Ann: Noosa Mining Investor Conference Presentation, page-3

One other thing I noticed, Slide 5 further below points out the Mt Carlton mine direction in a bright orange box (which I assume is the closest processing opportunity), Slide 4 shown first lists some mines in the area.



Looking briefly into the Mt Carlton mine, it looks to have closed and put into receivership around 2 years ago and looks like it is still in this state. It was agreed to be acquired from EVN in Oct 2021 by NML.
From what I can see it was or at least had turned into a low grade operation (as in ~1g/t) and EVN had guided an AISC then of A$1650-1700/oz and production of 45-50koz that FY of the deal. I think these costs could have been projected to be increasing quickly in coming years for a few reasons (eg grade depletion, transfer from higher grade UG mining to OP mining with high costs to reach depths to access ore etc) but admittedly haven't looked far enough into it. I think NML management were banking on an increasing gold price (which since has) plus exploration success to get easy ounces at profit which I can only assume didn't happen, unless they simply weren't skilled/experienced to run the mine and it was an operation that could have then turned a profit back then.

By mid 2023 the mine was still losing money with gold price around A$3000/oz and was then closed, ending up with receivers and from what I can find hasn't restarted or changed hands since. NML by the looks of it was recapped and became AKA, keeping their other assets

(may be wrong on the specifics of all of this, happy to be corrected).


Either way I don't think the history of why it failed is necessarily relevant to BMR, as long as the processing side was working OK and can be restarted, this would then be an obvious and potentially convenient opportunity.



So, if there is a processing plant not being utilised at all, with gold price currently above A$5000 and ore at 5x the grade (my guess on the average grade of what would be processed, I think would be roughly 4-7g/t), maybe this is an obvious opportunity for the company to follow up? Maybe this slide is a hint it is being followed up? It appears to have been processing a similar if not the same type of gold/copper so would likely be suitable.

If ore was to be produced by a 3rd party there would be 3 likely scenarios
-The plant isn't being utilised at all
-The plant is under utilised (then they either stop their own to process the other, or mix it which requires trust to work out who gets paid what)
-The plant is fully utilised but could be processing higher ore (same as above).

Clearly a plant not being utilised at all is the cleanest way to achieve what BMR would be trying to achieve, but finding one would generally be rare. However this opportunity appears to be relatively nearby... Although in saying this, there would be risk in using a processing plant that might not have been used or even maintained in 2+ years.

Also there might be a 5% royalty up to A$25m on any production from this mine to EVN (if that royalty is still attached to the mine through the deal with NML, plus another royalty on ore processed from land within the mine itself but that wouldn't be relevant to BMR), but this could be a small price to pay to have 100% access to processing.


Maybe someone knows a bit more of the specifics of why NML failed if it wasn't for the general reasons I gave above? As long as the processing side of it wasn't the problem this seems like such an obvious solution to be able to get ore processed quick (eg start within 12 months). I'm assuming it failed prior through a combination of management biting off more than they could chew and lowish grades being mined open pit at a bit of depth, but would like to know more. Ideally you would want to use processing that is currently operating well, but surely Mt Carlton is a potential option that can't be ignored?