Ann: $31.6M Equity Raising Completed, page-15

The Money of Mine blokes have been putting out some excellent content. Even if one disagrees with some of their points, it is worthwhile following them along. I've just tagged Matty re: my comments below.

Cheers for your thoughts, Matty. Love your work, mate.

All will be revealed when Cyprium release the integrated (oxides + sulphides) scoping study at the end of Q1 2024. This study will be completely different to the restart study released in 2022. They are planning to “go big” now. No stuffing around with it. We can forget about MLX and the legacy issues. MLX ran an underground op. This mob are adopting a completely different approach. Envisage a +20 year super pit (the sulphides have a MRE of 795,000t of contained Cu) (total super pit based on a MRE of 940,400t contained copper).

The appeal lies in the staged approach. Phase 1 involves a retreat of the historic heaps (estimated inventory of 17.16mt @ 0.53% Cu for ~91kt of copper metal) & then leach oxide and transitional ore via open pit. A total of 146,100t of copper cathode at a rate of 25ktpa. They can use the cash flow from heap leaching to fund the restart of the sulphide concentrator.

Note - from years 3-6 - there will be a production overlap between cathode and sulphide concentrate - whereby total production will be 53,000t of copper per annum. That is close to Sandfire’s Matsa production rate by the way. C1 cash costs US$1.91/lb & C3 US$2.82/lb. Matsa C1 US$1.99/lb (not sure of their C3 costs).

Re: Financial metrics:

2022 Restart Study
P1 FCF = A$544m
Pre-production capex A$149m (max cash drawdown of A$193m).
C3 = US$2.82/lb
Cu price used = US$4.08/lb (US$9,000t at AFX rate of 0.75 = A$12,000/t).

Now - Cu price US$3.75/lb (US$8,268.75 at FX rate of 0.645 = $12,815/t).
Metrics are actually better today (20 September 2023) at the current FX rate (ceteris paribus).

Not quite so sure re: your comment that the C3 costs would have gone up at Nifty. They completed the restart study near the height of inflationary pressures in 2022. It is my understanding that they are refreshing the cost inputs to be included in the integrated scoping study. WA diesel prices are somewhat similar now. There could be savings on reagents and freight costs, etc.

You are right in saying that capex will increase, but it will still be reasonably modest for an envisaged operation of this size. This is the beauty of a brownfield vs greenfield op. Almost half a billion in sunk capital from previous owners over many years.

And a resource and operation of this size will make them a takeover target (my bet is Rio Tinto - who have signalled their future copper intentions).