Well... the market was either expecting more, or.... it's just...

Well... the market was either expecting more, or.... it's just doing it's 'thing'.
In either case, I think it was a great announcement considering that the new team running WGX have only just begun ramping up exploration.
You only have to look at RRL to see how long it can take to bring new deposits into a mine plan, and even longer to actually make a difference to their production profile (to be clear, RRL is an absolutely failure, with their production falling 25%+ in the years to come because they don't have the ore to feed all their plants, because... they never spent any money exploring).

Resource MRE.... finally starting to tick higher... even after production and the culling of low grade open pit ore. Profitable ounces are what matter, not what sits on an MRE, but never gets produced.





I also like how they have presented the resource growth visually, though it would be great to match these with current/future exploration drilling/holes etc (but, not in the MRE update, perhaps an upcoming presentation). Note.... no nice image for Paddy's Flats, which is not growing, or at least, not currently...



On first glance, the reserve update is uninspiring, yet... WGX is culling low grade open pit ounces, because... the U/G is where the profit is. Plus, they replaced almost 50% of their FY2023 production, which I believe bodes well for future years with increased drilling ongoing.


Unsurprisingly, they have only included the reserve upgrade for Big Bell graphically, again, I appreciate how they have clearly shown where the extra ounces are being added, I wonder if other producers will do the same. The green arrow is pointing to the caving expansion. I wonder how many ounces have been added, as they are ounces to be mined in the near term and hopefully extend the sub level caving mine life. The green questions marks are mine, to ponder, does the base of the cave extend further? The graphic on the right is from 18 months ago. I wonder how deep Big Bell will really go?



WGX have approx 9 years of mine life in the Murchison, with Fortnum being the laggard with only 3 more years (though... considering it was supposed to have already run out of ore and been shut, I believe this will be rectified with further drilling, though... I think WB and the team would likely prefer to have a larger 3rd plant, and then run down Fortnum and close it (assuming they have no major discovery nearby the plant).

I also find it interesting that the Tuckabianna stockpiles have decreased slightly tonnes wise, but... grade is improving. They did not even use 200kt, which implies... 20 years of stockpiles at that rate. A shame they cannot eek out any more performance from the plant, as 0.8g/t into a lower cost mill, would be more than profitable with no mining costs. I do think it shows they have lots of flexibility to use more stockpiles, if... they got more processing capacity added to the company, or if they want to send more ore from Cue north to the Bluebird plant (which, also interestingly, actually slightly increased in size, so they are not using much of their stockpiles at all to the north).

Crazy to see 1m ounces in resource at Reedy's (South Emu/Triton), yet no mining, though I guess that says the current resource is not as profitable as the likes of Big Bell or Bluebird (and... it's likely seen little exploration to change that view to date).

Cmon Geo team, see if you can twist WBs arm to get a presentation out about just WGX exploration targets/goals etc.