of the merit of
bailing out smelters broadly, yeah, but but that.
That would imply that you've been convinced at at the minute,
which I hazard yes, isn't isn't the.
(07:17):
Case No one's going to feel feelsorry for the commodity trainer
trainers that own it. But I, you know, point taken on
the the people of their jobs. But, you know, this is, this is,
this is capitalism. Like, yeah.
Yeah, 100%. And, and it's, you know, the
Glen cause the trappies of the world are, are, are one spot,
but then there's the, the flow on effects and, and all the
people downstream and, and adjacent to these which get
(07:38):
affected. So, yeah, it's a, it's a really
tough call because you're competing with China and a lot
of these companies stayed back to their lower cost of capital
and all that, that we've spoken about a bunch.
So it's certainly not an even playing field across the world
to the rare earth. Beat so that that news about a
potential floor price on rare earths coming out of resources
minister it's a little bit more clarity or indication of what's
(08:02):
going to kind of come out of thewhole stockpile and off take
plan. There's no doubt in my mind that
that you know a huge part of this the the benefit there is is
going to be on kind of underwriting the economics of of
any other itself. I look as any other facility
now, what's plagued any other? Well, OK, so, so A, it's a
(08:23):
proposed refinery that's gettingbuilt if it has been announced,
but they still need to, to A, fill it up with, you know,
feedstock that you have high confidence in and then B, find a
buyer of it now. Now I think 2 bits of that
puzzle are kind of coming together at the same time as a
result of this government indication because you've got
the government with a floor price and also going to provide
the the offtake. Well, guess what?
(08:45):
That kind of lets the whole financing be come out.
I'm pretty sure Lindy and they're going to a halt today
because, you know, Luca's going to going to be a substantial
offtake and potentially even financier of, of, of their
rarest Africa, which yeah, which, which will, you know, I
expect to see the feedstock of that be signposted for any other
and, and what are the implications of that?
It kind of just you got this like floor price like that, that
(09:08):
that will undoubtedly incentivize new supply to to
come to market. And I think, you know, I think
we say that almost immediately. If, if, if, if it means that you
know, Lindian's project will, will will now have a, a, a, a,
you know, a pathway to actually being built in the near future.
Yeah, in in their words, it willsort of crowd in private
capital, which is an interestingkind of concept.
But what you reminded me of is another bit of news out of the
(09:31):
States, which is actually reallypositive in my mind because you
remember this, this has started just with MP materials.
This wasn't a universal price floor that that set across the
industry. But the more recent talk is that
they're willing to open that up to a number of other American
producers. Now that is a positive sort of
turn or sort of tack and direction.
(09:53):
And I'm keen to sort of chase that one up and, and see where
that goes because that is a bit more, you know, not picking a
winner and and levelizing it so other people can potentially and
you have some sort of, you know,inkling of, of capitalism there
rather than just picking you outnet winner in MP.
But. Well, it's, it's started with
MP. They're going to have this,
this, you know, wonderful price floor applied to them.
And then the immediate logic is,well, hey, if, if MP is the only
(10:14):
one that kind of gets this, thenwhat if MP just buys a bunch of
other development projects can then they benefit from it.
So then you know you're trying to think of.
That is it character. Is it just mountain pass?
I think, I think now that we're seeing like a a more broad
application of this kind of price for dynamic, Yeah.
Like, like if it was just MP, then my God, the, the merit for
MP acquiring liners or acquiringa lucre is so strong.
You know, just everyone gets theprice for happy days and bring
(10:37):
up a bunch of development stuff online.
I still think like you look at, yeah, the, the MP stock is, is
super high. Like, you know, they, they, they
should buy, buy something, consolidate that sector.
I think the the merit of MP buying a a liquor or Linus is
still really strong. I think the merit of of Linus
buying a liquor is strong. And I wouldn't be surprised to
see, you know, the there'd be a a flow on effect of some other
(10:59):
critical minerals. Well, guess what's going to go
through the roof when a floor price is going to be announced
on another like, you know, nichebut critically important mineral
out there. Like, yeah, I wouldn't, I
wouldn't be surprised to see some some wacko commodities be
lobbied at the various governments of the world to to
also underwrite the development.I I think you're right mate, not
a bad time to start a lobbying business I reckon 'cause there's
gotta be fair people in Washington and Canberra getting
(11:21):
a fair bit of work. Oh gosh, what a great business.
Shall we talk about diggers mate?
Diggers and dealers, how good isdiggers and dealers specifically
the presentations mate, because you get to listen to the the
brightest macro economists gather around and and tell us
that every commodity price is destined to, to go up,
specifically the commodity of the of the of the mine, which
(11:43):
they're the managing director of.
