To remain conservative. Taking the 30t per hour rate mentioned by RJ.
30t/hr * 8 hours a day * 5 days a week = 1200 tonnes a week
1200 * 17g/t = 20,400g a week or 656 oz per week.
656oz * 40 weeks = 26,200 oz in the first 12 months. Assuming this begins at the beginning of August and goes flat out until Christmas break, that's 18 weeks at 656oz which will be roughly ~11,800 oz by end of year.
11,800oz with an average realised price of $4800 and AISC cost of $1800 gives a ~$25m NPAT for CY2025.
The above purposely ascribes zero benefit to the ore sorter, less hours/weeks than would be expected and ignores higher grade stopes, to establish a base case. If hours are increased alone to 12 hours per day with no ore sorter, those numbers alone jump by 50% assuming consistent grade. Ore sorter has the potential to increase grade by 3.39x but there are too many variables. The idea is to find the lowest that it should be and work up from there.
@danatbank you raised an important point that ramp up looks slow based on that video. Given that RJ mentioned that blasting is ongoing, it would be reasonable to assume that mining activities will be constant once they commence. This means no downtime between a stope being mined and the next being prepared.
If the above is correct, we may be trading at 2x forward earnings at the moment at base case. A very nice place to be for those accumulating. In full disclosure, I have been buying any VTXOA that has been on offer under 10c. The 7-9 hole drill program will be into known veins and is purely extensional in nature. Another nice bit of upside if that proves to be a success.
Cheers,
PS
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