Ann: Intercepts Highlight Potential to Double Never Never Extent, page-38

Looking at Evolution's stable of projects they have a couple about the scale of Dalgaranga but remember they sold Edna May to Ramelius because they wanted to step up to become one of the big guys. And you don't get to be one of the big guys by owning a swarm of smallish projects, you need to secure high volume, low cost, long life projects.

They have Cowral - at about 225koz pa - and they hope to have Red Lake at about 350kozpa by 2025. Then they have Mt Rawdon, which they intend to turn into a hydro power station and Ernest Henry for some copper exposure. On a quick glance Mungari looks a relative roughy. So Dalgaranga at say 150kozpa would fit in and would give it a shot at regional consolidation but it would not be a step up for Evolution imo. I would think it more likely that Evolution would go after the likes of Carouse Dam - which is a 250kozpa steady state operation - leaving Ramelius to try to consolidate the Murchison.

Simon Lawson said outright that he had spoken to every player within 250km of Dalgaranga. That means he has spoken with Evolution. It is no secret.

Also look at it this way: what would happen to Simon Lawson if Evolution bought Gascoyne? Mine Manager? Chief Geologist? Clearly not Evolution MD. No doubt he'd been snapped up elsewhere but getting shunted is not the main prize. In contrast I think Ramelius has been shaken to its foundations by the direction it has gone in since Bob Vassie took over as chair in late 2020. Back then I thought it a good idea for Mark Zeptner to step up from MD to executive chair. 2 years later and MZ has been Ramelius MD for 8 years now and has had great success but perhaps Ramelius needs a reset. Maybe it is time to give MZ an overview role as chair and let SL have a crack at running a combined Gascoyne Ramelius entity.