But most and first and foremost,the macro economists that
presented this conference. Not sure if you're aware.
Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head
there mate. And they're they're preaching to
the converted. On the presentation front,
though, that's actually been a little bit dry this year.
Nothing too outrageous when, when you think and zoom in out
of and thinking of Diggers. Like there's been some
(12:03):
commentary in the lead up to, toDiggers this year specifically
because Noosa, like Noosa happened a couple weeks ago,
rolled out of the Noosa conference and into Diggers and
a lot of people, a lot of peoplereally talked up the Noosa
conference this year got a lot of attention.
A lot of the commentary out of Noosa was that, you know, it
was, it was great because you had a more more concise and
condensed and concentrated crowd.
You had more investors and companies sort of only like it
(12:23):
didn't have that trade show feel.
It felt very kind of capital markets relevant.
So with that bit of feedback, mate, things have taken that on
board and actually made a rule about who's who's actually
allowed in the tent, right? And.
What's the new rule mate? So you're allowed to have
investors and companies obviously, and they're pretty
strict on on which service providers actually let in the
tent. In fact, for the first two
hours, only Derek Heard was allowed in in the main tent.
(12:45):
Because Derek heard the championof Sandvik ground support.
You've got to make it a blanket rule, but you can't, because
you've got to let Derek Kurt in.He's the king of ground support.
They are the go to name in ground support mate,
manufacturing and supplying in every sort of nook of the world
got the the Qdao factory here you can see they supply people
from all over the world and and they've got the app, which I
(13:05):
know you love mate big. Fan of the app.
Mines are getting deeper mate. You need ground support to make
them safe. Fantastic ground support solves
all of those problems. And they've got some exciting
updates coming soon, mate. Watch this space.
I'm keeping my eyes peeled. Say hi to Derek because he's
loud in the tent. Go Derek.
Where should we start with diggers, mate?
There's a plethora of announcements and presentations
(13:28):
to to sort of talk through. Obviously a lot of discoveries
being made the past couple days.Isn't there as well?
But Pantora, you want to start there.
I do, yeah. I think we we've each gone about
this by plucking out a few snippets here and there and
hopefully it leads to some interesting discussion.
This is Paul Smelik of Pantoro wrapping up his his Prezzo.
So we started out very, very small.
We had a $15 million market cap,woman bought Halls Creek.
(13:51):
We had a broken plan and we're developing an underground mine
in oxide material. Starting with about 20 of us.
We got to 2016. This is why I really wanted to
show it. I've I've always asked to to
bring this bull back out. This is our opening presentation
at Diggers and Dealers in 2016. The bull keeps finding more gold
(14:12):
and it's getting better and better.
So I. Didn't show that to you before
the audio listeners. There's an animation of a bull,
kind of like the logo of Fantora.
Just you've got to, you've got to.
Watch that one. You'll watch it.
Pooping out some gold. That's that's brilliant.
I yeah, fantastic. Right on smells they, but my
(14:32):
pentor is actually pretty interesting now and kudos to
them. They added $43 million of, of,
of cash and go to the balance sheet last quarter.
They, they, they really knocked it out of the park and yeah,
like, like that quarter saw Norseman cranked at 25, 25.4000
oz produced. So like, you know, they, the
guidance had had in people's head for a long time and been
this it's going to get to 100 to110,000 oz And they, and when
(14:53):
you, when you look at that quarter, you're like, OK, they
got there. They're the only gold mine on
ASX right now with an all time high share price.
Everyone else has sort of peeledoff as all sorts of macro things
have happened. But Pantoro you know, having the
benefit of a of a rewrite on theback of a really strong
operational quarter and an expectation that there's,
there's going to be more, you know more more guidance met and
(15:15):
operational delivery there. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there.
It's it's really good to see them start to check cash into
the bank. Yeah, totally.
And I mean they are going to spend a lot in, in the way of
capital on, on both exploration and development this year.
But but like I do think that's for the, you know, for the for
the betterment of the project. Now that they've got like Scotia
(15:36):
and nameplate providing feed at the same time.
You've got, you know, OK, underground delivering kind of
outperforming actually in terms of what it's providing the mill.
And then that's that's allowing allowing the foundations to to
do the work on, you know, the bull and decline at the same
time as expiration. Yeah, actually a sort of
positive feeling around around the company, mate.
Next up. Len old Aldridge of a vault,
(15:58):
formerly Silver Lake, but I've got I've got to play this one
from from Lenny. By the way, this is just 18
seconds into into the Prezzo from vault.
