Ann: Noosa Mining Conference presentation, page-31

Just some Saturday afternoon ramblings ...

I'm not sure it makes much sense for Mark Zeptner to have given Stage 3 at Edna May an equal run in the presentation along with Penny and Tampia if the prelim feasibility study, which surely is as good as done, was underwhelming. But the numbers used in the presentation are not that handsome. Stage 3 will have fairly high AISC at about $1,540 per oz and the upfront capital costs are quite hefty at $165m. And in the presentation they say that Stage 3 will involve about 500k oz, so about $330 of capex for every ounce. Be interesting to see the discounted cash flow analysis to see marginal it is expected to be.

Even after just funding the Stage 3 EM capex, not allowing for anything at Mt Magnet, Penny, Tampia or Marda, their cash equivalents will drop to only $70m (before future cash inflows of course). And I see MZ again mentioned in the presentation that they are still on the hunt for a step-change acquisition. Does all that seem a tad too tight financially to anyone, that is giving a green light to both Stage 3 and a step change acquisition? I suppose seeing how they are now debt free again they do have some slack there. But even with the Spectrum acquisition being mostly scrip Ramelius did offer Spectrum shareholders 17 cents a SPX share (total cash payment of $10.4m). This relative tightness caused by Stage 3 + a step change acquisition suggests to me that the step-change acquisition will need to be mostly scrip based rather than cash based ie they cannot pay cash to buy a project from another company or they cannot acquire developed land and then pay to build a plant and mine on that land. For operating mining projects I cannot think of too many options that fits that profile. I had thought Dacian may interest Ramelius, what with its near ndw and large processing plant and it being in a region rich in gold deposits. But Dacian and Leigh Junk put in another shocker for the June quarter and so Dacian remains a questionable. How are Gascoyne and Ora Banda going? That will be my homework for the w/end.