Thank Berserker. A few things catch my eye, or are part of the considerations:
"Fingers crossed for benign weather conditions for the coming summer to keep things on track"
A couple of times in AGM presentations along the lines of "we can be fantastic, if it wasn't for that pesky weather".
" Multiple rainfall events...temporarily reduced operating margins in 1H23..."
"...earnings capacity of the business when not negatively impacted by weather,..."' Sure, but it's Australia, and although in El nino (likely fewer RAIN events, but possible HEAT-related events?), should a prudent management include the likelihood of weather events as BAU? So it's not "abnormal" for weather events to affect mining activities?
So that would lead to an under-predict in a year with no weather events, and over-deliver when there AREN'T weather events?
(I haven't analysed it, but anyone know how often weather events affect Australian mining? Cyclones in WA and QLD, rain and flooding events everywhere?)
Market price, debt, buybacks and divs:
Company doing their best to support it with buybacks, and director buying. Both for these are good indicators of confidence. Butt there's only so many shares available on any day for those strategies.
So without those, who knows where price would be (so, cautious investor considers risk of capital loss)
So, if there's only so many to spend all that free cash flow on, debt reduction will likely be better than the net $15m.
OR they stick to that target and give more divs back (But likely to be a least partially unfranked...there's about $1m in franking credits, but "Having benefited from the recent ATO instant asset write-off program, MSV expects no tax payments until at least FY25" )
Number of rigs:If there's seven that "...are obsolete/worn to the point that they have little use beyond scrap/parts wrecking." how long have they been at that state, and why keep including them in the "number of rigs" counts??
Depreciation expense contributes to headline results. So do the older scrap rigs still have some depreciation/accounting value? (a note in annual report says "... depreciation on certain assets which were depreciated down to nil in the current year").
(20min delay)