Well, after todays call, I continue to view WB as one of the best in the business... in the ways that I rank them anyway (honest, upfront and realistic).
I may have thrown a few too many questions at him, but he had a good crack at answering them all.
Perhaps brokers were not listening in.... but if they were I struggle to understand why they would not be putting out an update on the many.... positive developments ongoing across the business.
My brief summary with hopefully no spin.
Bluebird plant.... looking to be upgraded to 2.5mtpa, because... for the first time in almost 8 years... the plant is looking like having too much ore! Studies are underway, with no downtime due to the upgrade basically needing extra crushing/grinding which can be upgraded in parallel with production. Whilst not mentioned.... this upgrade would be over 50% more than the current throughput, or.... at 2.5mtpa, with a grade of 2.5g/t, that is around 200k p.a before recovery rates... huge efficiencies of scale and lower costs.
Bluebird U/G is ramping up towards 100kt per month, with the longer term plan being over 1.2mtpa (due to Polar Star being added to the production mix - could be done so within the next 6-9 months).
Wayne keeps saying the underground Bluebird complex is big, but... it really is. 11km trend... lodes everywhere, just need to be drilled. If they can find further repeats, the mine just gets bigger, without large capex required. Simple... logical... long life.
The upcoming MRE update was touched on,... focus was conversion, not resource growth, but that will change, so... perhaps not a major catalyst ( I think the major catalyst will be the next quarter of production...)
I liked Waynes comments that Bluebird U/G is... just so big they cannot find the edges yet.
Beta Hunt - very interesting about the staffing issue for the trucks... when fully manned, they are achieving north of 6500t per day... or 2.3mt annualized that is a hell of a lot of ore, and they are not even into Fletcher yet.
Oh and to quote WB - "we are drilling the hell out of Fletcher".
He also discussed Two Boys again, but with what I believe... is some serious upside. Plus quantifying why it has such potential (basically it's near Trident, a high grade 1m ounce mined deposit). Whilst not in any way saying Two Boys is the same, there is serious potential, just needs... drilling. Plus, it's already looking like a better version of Fender... which aims to produce 25-30k p.a... so Two Boys could be a very nice addition to Higginsville production profile. Any stock piled ore they can replace with U/G, is incredibly profitable right now.
Finally, he touched on Great Fingall... and early ore. He seemed to hint, that just maybe... Great Fingall will be providing ore earlier than Q4 FY25.
For me... Wayne painted a picture of a company that is now progressively debottlenecking the Karora assets... whilst also expanding all the Murchison mines. When will the market wake up... who knows, but I am looking forward to watching 'it' finally catchup.
So much exploration going on across the whole company... excited to be a part of it really.
When I look across the sector, I cannot think of any other mid tier that is drilling the sort of targets that could really create a step change in their production, except WGX (hmm... perhaps DEG sort of).
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