Ann: Q4 RESULTS AND COMPANY UPDATE PRESENTATION, page-22

Although this is bad, I think it might be a temporary thing, the AIS Jaguar operation joins other base metal operations and failed restarts of 29M Capricorn, RVR Thalanga, NCZ Century and Queenstown problems, GL1 Abra, HRR Woodlawn failed restart , CYM Nifty failed restart, NVR Mt Carlton, CSD/Aurora Metals Surveyor, & King Vol & Mungana ops, CBH Elura closed, Perilya ceasing mining at North Broken Hill and the CSA mine brought by the SPAC MAC for $1BN has gone very quiet.

I'm sure I've missed a few WA gold and nickel underground ops that have also gone into C&M, a few of the above examples are weather related but most of them are cost pressures.

Underground operations and Zinc and Lead in particular seem to be the problem children although this cost pressure seems to be spreading to copper and nickel, as a matter of fact, I don't think a single underground base metal mine in Australia would be making money at today's metal prices, except for maybe the Glencore Mt Isa operations, but difficult to see that in such a large group.

Looks like the final stages of capacity destruction before the base metal LME warehouse stocks are found to be works of fiction, and there will be a mad rush to secure actual physical metal. Will make the recent "Mr BigShot" Ni market meltdown look like a teddy-bears picnic....

Disclosure - got almost completely stopped out of AIS recently, still also hold SOL so interesting to see what they do in the future, seems that undeveloped/exploration base metals in the ground are worth more than operating mines at the moment due to the propensity of underground mines to destroy capital at the moment. If this continues it will be a pretty weird situation.