@Walkersathis seems to be your first post on AML HC? And yes,...

@Walkersathis seems to be your first post on AML HC? And yes, our group has certainly triedover the years to keep mgmt at least vaguely honest if that is even possiblewith some of these people?

We’restill around because we believe in the resource (although the previous mgmt hada pretty good go at totally ruining it and had almost succeeded).

Thatsaid, we do see a silver lining in the new CEO, Fred Hess in what has previouslybeen a very dark AML cloud.

Anyonewho has read our posts over the years knows that we’re not fanboys and girls andhave frequently been accused of down ramping but never the opposite, so theclaim in your post is a first - Hmmm?

Asbest as we can ascertain, Fred (whom we didn’t know from a bar of soap beforeAML) is doing a good job and is trying hard to make this work. Now some willsay that he is coming off a very low base as previous mgmt was totally incompetentas is evidenced in the way they totally stuffed up the resource economicsculminating in that disastrous ASX ann 21/10/19 proclaiming a highly economicoutcome based on a ridiculously complicated and flawed production flow sheetwhich was (laughably) unworkable.

Thefirst thing Fred did, as an experienced metallurgist was to throw it out andstart again; although it is a real concern that the rest of the Board had previouslysigned off on this unworkable flowsheet (further indicating their total lack ofexperience and care). This of course includes the Chairman who someone remains Chairmandespite a litany of stuff ups which have cost SHs literally Billions (e.g. knockingback “The Deal of the Century” by itself cost us well over a $Billion and nowmeans we have to find another $Billion to build a plant rather than just modifythe Century one we would have been given but for the Chairman suddenly decidingit was ‘all too hard’ and walking away from the deal and that was only shortly aftertelling SHs it was about to happen (with SP north of $2)!!!

Soas part of our never-ending quest to find out what’s really going on we phonedFred Hess to inquire about the questions you raised in your post. He said thathe hasn’t heard from you and certainly hasn’t received your questions, but heis more than happy to answer questions/ talk to SH’s about publiclyavailable information.

Now,it must be said that this by itself is a significant improvement on theChairman who has consistently refused to answer any questions whatsoever fromSHs (or the previous CEO who would occasionally answer a question but not in away we could understand or trust!).

So,now to the issues you raised and Fred’s answers to your questions.

Firstly,we totally agree with your comments about again having a virtual AGM not a realone and agree that this stinks. They can’t use Covid as an excuse again andclearly couldn’t face the prospect of having to endure a few questions fromthose pesky SHs for even a couple of hours.

SeriouslyPaul Harris: once a year you’re required to front SHs for a couple of hours andyou don’t have the decency or heart to even do that. TWO hours once a year.....?

Nowto your questions (and please note that we make little comment but just try to reporton Fred’s answers so readers can make draw their own conclusions). At leastthis way your questions are actually answered and not just floated on HCencouraging speculation/downramping?):

Question 1) They decided to spendmillions on drilling holes for metallurgical test work to validate Fred’s ‘new’flowsheet?

Fred’sresponse: Yes AML spent a lot on drilling but in so doing:

1) upgraded the resource tocirca 40mt which is a good basis for completing the PFS and ultimatelymoving to an ore reserve.

2) Also now have 97% Measuredand Indicated for Vardy/Marley MRE is an outstanding outcome. Fred says he knowsof no other “early” stage project boasting this level of resource confidence inrelation to the total resource base

3) Collected plenty of core material to enable thenecessary test work to validate the new production flow sheet.

(Ourcommentary: unfortunately, as a result of the previous CEO’s efforts’

therewasn’t sufficient representative material to do the test work necessary forthe flow sheet validation (i.e. believe it or not they didn’t have enough coreto do the test work – how could this possibly happen....?)

4)Spent a lot of money but because this was R&D spending to validate testwork (not exploration) it was therefore eligible for a $2.7m Govt R&Drefund which has now been received.

Question 2) re PFS – AML were weeks away from releasing PFS?

Fred’sresponse: AML didn’t release final operating cost because the old flow sheetdidn’t work and also because the economics were being unduly influenced byworld events (inflation/Ukraine and also depressed long-term copper prices).

(Ourcommentary: this is actually very significant and speaks volumes about the theincompetence of the Board under the Chairmanship of Paul Harris prior to FredHess being made CEO. On Oct 21, 2019 the Board released an ASX ann: “WalfordCreek Project Highly Economic” (https://www.aeonmetals.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-Oct-21-Walford-Creek-Scoping-Study.pdf)

Thisspruiked returns like: Ungeared, real, post-tax NPV8% of A$431M. Post-tax internal rate ofreturn (IRR) of 34% and payback of 3 years.

However, unfortunately, it wasbased on a flow sheet which was unworkable/undoable! The real question here ishow the Board/Chairman allowed this piece of garbage to be released to the ASXas an official company document. It was misleading and embarrassing to say theleast and did a lot of damage to the company and SP.

This explains why the firstthing Fred did with his met background was to redo the flow sheet into a processthat might just work…

We also feel Fred’s argumentregarding the economics at the time is a reasonable one. There is no questionthat inflation was (and still is) forcing up prices and the cost of building majorinfrastructure was not balanced by using the available long-term pricing ofcopper in particular. i.e. the PFS would require that the currently availablepricing forecasts be used for the recovered metals. Copper is an interesting casein point. It is in many ways the forgotten metal in the battery metals boom. Wedon’t think there is much doubt that there is a bright future for Dr Copper andit is certainly much needed in EVs and wind farms etc. but pricing hasn’t reflectedthis yet (unlike for example lithium which is the current poster child of thegreen energy revolution).

