Red 5 Limited (RED) - Mining accelerated to derisk coming years...

Red 5 Limited (RED) - Mining accelerated to derisk coming years (Petra 27/4/2024)

RED pre-released its Mar.Q’24 production of 50.1koz and sales of 49.7koz, which was below expectations primarily due to planned and unplanned mill downtime and weather conditions. Despite this, mining operations performed well, with extra investment going into KOTH open pit and Darlot underground. The KOTH open pit is operating very well, with ore tonnes lifting 33% QoQ (Figure 1) and total tonnes up 13% QoQ.
Stage 2 waste stripping is also ahead of plan, resulting in $10m increase in capex guidance.
With the mill constrained, excess ore tonnes were stockpiled, leading to a $15.5m or A$311/oz inventory adjustment; AISC of A$1,926/oz was below our A$2,207/oz and down 17% QoQ. This ongoing investment in stockpiles and waste stripping is materially derisking open pit ore feed in both the near and medium term, and provides further support for a future mill expansion.
It is also giving operational flexibility to ensure better grade ore is preferentially treated through the mill, leading to consistent gold output.
Investment in stockpiles and future mining areas will have benefits which will become clearer once the RED/SLR merger is derisked and the budgeting process of the combined businesses is completed in early FY25.
Maintain BUY, $0.47/sh PT (unchanged). Spot valuation of A$0.74/sh.