Hey Joel,
I could not help myself.... I started looking through all the past ASX announcements for when WGX last mentioned the plant upgrades... but then got totally lost trying to work out when the Meekatharra plant was actually built! I got as far back as the year 2000, when.... mysteriously, the ASX announcements are listed, but... have no data, so can only go by announcement titles!
The last time WGX mentioned potentially expanding Fortnum or Tuckabianna was back on the 1st of Aug, 2022. Since then... nothing in any presentation or quarterly I can find. Though as seen below, it mentions the Blue bird processing faility.
Suffice to say, what a rabbit hole.... Though I won't show every document I perused!
The interesting bits...
The Meekatharra Plant is at least 23 years old (but... could be longer.....)
It has been refurbished at least twice. 1st time by Mercator (now... a light fitting company! ha), then Reed Res back in 2012/2013 for approx $40m.
The asset has gone in Admin at least twice, with Mercator and Reed.....
Original sale to Reed stated the plant was... a 3mtpa plant! Sheesh... that is a tad more than it's current 1.6-1.7mtpa run rate.
From 2003 (St Barbra)
Then later with Reed.
An old Broker report plugging
Reed Resources... 2012
Then MetalsX snapped it up.... and the plant throughput shrunk (2014), for around $8m.
Yet today, the plant barely hits 1.6mtpa. I assume a large resource for this is the type of ore being processed?
We know WGX grouped the two Murcheson plants together cost wise. I initially thought Tuckabianna was the issue, but... now that any upgrade for Bluebird plant is off the table (or not being talked about...), I wonder.... if it's the main reason WGX initially made a play for the Dalgaranga plant.
They had planned to pivot most of the production south, which makes some sense, but.... Bluebird mine is very close to the Bluebird plant...
In any case, if nothing else I saw quite a few names that I had not realised were.... in Reed & St Barbra so long ago....
Finally... a little perspective, under Reed Resources, they had an MRE of 85k for the Bluebird mine... WGX plan to mine more than that every year from it going forward.
Good luck to all holders.
(20min delay)