NIC provides an excellent cost breakdown each quarter for NPI...

NIC provides an excellent cost breakdown each quarter for NPI and Matte production. I make a guestimate for the current quarter by observing changes in publicly available benchmarks, then applying those changes to the data from the prior quarter.

For example, nickel ore made up 40% of the input costs for NPI last quarter. We have seen that there is a 1 - 2 month lag for changes in the nickel price to flow into the ore input costs, probably due to stockpiling at the industrial parks. So I am not expecting a huge reduction in the nickel ore input costs for this quarter. Maybe 10%?

Electricity and smelting coal make up around another 42% of costs for NPI. These costs will probably come down between 10-20% according to my estimates. So maybe around US$13,200/t of contained nickel for RNI, and US$10,500 for ANI?

On the other side, I estimate the contract price for NPI using the SMM price on the first day of each month minus the 13% VAT, less a margin of around US$800. On average, that's a price of around $12,900 across the quarter. So I am expecting RNI to be slightly negative, maybe just break even perhaps, and ANI to generate around US$30m EBITDA, on a 100% basis.

Performing the same exercise on HNI, I get costs of about $US14,800/t ni. The matte product pricing seems to be about US$5,000 less than the LME for the "pro forma" pricing, and on that basis I have used a price of US$17,800/t ni. So I am expecting around US$14m EBITDA from HNI.

Who knows what ONI will add this quarter seeing as the power plant is not yet online and it is not fully ramped up. Hengjaya mine volumes are anyone's guess as well, but I conservatively estimate around US$10m of EBITDA from the mine.

Adding that all up, and ignoring ONI or the matte adjustment for sales in the prior quarter, and I am estimating about $US54m EBITDA on a 100% basis.

It's just guessing, I have no crystal ball, so feel free to discuss the method and pick it apart.

Not advice of course and only my opinion.