As a business, we are driven by free cash flow generation, not
aspirational production targets.Remember 2 years ago Raul was
Diggers Prezzo and he's. How could I forget?
That was great. Anyway, so I reckon it's still
in Len's mind and he's like making it make it taking a jab
(16:21):
at Genesis already aspirational production targets.
But Genesis aren't the only onesyou know, These things are are
everywhere these days, you know,or a band are Bright Star come
to mind. But not fault, mate, They're
bucking the trend. Free cash flow.
Free cash flow, don't mind that.Always alert to opportunistic
situations. As I stated on this stage last
year, the life, the opportunities and the cash flow
(16:41):
generation potential of the portfolio means we have no
existential requirement to pursue MNA.
What do you What do you make? Of that, is that what you say
right before you do a big deal? Maybe, maybe.
I reckon, I mean, he started by saying we're always aware of the
opportunistic situations but don't need to do it.
I think, I think they're probably fielded a bunch of
questions in recent history about what's their interest in
(17:03):
Bellevue, they're going to do a deal in Bellevue, yada, yada.
All of the rumors around Bellevue and also the rumors
before that, of course, of a potential deal with Genesis now.
Yeah. So let's let's, let's, let's
wait and see. But like that was the the party
line, the whole thing about Bellevue, that's kind of the one
of the talking points. I think that'll come out of
(17:23):
Diggers. It's just a whole bunch of
speculation about, you know, where, where's Bellevue at?
What's going to happen to that? I think there'll be no shortage,
mate. On to the next one.
Simon Lawson and Zeppe Fulramilis on the stage
together. There was a few snippets from
this one and a few sort of comments that I thought were
were pretty punchy. So first and foremost, you've
got the two of them together andthere's no shortages of remarks
(17:43):
about how the dynamic has changed since last year when
they were sort of going head to head.
But some of the comments from Zippy, from cash flow is going
to be mega to, it's fair to say,3G Millingrade at this gold
price. We are killing it, you know,
they're, they're really feeling themselves, you know, and you
can see that in the in the cash flow that the the companies kind
of made. But mate, you're you're a
(18:05):
Spartan shareholder. So does that mean you're now a
Amelia? Shareholder as of last week.
I am a Amelia shareholder now, mate.
And I think, you know, having said that, looking at the the
comments that you made about Q is really, really interesting.
People have kind of forgotten about it, I think, in the
excitement of what they've done with the Spartan deal that sort
of dominated the last sort of six months.
(18:25):
And I think Penny had always sort of taken the cake in terms
of grade, but to see Q just dominated is kind of
interesting. We are killing it.
So for anyone who has any queries about our ability to
bring projects, including Delgaranga into production
quickly and make a return, I have this little case study.
Two slides on the Q project. We acquired Q in October 2023,
(18:51):
which was at the time essentially a series of drill
pads and by diggers. Last year August 24, we'd
completed permitting internal external approvals and we were
mining the pre strip of the break a day pit which you can
see on the bottom left. If we move forward 12 months,
(19:11):
remembering that we mined first door in October, we've mined
almost 100,000 oz at 10 grams per ton at an all in sustaining
cost below $800.00 an ounce and generated almost 288 million in
free cash flow. It's.
Remarkable that that's paid itself off already.
Yeah quite impressive indeed mate.
Like that that's a that's remarkable.
(19:32):
I mean the fact that they acquired that like October 23.
I remember talking about the deal.
I remember you know anyway, it'sjust remarkable how quick all
that happened so kudos to them. That is backward looking Helm
ever JD and I think like the thething you've always got to
contextualize with with Rameelius is what's
forward-looking and when Q like if Q is already up forming penny
well it kind of tells you where pennies at so how much yeah Q
(19:55):
itself doesn't doesn't it was a pretty definite deposit in my
life there. So they're going to have to have
a period of a couple of. A couple of years or already
months of relatively, you know, lesser cash flow than than than
has been expected historically. That that's been the knock.
You know, Edna May is no longer producing.
It's just sort of sitting there now and we know Penny is a a
(20:17):
very short my life and these sorts of things.
And obviously they think Dale Granger can can feel the gap
there. We'll sort of see yeah, in due
course what sort of numbers thatadds to the the production
profile specifically from that sort of 28 to 2032 type time
frame when you're all in sustaining cost went to over
(20:37):
3000 almost doubled and the the production really dropped off.
So they'll be looking for that to fill that gap and we'll sort
of wait and see by the end of the year what the numbers look
like around that. Yep, and that's not the only one
from this speech, because later on we get the great man Mr.
