What the current expense on McPhillamys is being contributed towards I'm unsure, but regarding drilling operations it's on pg 10 of the report:
"The McPhillamys Gold Project (McPhillamys) has received the final New South Wales Independent
Planning Commission approval. Having completed all outstanding queries for a Federal Section 10
application (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act) the Company is still awaiting a
response. A resolution of this outstanding item will allow a return to the additional in-field geotechnical
drilling required due to site layout changes that occurred during the NSW planning approvals phase. The
updated information will feed into finalisation of the feasibility study, along with confirmation of the funding
strategy. A final investment decision is currently targeted for the end of the June quarter FY24."If McPhillamys' gold production comes in at their expectations of 200k oz/Year or 50k oz/Qtr that would increase their overall gold production by 40%. Even at a very conservative 50% of the 200k oz/ Year yield for padding, that's still an increase of 20% overall production.
The key question to all gold companies will be if the spot price goes back above the 2K USD oz and holds. Let's not forget last time this triggered RRL to hit 2.47 at its peak. This spot price will of course primarily be dependent on when the interest rate pivot comes and more importantly for the short term, how quick it takes for that pivot to be translated at Fed board meetings. Some analysts expect that more interest rate hikes will be detrimental to regional banks, triggering even more collapses. There is a very real limitation on how high the fed can continue to go before pushing banks to insolvency that are already struggling.
Unlike Australian banks, if you want to see how bad the situation is for US banks, look no further than how much financial reserves they need in order to loan out money... Since 2020, this has effectively
been put to 0 to free up liquidity... so they can essentially lend out imaginary money that they don't even have ANY reserve to back by. Doesn't take a genius to work out how bad such a scenario lends itself when it comes to risk management. Almost any logical person would think such a standard would be made up, but here's a direct quote from the US fed website found
here.
"106. Effective for the reserve maintenance period beginning March 26, 2020, the 10 percent required reserve ratio against net transaction deposits above the low reserve tranche level was reduced to 0 percent, the 3 percent required reserve ratio against net transaction deposits in the low reserve tranche was reduced to 0 percent." Source official Fed Reserve"On a different note, assuming that BRICS goes ahead with their gold backed currency (next discussion due August) and the already declining use of the US dollar for international trade continues further, the capital appreciation of gold's spot price should position any profitable miner in an even more comfortable position moving forward. It may however, take time before this translates to share price.
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