Cheers for the reply Cash, in a nut shell, that is the information I am trying to sleuth out. How long before AMI goes from heavy capex spend, to... cash generator, even with ongoing spend on capex (be it required or non-sustaining).
From my experience to date, it almost always takes far longer than I hope (expect), but perhaps AMI will prove me wrong, which will be slightly ironic for me, since I am usually overly optimistic.
As you point out, they are in no rush, with current ore sources enough for the plant at it's current run rate, but I guess I just want to see AMI have more scale, as whilst they will undoubtedly benefit from the higher prices for their metals, the plant is largely fixed cost, so... a lot more tonnes is going to be a lot more profitable. I see many similarities with ALK, so again (which has ploughed in the better part of $250m over recent years into their project and yet to see any real upside (though they are basically there now).
Regarding MAC and their somewhat underutilized mill, I believe over time, they will succeed in scaling up their mine to match it... though perhaps AMI could send Copper north. As I see it, MAC has done a deal with POL for the near term to process the high grade zinc, because POL have spare capacity in their mill right now (or will in 4 months time when it turns on).
I don't doubt there are further synergies to be had within the region, so a deal might be had, but with both MAC and AMI and POL are in fairly different stages of development/production, there are better minds than mine who hopefully can shine a light on what will happen.
(20min delay)