Simon Lawson, who is a natural speaker I think he was made for
presenting it to. You over the moon that I get the
(20:58):
chance to go and drill down there with my team and integrate
with the Remilius strategy and also leverage off some of those
amazing cash flows because for awhile it was looking pretty bare
and now covered and and you know, Mark's been putting a lot
in the bank. So I'm quite happy to try and
spend some of it finding some more gold.
(21:19):
Hang on. I like it.
It does fundamentally does speakto AI suppose like an
amalgamation of two different cultures in Remilius and Spartan
and and you you're seeing that pro forma now trying to find the
find the middle ground on higherexpiration spend then, you know,
has historically happened from Remelia.
So we're focused on free cash flow generation and really
(21:40):
cutting costs from every part ofthe business where where
necessary to maximize free cash flow.
So, yeah, like and then they're navigating that they've got a
bigger expiration budget for thenext financial year, which is
supported by the by the by the spot and kind of perspective on
things. And yeah, it'll be kind of
interesting to see if they have the expiration success to and
and stick with that strategy. Absolutely, mate.
(22:01):
Came to see where that one goes.Next up, Emerald Morgan Hart
presenting at the end of Monday and there was a couple of
snippets here that I think are worth playing mate.
Start with this bit here. To be paying them something like
25 to $35 million a year of tax and rallies.
We paid them $52 million this year in taxes and rallies.
The the second biggest taxpayer in Cambodia.
By the time we're doing our second project, we'll be well
(22:21):
and truly the number one taxpayer in Cambodia.
Isn't that remarkable #1 taxpayer in Cambodia?
That really is. I had no idea about that.
Yeah. But it's always striking when
you hear about these somewhat like obscure gold companies that
are operating obviously in a developing country, the
proportion of GDP that they contribute to to to where where
they're operating and, and that flows through the tax revenues
(22:43):
and everything like that. I found that a pretty
interesting thing. Yeah, super, super impressive.
I thought the presentation from Morgan was impressive all round.
And they're, you know, a team with a great track record.
There's this little snippet thatI think's worth playing as they
sort of shift where they're they're going to, they're going
to go from pulling in 2G per tondirt to 6g for a for a little
period. So there's a bit of sugar there
to be pulled. And this slide, if you look at
(23:04):
the top right hand corner there and and you look at the
intersections there, the 15118 at 19118.4429, that's what we
intend to bring into production underground next year.
We think of the second calendar half of next year, we'll start a
a decline from the northern partof the pit.
That's the first or it goes through and we we expect to
increase the production at off by replacing 2G open cut
(23:25):
material with 6G open cut material on a percentage basis.
Pretty pretty straight talker, isn't he, Morgan?
He he sure is, mate. And there was one more snippet
that, yeah, you plucked out. I found this striking, I think.
I think I've actually seen Morgan speak to this phenomenon
before. But yeah, if mining with this
simple everywhere in the world would be amazing.
Mammat is the other growth storyI've been talking about.
(23:46):
If you look at that slide on theleft, that was Ochbow in in
2011. That's the footprint that Oz
Minerals actually found. On the right hand side is
Mammat. Same footprint, same geological
signature die right, intrusions into Hornfeld's Meadow
sediments, same illegal miners. I've moved them off of Ochbow.
Five years ago, they moved into Mammat.
I've moved them again this year,150 of them, 150 families of
(24:09):
them. And then now another project
we've got to the north, which I always tell my geologist, which
I've got 50 of in his team, thatmaybe we should be following
these guys rather than me payingtheir money in case.
Isn't that pretty funny? Like, yeah, it's just just
following the artisanal miners where they go makes a lot of
sense, doesn't. It it works in in quite a few
different countries mate. Imagine, imagine having yeah
(24:30):
imagine the same artisanal miners kind of you having to pay
for them to be moved three timesand you know, you build 3 mines
as a result of that. It's pretty easy kind of
exploration story when you when you think of it like that.
Next up, mate, Ken Brinson of a Patriot.
Pelucite is to cesium what spodumain is to lithium.
Think about them kind of in a similar light.
(24:52):
Right, Love simple analogies. Got to speak to me like in
simple words. Love simple language.
Mind you, I didn't actually knowwhat spodumain was five years
ago, but now? Now I do.
Now you're in the nomad. Now I know what polysite is as
well. Next up, Waratah.
So this is actually the the intro to the spiel from from
(25:12):
Waratah our. Next presenter probably.
It couldn't be better timed. I'm just looking at the share
price. It's up 41% today, so pretty
exciting time for Waratah Minerals.
The intro there from Andrew Quayle.
