Retail sniffing around for crumbs of information off the big boy's table. Good work guys, but my maths says it's worse...
11,000t Ilmenite shipped in 90 days = 23,000t HMC MSP feed = 40% of nameplate capacity (Avg... not even Year 1 'high-grade')
(Ilmenite = 48% of HMC @ design MSP recoveries, where DFS LOM Avg 229ktpa HMC and 110ktpa Ilm).
Fair to assume below design Ilmenite recovery is balanced out by below design purity spec.
Hard to see how the MSP can't find the time to process 100% HMS (just 40% of design feed rate) even with downtime and batch runs.
The trend is your friend, unless your the Coburn minsand mine or an STA shareholder (10% fall in HMC @ 1% HM, bigger fall at higher grades).
Started 1 July with some Ilmenite stockpiled, but ignoring that, on the bright side we have a rising production trend for the Sep Qtr
6000t ship 21 Aug = 51 days from 1 July, = ~7,350t HMC from WCP per month avg (30 days)
5000t ship 30 Sep = 40 days from 22 Aug, = ~7,800t HMC from WCP per month avg
Year 1 -2 should be averaging 20,000t HMC per month
So we now have an idea of how badly things are going and why insiders started selling out end August as word spread, and the stock went un-bid. Hope nobody from HC was sucked into buying the sell-off.
Yesterday 12.5c tech support held, finally bounced and today we've had some sort of bid at 14c and sellers not rushing to exit below 14.5c. Looks like Luke finally found someone prepared to believe him the recovery plan is still intact, and prepared to buy that upside on market.
UGLY as the Sep Qtr is looking, insiders have hopefully priced it in now and 14c reflects a fair balance of risk-reward. Like I said the other day, 'most' of the multitude of issues are mutually-exclusive and 'may' all be fixed in one month and the mine starts singing (unlikely as that is). What's difficult to understand with so many of the problems previously identified for so long, either fixed or plans well underway to rectify as Luke says, is how the hell can the Sep Qtr actually keep going backwards? Like... how many new ways can they find to f-up a simple, coarse-grained, clean, low-slime, free-running min sand deposit?
I know I've given Luke a hard time about being so FOS with his hopeless management, misleading communication, prognosis of issues, guidance for recovery, delusionary presentations, sucker punching retail etc, but do you think it's too late for me to apologise and become good friends? I REALLY want to get on his early update group-list for the Oct production, so I can get out before the price gets smashed again if they can't sort things out, or load-up if the mine starts singing...
GLTA Mushrooms
(20min delay)