Ann: CENTURY OPERATIONS AGAIN DELIVER RECORD METAL PRODUCTION, page-12

Great post and I’m firmly of the view that it’s going to die a slow death but I’m not sure about the 60-70% of LME thing. In my experience the smelters usually pay LME exactly. The smelters make there money from the concept of payable metal (they only pay for 85%) and the treatment charges?

But I agree sometimes their choice of statistics etc are thoroughly misleading. I was banging on about them quoting a recovery at the rougher stage as an example. We only care about full process train recovery.

I also question the fascination with C1. I’d love a full line by line breakdown of all costs (AIC). You have to pay rent, corporate costs, interest, plus a lot of maintenance to keep this thing running.

I like to look at things in terms of ore tons mined versus total revenue per ore ton. Keep the units the same. On current prices and recoveries they have $US28 revenue per ore ton. Assuming a 15:1 concentration ration take of $20 for TCs ($300 per concentrate ton). Leaves $8 to mine, concentrate, overheads, maintenance etc etc.

Just doesn’t make sense.