Well today mate. So this is the second day dig
because that was day one. Second day dig is our share
(25:33):
price is up another 20%. It's up 62% since dig is kicked
off, which is remarkable. One of those one of those day
one exploration success stories,mate.
But you know, jokes aside, I'm kind of paying attention to what
happens before retirement and spare.
It looks like they're they're onto something interesting.
Looks like they're doing, you know, good exploration work
there and it's, you know, in a good post code.
(25:54):
So yeah, but the day one dig is effect, good news effect is as
strong as ever. Nonetheless, love it.
And Sam Smith of Santana, have you ever heard him speak before?
I have not, no. Well, yeah, you're in.
You're in for a treat here, JD, because he did the pretty
uncommon thing in the world of of mining presentations.
At the end of his speech, instead of wrapping up with the
(26:16):
investment highlights, he sharedan anecdote.
This project in years to come will be the pride of Cromwell
and will reignite the Central Otago Goldfield story.
And I know this is going to be true because we've had over 1000
job applications in the last sixmonths.
And I met one of those applicants in a pub in Cromwell.
Last time I was there. It was a truck driver driving
(26:39):
from Wanica 2 1/2 hours to a neighboring project.
She had to buy a caravan. She couldn't afford a room to
rent, 2 1/2 an hour drive to getto work.
And when I told her that I work for Santana, she got all excited
and said, Sam, if you can get that project up and running, I
can be at home every night and back to my kids sleeping in my
own bed. And that's why we're building
(27:01):
this project, obviously for our shareholders.
But those people in Cromwell, every family in Cromwell, Wanica
and Alexandra will either have somebody or know somebody that
works at this project in years to come.
For a moment there I forgot I was watching a Diggy's
presentation. I thought it was a Ted talk.
So, you know, well done for doing things a bit differently,
Sam. I don't mind a little bit of
(27:21):
that. Not even behind the stand, just
roaming around. Yeah, like even the delivery was
Ted Talk S, wasn't it? There was no lectern involved.
It was getting emotional. There you go.
OK, now, now to the funny stuff.I don't know if you've heard
Alex Riviera's natural voice, but it doesn't sound like this.
A number of M&A transactions haspositioned us with substantial
mineral resources. We have just under 4 million
(27:43):
ounces of resources pro forma across the Eastern gold fields
in the Murchison districts of WA.
We do have a strategic focus nowto pivot from what was a very
corporate heavy. Journey for the last two years.
I have a Go have some water, Alex.
Maybe a lozenge as well. I.
Thought it'd be interesting if we talked about what we actually
found kind of interesting from all of the, the prezzos that we
(28:03):
did watch. Like any companies that we
thought like, you know, we should start thinking about in
a, in a, in a new way or a new light, or maybe get an
inflection point or, you know, like we think there's, there's,
there's some interesting part ofit.
Maybe the story's complicated. Yeah, I think, I think there's a
few that make the cut. I know Medallion is top of the
list here for you. Why don't we start there?
Yeah. Well, I, I, I thought I watched,
(28:25):
I watched Paul Bennett's, you know, talk on, on Medallion.
I thought it was, I thought it was pretty interesting.
Like where was he in a like a gold bull market?
Medallion is an advanced developer in that next wave of
developers that could make theirway to be, you know, a producer
in, in the near term. They won't dig his effect again
with, with Medallion. But this was deal related.
It wasn't a new deal, but the, the, the deal that they struck
(28:46):
with IGO about a year ago to gethold of Forestania, that's now
binding. They're getting the whole
Forestania nickel operation. So that's the concentrator plus
the whole what they call the FNRtenure.
Why is that important? Well, the, the, the Cosmic Boy
concentrator comes with a flotation plan already.
And that means Medallion can prioritise it's sulfide or is it
Ravenswood, which, you know, they've done plenty of work to
(29:06):
understand. It's got really good grade and
the gravy though with the with the deal is just the FNO tenure
piece of piece of that equation that that includes 33 registered
gold prospects plus three historical oxide resources,
which I did not know until listening to to Paul Bennett
Prezzo. Yeah.
And my, my curiosity is just learn more about what those
(29:27):
historical resources are becauseif they can also support, you
know, a mine plan that that kindof makes the whole, you know,
the whole story. Like, yes, super, super
interesting. It's a bit of a sleeper.
It's only $150 million market cap, but you know it could, it
could experience the the near term rewrite effect that we've
seen at the likes of Maker go through themselves.
Yeah, Yeah, I'm with you there. Bit of a rewrite or already from
(29:48):
the the very low base they came from, but it's true.
