Ann: First production delivered on schedule at Kathleen Valley, page-157

I agree with you, 100%. That said, the thinking, if you're top management at LTR, has to be, "What grade/recovery level are we going to make the most profit at?"

Remember, up through 2019, PLS was routinely producing SC6, but then realized that, given what they were working with, it was more profitable to produce SC5.5. A few years later, they decided that their "sweet spot" was SC5.2/5.3, which is what they've been producing for a few years, now.

Of course, LTR is going to be working with a higher grade of ore, so it will be easy for them to produce a higher grade of concentrate, whether that ends-up being SC5.7 or SC6.3. Personally, I feel that there aren't many producers that are actually producing SC6, and it would help LTR to differentiate themselves from the crowd if they were to produce a concentrate North of SC6, whether it's SC6.1 or something higher.

Another issue that they will be dealing with, up front, is that we aren't mining the high quality ore, yet. The first production announcement indicated that we aren't expected to hit the main ore body with the higher quality until late August, which means the 200+ kt of stockpiled ore, plus whatever we produce in August, will be of a lower grade, and require a different treatment than the ore we will be mining from September onward (or we will produce a lower quality concentrate product). I do not know how management will address this, though I have faith they will handle it in a well thought-out manner, but it bears noting that the first few months of ramp-up will be working with a lower quality of ore, and may have little or no bearing on our "real" ramp-up, which probably won't even commence until October or November, as the plant works through our stockpile plus August's ore production.

Finally, I've seen the few clues available regarding the "more than 1,000 field tests" that LTR performed prior to commissioning, and understand that the projection is that we will be producing SC6.3, with a recovery rate between 78% and 80%. I suspect that the reason the announcement is stating 12-15 months for ramp-up is that we will essentially be "wasting" the first 2-3 months processing lower quality ore, and then it makes perfect sense that it would take 9-12 months to hit such lofty goals.

Best regards!