Not saying your are being misleading, just biased, like I am.
Not many posters on HC were buying WGX at $0.70, but... I did, because I believe that WGXs assets are better than you think (though yes, relatively aged, but... much of W.A gold producers are using aged plants), plus their tenements are very prospective, but.. for various reasons have largely not seen true exploration programs for decades.
WGX has been undergoing a huge realignment. This has always meant there would be pain involved. Clearly the WGX team should not have been so comfortable with Paddy Flats production/reserves as it has cost them 20k+ ounces for FY24 and.. the same into FY25 (as they had basically said in the past it had around 2 years of production).
I sincerely hope I am not blind like I was with RVR (I knew it was high risk and without a doubt you were right to leave the stock. I lost a decent amount of capital, which I still rue).
You are also correct about WGX churning through it's stockpiles, but... so is SLR (it's been doing it all through COVID). The main difference being they chose to, WGX in recent times has been forced to. Though both companies are still able to profitably produce from the stockpiles, though yes, margins are tighter. It is an interesting discussion in itself, as to whether a producer should use stockpiles, versus more profitable ounces when prices are high.
Ideally WGX would rather not use any stockpiles, but... Tuckbianna with 4mt of it, gives them the flexibility to then truck some/all of Big Bell to the Bluebird mill.
I will disagree with you about WGX only making money with the hedges running off (though.. I don't see why that is a negative?? As being profitable, is being profitable). As you can see below, WGX became profitable well before their hedging ran off. WGX had started to change it colors as early as late 2021, but you know mining is a very intensive (capital and labor) business and it takes time to make major changes.
Regarding Great Fingall, the company is continuing to stick to their initial development plan, which states ore from H1 2025, later this year.
This excludes any early ore from the Flats or remnant ore.
You might find this interesting in regards to the U/G dev rates.
This from the quarterly yesterday. A shame they cannot provide exact figures for the decline progress to date.
They started the decline in Oct, so... I think whilst they say first ore in H1 2025, it's development ore, not reserves?
Though it all depends on how much faster they are developing.... 250-300m/month?
As for Wayne, fair enough, but as with Paul over at PNR, him being the MD did not stop me taking a sizable stack in the company (sizable in regards to my portfolio!). When Wayne first set guidance for FY24 for WGX, that included a full year of Paddy Flats.... losing that hurt... because if, if... it had not closed, they would not have had to reduce guidance. At the time, the market was unimpressed with the guidance because they viewed it as too conservative....
I do think I can see what is wrong with WGX, but I am hopeful that my trust in management to rectify it's weakness is on track (sure... bumps in the road).
Anyway, appreciate the discussion, the last thing I want is a repeat of RVR, as I hope I learned a lot from that, otherwise I would still have likely held onto my CAI shares.
(20min delay)