Yeah, I'm totally with you on the on the trajectory there.
I think the next company rocks actually falls into a a similar
type category. So yeah, 200 mil market cap at
50 in, in cash. I think that they're doing a lot
of good things there as well andthere's good energy and sort of
speed about how they're operating at the moment.
(30:09):
Unfortunately from them, the thething I'm going to call out
isn't necessarily related to theoperations and what's happening
there at you and me, but I thought that was an interesting
comment from the boss field widening here that it's worth
playing out loud. From the coverage we have from
Canaccord, EUR and Petra, we're about half our target share
process on that base case. And if you go to that long case,
which is what they're expecting to say out of our study, we're
(30:30):
looking at another 3-4 times growth if both projections come
true. What?
Do you think mate? Oh, yeah.
As I, well, there's always like all those rules about what
you're allowed to talk about is,you know, potential forecasts
and stuff that you put out to the market.
But if the brokers put them out,mate, we can still direct it.
We can still direct the market. Share price has gone up four
times. Oh gosh, yeah.
(30:51):
Not conflicted at all. You know, you and I, we cut our
teeth on the South side and we, you know, we just knowing how
the sausage is made, like we don't actually hold these price
targets with any weight. Yeah.
And it's not to say there's not great things happening at the
company, just not much weight inthose ones.
I'm very keen to see that the DFS come out for the rocks by
the end of the year. The pits are being de watered
there and there's going to be rigs going for underground
(31:12):
drilling soon. Obviously much cheaper.
You can go at it much quicker. So like I said, think things are
happening quite quickly and I think, you know, with the the
whole, you know, semi refractory, you know, stain that
it had sort of on it for a long time, people just sort of
steered clear. But I think there's a yeah,
there's a lot of good things happening specifically on a
(31:32):
metallurgical front there as well.
So. I reckon they're a lot like odds
on favorite for, you know, firstto bring in the Albion process
to Australia. Yeah, yeah.
A lot of work happening on that,on that front.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, mate. Let's go to Africa.
Yeah, I thought Toraco was was super interesting.
I'm kind of kicking myself that I haven't done a bunch of work
on this earlier, to be to be honest, because it's already
very expensive stock. But but this is going to be a
(31:55):
prime acquisition target. Like, I mean, they're proven,
proven up by FEMA. They only acquired this 18
months ago and in that time it'sgone from zero to 3.6 million
oz. It's kind of remarkable in Cote
d'Ivoire, like Cote d'Ivoire is an attractive jurisdiction and
you can also just sit comfortably knowing that you
know management will. Will.
Well, of course, accept bids to maximize shareholder value.
(32:18):
Like they've, yeah, they've soldcompanies before to, to
prospective acquirers in that region.
It's part of the world where youdo get bids.
So yeah, I just, I just think that's it's been a remarkable
value creation story in a very short period of time and just
just disappointing myself for for never really doing the work.
Yeah, it's been a big winner. Next up, I want to talk about
(32:38):
Jupiter. So Ding Ding Ding on your part.
I I believe I. Still own?
Yeah, I still own shares. Yep, Yep.
So Jupiter's interesting and I think, you know, by and large,
people don't care about mining at all, people.
Mining in general. Mining, Yeah, yeah, it's a very
small part of the investment world.
I think manganese mining is an even smaller subset of that.
(32:59):
It's maybe like 110th, maybe less, yeah.
And that manganese mining in South Africa, granted it's a big
portion of the market, is an even smaller subset.
So there are limited numbers andinvestors that this kind of
appeals to. I know Rusty mentioned it the
other week and we've obviously spoken about Jupiter a fair few
times over the past 12 to 18 months, but.
(33:21):
I bought those shares in expectation of the the great
manganese, you know, supply squeeze which unfortunately did
not eventuate. I learned a lot about manganese
though in the process of that. Especially learn how responsive
supply can be. It did well for a while, so
don't completely knock it, but Ithink I think this is a really
interesting place for consolidation because where they
are in the sort of Kalahari belt, in the kind of
(33:42):
northwestish of South Africa, there's a large portion of the
world's manganese comes out there.
And this slide, this sort of picture they show here, and this
sort of snippet from the presentation captures it really,
really well. In that photo, you have 5 of the
top 10 producing assets in the world today and all of the top
(34:03):
remaining mine lives of already producing assets today in that
photo. Obviously when you have that
situation, there is an opportunity to combine ownership
and Dr. consolidation value. Everyone who's familiar with
this situation can see that it'sbeen challenging for various
reasons, but that is part of Jupiter's strategy.
(34:24):
We think there's material value available from executing on that
strategy. What?