That said Copper prices arefinally now seeing some rerating. Now US$3.80/lb up from $3.40 two months agoand let’s not forget it was only $2 just 2.5 years ago. It seems clear to usthat you wouldn’t want to do a PFS for Walford Creek with our big amounts ofcopper based on those ‘out of kilter’ copper prices.

Question 3: 50% of Fred’s bonus tied to release PFS?

Fred’sresponse: I chose not to release the PFS because it wasn’t in the bestinterests of the company at that point of time (i.e. with rapidly rising inflation/constructioncosts but without the commensurate increases in long-term metal commodity pricesto offset).

Ourcommentary: Therefore, we think what Fred is saying is that as half of hisbonus was tied to releasing the PFS, if he wanted to be selfish, he would havereleased it anyway to secure that part of his bonus. i.e. it would have been inhis financial interest to release the PFS. If SHs want to throw stonesregarding overly generous salaries, our view is that these should first bedirected at the Chairman with circa $200K for what?... or some of the otherBoard members who are also in our opinion getting money for jam and can’t even bebothered to have a real AGM once a year for 2 hours…Why was Collins paid $412,000 in severance pay?

Question 3 re Drilling with target of 19,000m?

Fred’sresponse: We were planning on drilling 250-450m deep holes as that’s what wasindicated at the time. However, as part of the vagaries of exploration, some ofholes needed to go much deeper (i.e. to find PY3 and therefore took a lotlonger and were more expensive to do). It’s not about drilling metres but tofind the ultimate prize (i.e. intersect PY1 and PY3 wherever they are in somepretty geologically altered terrain).

Also,it was difficult drilling particularly at Amy West because of brecciated(broken up rock) which is harder to drill.

(Ourcommentary: However, it is this brecciated rock which appears to have trapped large,much thicker intersections of Copper/Cobalt etc. and this could well be a gamechanger (e.g. the 98m of 2.5% which is in the top few holes drilled anywhere inthe world)!

Question 4: Cost per metre?

Fred:Unfortunately drilling costs have increased more than 10% per year due to covid(and especially there is a real shortage of good, experienced people).

Alsoended up doing much more diamond than RC (which costs 3 x RC)

In2018 av hole depth was 235m

2022av hole depth was 415m

Deeperdiamond holes cost a lot more per metre

We’renow looking at deeper RC holes drilled vertically to try to get lower drillingcosts given the constantly improved understanding of where PY1 and PY3 are

Question 5: AEM picking up water/sandstone conductivity?

Fred:Key thing about this AEM anomaly is that it crosscuts the stratigraphy whichsuggests that it is associated with a fault.

Ifyou look at the satellite imagery vs the AEM you’ll see clearly that theanomaly crosscuts the stratigraphy and therefore we need to do ground mappingand rock sampling to further finetune.

Also,the current drilling at Amy West has been hampered by water issues butinterestingly is there is no water signature at Amy West.

Question 6: If they believed what the AEM showed they would have drilled itthis campaign?

Fred:5km to the South looks very promising as the fault splays however, it is not accessible without building a new access track first.

Italso took a lot of time to get survey done and analysed (survey was booked 9months before results returned due to high demand).

Didn’tdrill any regional targets because wanted to have AEM data along with existinghigh res magnetic and gravity data.

Don’twant to waste precious drilling funds so also want to do more surface samplingand lag sampling before drilling to better target exploratory drill holes.

Our commentary in summary: Our experience is that yes it definitely is worthwhiletalking to Fred Hess (not just threatening to @walkersa.1996).

Wecontinue to have faith in him and yes this also helps justify our newfoundconfidence.

Inour view Fred has considerably changed the dynamic at AML. Unlike the rest ofthem, he is quite willing to talk to us pesky SHs and also he has real experience(not the trumped up kind the others have to try to make their CVs look good andjustify the large amounts of money they’re being paid for not much…)? We alsothink that Fred is trying hard (which is also a pleasant change).

Ishe pulling the wool over our eyes? Only time will tell. However, one of themany encouraging things is his willingness to use his experience and logic asopposed to whatever was driving the previous CEO and Chairman’s actions. Thebest example of this is AMY West.

Eversince those two really good, much thicker and higher grade “bookend” holes weredrilled in 2018 (i.e. hole 378 with 44m @ 3% to the West and hole 352 with 80m@ 2.6% to the East), SHs pleaded with Collins and Harris to drill in the 1.2kmspace in between these two holes to try to establish continuity (and then probablystart the mine there rather than in the narrower intersections at Vardy/Marley).In so doing, AMY West would then potentially be a much more economicallyproductive place to start and this would greatly improve the PFS economics.

However,for reasons that others can speculate on, Collins and Harris refused/ignored all theserequests. Was it incompetence or malfeasance? Who knows – but the mostimportant thing is that IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING NOW!!

TheAmy West results so far really are sensational: hole 548 with 98m @2.5% which wasdrilled in between the 2 “bookend holes” mentioned above is world beating andhopefully more to come. NB holes 558 and 559 smack bang in the middle of this(hopefully) 1.2km of much higher grade and thicker resource have been reportedto be visually significant with similar amounts of chalco visible in the cores –so assay results are eagerly awaited! Where are they Greg?

GoFred Hess and Greg Collins! Finally, maybe some payback for us VERY LONG-SUFFERINGSHs........?