For those wondering why MDL itself took out a credit facilaity...

For those wondering why MDL itself took out a credit facilaity for $50M.
Heres a likely reason. When a mine begins production it bulids up a stockplie of ore essentially inventory to put through the plant . There is another stockpile of finished product ready to be shipped. In the case on bulk commodites like mineral sands these can be substaial sroun 6 months woth of product in dlaallr value. Specifc stcokplies Mdl would have built up.
1) HMC heavy mineral concentrte that has been thorugh the wet plant ready to go the the dry plant say 20,000 tonnes @ 2% HM that's 1,000,000 t that's been mined and processed through the wet plant.
2) Say a 8,000t stockpile of chloride ilmenite ready for shipping (or on the water).
3) Say a 8,000t stockpile of Sulohate ilmenite ready for shipping.
4) say 3,000 t of on spec Zircon ready for shipping.
5) say 1,000 t of off sec. Zircon/ in intermedaite sircon ready to go through the zircon circuit.
6) say 1000 t of rutile ready for shipping.

Since the wet plant is having problems well call limited availibility the HMC stockpile may well need to be bigger.

When the value is added up it goes a long way to explain the borrowings. it also helps explin why it's taking so long to get better cash flow. The good news is that when mineral sahnds prices pick up are or are in shortage. the magers find materil from every where ie. scrape up all but the most vial stockpiles and sell it Including some mater that is off sec (now) but close to spec.