Do you think, Matt? It's I think it's like the the
rationale is, is sound, you know, all the Domino's gonna
have to come together and yeah, unfortunately it's like the, you
know, the, the, the smallest piece of that, that whole
puzzle. You know, you don't you're
offering the the mercy of of other people's timelines and
(34:44):
things blowing out and everything like that.
And I know that the recent transaction with with Exaro not
only becoming, you know, Jupiter's largest shareholder,
but also buying the JV partner at Chippy, it reignites
speculation and about what couldhappen there.
And in the case of Exaria, like they've been talking about
buying a manganese asset for a long time and they made them
(35:05):
move on the JV partner. You know, there's, I think what
the, the MD there is, I'm alluding to is the, the
potential for Jupiter be next, which I think there's, there's
good merit to that. It's just trying to predict the
timing of that is, is an uncertain thing.
But as a shareholder like I don't, I don't mind waiting that
out because they they pay a healthy dividend along the way.
Yeah, I, I think you've sort of knuckled down the investment
(35:28):
case right, right there. Whenever you see sort of pit
walls like we saw there that sort of stand between two open
pits, you think, God, that's stupid.
And there's some synergies therejust to to knock that down.
But yeah, interesting. Later in the presentation, they
they spoke about perhaps being avehicle with Exaro to go on
gobble up other things as well. So let's see what kind of
(35:49):
happens here. I think being sort of paid to
wait, like you, you touched on there isn't the world worst
thing in the world. I thought, I thought be useful
to wrap it up with just. It was one of the key things
that I, yeah, observed kind of, you know, playing playing a
bunch of these presentations to dump to X speed.
I just thought 11 inescapable theme was meal expansions.
I don't know if you picked up onthis, but my God, is there a
(36:11):
massive theme of meal expansionsat the moment right now, like be
it or a band I like in Luke Grace speech, he's talking about
the the fact that they're actually million constrained
right now. They're doing a study to expand
their meal to 3,000,000 tonnes per annum.
I even remember like earlier in the year, there were, there were
rumours that like you know, or aband about even consider a
(36:31):
second meal in a different part of their, their tenement
package. But there was this quote from
from Luke Craig and he effectively said, you know, you
can increase your throughput, your throughput without actually
adding operating costs. You kind of just adding mining
costs and haulage costs because you're benefiting from economies
of scale. The theme is so pronounced at
the moment, especially with these elevated gold prices, at a
(36:53):
time where construction costs have somewhat moderated from an
inflation perspective. Just look at the GI engineering
share price mate. You've taken the words out of my
out of my script or a band. They're not the only ones they
look at Vault, right? So they were an earlier early
mover on the whole mill expansion theme.
(37:14):
And and yeah, I mean, like King of the Hills, it's already
expanding on its way to seven and a half million tons per
hour, which is an enormous size plan.
You could put evolution in the same category as being a bit of
an early move. I mean, when Garry's expansion
has actually already happened and not having an expanded
profile allows them to to to bring online and all body, which
(37:34):
is I think, you know, it's got awhole like 25 kilometres to get
to the mill itself. And yeah, kind of have low
enough cost to to warrant the whole thing.
But in this gold price environment, happy days.
Then throw like West Gold's expanding Higginsville,
Capricorn's expanding Karla window, you know, also Capricorn
acquired wired are and there's some commentary in the market
about a, you know, potential duked in like scenario where you
(37:56):
have two meals in that in that area.
So that that that means that another meal's going to be
refurbed or, or built around that area to to warrant that
genesis. Like look at what they're doing
at both BNR and Laverton. In fact, the the the front page
of the Genesis like deck at digsand dealers is long or that is
(38:16):
like how they're framing the presentation.
Jumped at it. Yeah, right it.
Does and the flip side of long or is well, you're short milling
capacity. Oh, now it's got to be cynical,
man. Well, I'm just, you know, like
if you're long or yet like, you know, yeah.
Anyway, it's, it's it's why they're a growth story as well,
because they're long or they're going to expand capacity and
they're going to expand capacityof both Leonora and Laverton,
(38:39):
right. So right now they have 4.4
million tonnes per annum in milling capacity, 1.4 of that is
Gwalia and, and 3,000,000 tonnesper annum is, is thanks to, is
it Labourton, thanks to the restart of the day scene
operation there. Now, when Tower Hill comes into
the mix and they they've kept the, the, the guided timelines
for Tower Hill, they say that, you know, that's kind of all
(38:59):
those work streams. You want to plan that.
I think, you know, you're going to expand your, your, your meal
to, to warrant the extra feed that you're able to feed it.
