It's hard to see RVR posting a bad result for the September quarter. They've had a $5m+ head start with the gold they sold early July and the concentrate they withheld from sale in the June quarter betting that base metal prices would continue to improve. Had they sold in June then their $3.5m EBITDA would have looked a lot better.
- Due to timing of sales and the gold concentrate campaign, unsold concentrate stock levels at the end of the quarter (zinc concentrate 586 DMT, lead concentrate 232 DMT and copper concentrate 506 DMT) were higher than usual. Additionally, closing stocks of 475 DMT of gold concentrates realised net revenue of US$1.6 million in early July.
Those zinc, lead and copper concentrates at the grades reported in the quarterly should equate to roughly:
- Zinc 314 t
- Lead 157 t
- Copper 134 t
- Gold 82 oz
- Silver 20847 oz
I deduct a blanket ~15% as a rule of thumb for transport, treatment & refining costs and smelter recovery deductions. Lead & copper treatment charges are much lower than zinc, but zinc TCs are very favourable now compared to 3-9 months ago - the only 2 quarters RVR have posted a negative EBITDA, which also coincided with the transition to a new mine.
Another positive is that copper recovery & production were both at record highs last quarter - despite a decrease in total tonnes mined - at the same time as copper has hit a 2-year high. The Thalanga restart study assumed that copper would make up 21% of revenue when it is currently making up 32%. Gold and silver by-products were also assumed to make up 10% of revenue combined when they are making up almost 20%.
This is without even considering Hillgrove. In short, RVR today is a very different story to RVR 3-9 months ago.