Now, you know, I'm believing thepeople in the market that are
saying that that could in two stages get up to 3.5 million
tons per annum. And that's a pretty substantial
increase in that meal. You know, if they obviously
(39:19):
don't do a deal with Volk in theinterim Genesis, they're also,
yeah, doing while embarking on an expansion of Laverton mill as
well. And that the ability to do that
kind of comes out of the fact that they've now acquired Focus.
So a bunch of work has to go into the focus assets, but
there's there's a lot more feed that can actually warrant, you
know, lower processing costs andand, you know, better, you know,
(39:41):
better economies of scale as a result of the the consolidation
of the the Laverton land packagethere and the whole.
So I think, I think, I think that mill in labor could go from
3 to 3 1/2, maybe even even 4IN time, like let's see what
happens, the rationale. All in economies of scale game,
right? Totally.
All those costs down. And I feel like that, that the
(40:05):
rationale to do it is, is so clearly articulated in this
chart that which I love inside the one of the Vulk
presentations. And they, they basically just
chart up the, the processing costs of, of all of the
different, you know, gold, WA gold operations and, and on the,
the, the X axis, you've got the throughput right.
And you know, obviously trends down and to the right.
(40:26):
So, you know, the larger you meal, the lower your processing
cost because of economies of scale.
In addition to, to everything I've talked about, like there's,
there's other new builds on the on the radar, like, you know, we
talked about all, all refurbs. We talked about medallion
earlier, like, you know, think of Capricorn, Matt Gibson, in
addition to the other stuff Capricorn is doing Emerald, the
bull's eye, eventually the grey eventually like Norman starts
(40:48):
KCGM expansion is like got one more year left and that'll start
commissioning on its way to 27,000,000 tons per annum.
So look, there's a, there's a lot happening in the mill
expansion like space. And yeah, I, I think to your
point earlier made, it's no wonder the GR engineering share
price is $4.00 for the first time in in history.
So yeah, it's pretty remarkable.It's good for Geo engineering.
(41:09):
Probably should do a for that one, but.
Crazy, yeah, makes you kind of think about the picks and
troubles way of playing the mining cycle, the particularly
the gold price environment and company that makes gold pints is
in obvious way. But there's a few other sort of,
you know, in the weeds ways of of playing that that kind of
(41:30):
strategy. And it's great for those
businesses around it that are that are doing well and
hopefully setting them up for themselves up for a long time to
come with this, this sort of boom in in gold.
Yeah. And bucking the trend So
interestingly, like all of thesestories of all these gold
companies, it's all we're long or we're gonna expand throughput
and we're a growth story. Again, interestingly, bucking
(41:50):
the trend, and I do respect it, is is Paul Smerley for Pantoro.
The processing plant as we're operating, I think it's really
important for people to understand, I get all the time,
why don't you just make the plant a whole lot bigger and and
throw a whole lot more material through.
The real value at Norseman is inthe in the very high grade
material and we see much bigger margins from those high grade
(42:12):
undergrounds. And so hopefully you can see
those tables and what the grade does in that plant.
We see it as being a very real opportunity to add two
additional underground mines over the next couple of years,
bring that feed grade up from the circuit, 3 grams that it is
now to somewhere between 5:00 and 7:00 grams a ton.
Isn't that interesting? It's different perspective and
they're in a different position because they're, you know,
(42:34):
they've got high grade underground potential.
It's going to take a bit of timeto get it.
But once you can get more tons from your high grade underground
into your mill, which is I thinkit's only a little bit north of
1,000,000 ton gram processing plant, there might be up to 1.5.
I have to double check my numbers.
But yeah, there's no interest inactually expanding that, just
putting more or you know, lower grade material through through
(42:57):
it. It's all about just how do we
get more of the high grade underground mines online so that
we we maximize the grade going through the mill in the first
place. And those strong margins and
cash flows, enforcing them and the good time is, is what will
support you as a business when times are invariably not so
good. Yeah, that's going to now.
That's going to be an interesting time when times are
not as good as they are right now in the gold market because
(43:19):
everyone's recut their reserves at these, you know, like 4000
Australian Gold Prize. Like like, yeah, not not
everyone. But the new normal mate, don't
worry about it. It's a remarkable, remarkable
thing that yeah, we'll see how that unfolds over time.
Fantastic mate, I hope all the money miners enjoyed the the
Digger's wrap and a massive thank you to our partners Sandy
Graham Support and Cross Boundary Energy, Ooderu Ooderu.
(43:43):
Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot.
If you thought any of this was anything other than
entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read out a
disclaimer.
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