So just to clarify, over the first 9 months the cashflow from operations was ($7,651) from ore operations, ($3,241) from HPMSM and +$100 from other for a net cash loss of $10,792. I guess you could have added in the $1.201m of capex taking the ore operations YTD cost to $8,852.
So having clarified you are talking annual costs, is your expectation really that ore will lose $11m this quarter? If you have a YTD loss of $8.9m it requires losing $11m in the last quarter so that you get to the $20m figure you have again quoted. I just can't see how this quarter will be that bad given there has been two shipments so there should be a robust volume of ore sold. Are you confused in your thinking and attributing HPMSM development costs to the ore business cost base? I could easily see several million of HPMSM development costs this quarter.
So lets look at the sum of Exploration, Development, Production, Staff costs and Admin/Corporate costs this year. This has been $12,542; $11,317 & $10,793 over the last three quarters. Lets assume $13m of costs this quarter. If you have $13m of costs and need to lose $11m in the quarter to get the annual loss up to your $20m figure it means an assumption of only $2m of quarterly ore sales. With all respect, this is a stupidly low figure knowing two ships have departed this quarter.
If we were to assume there was a 32% grade shipped and 80,000 of sales this quarter, revenue would be around $12.7m (also assuming $15/t shipping US$3.80 prices after grade discounts and a 0.67 exchange rate). This situation could be a profit or loss depending on the guess about operating costs but it would appear more likely to be around break-even excluding HPMSM costs.
$12,728 = [80000*0.001*32*(4.80-1.00-15/32))/0.67]
Excluding HPMSM costs, ore operations generated $2.4m of cash last quarter and could still be cash positive this quarter if one of the following happened:
- Ore sales were nearer 90kt (noting there was $26kt of closing product at the end of March)
- Prices were better than $4.80/dmtu before grade and shipping discounts
- Operating costs were below A$13m
At $4.80/dmtu before grade discounts E25 isn't going to make a lot of money but I'm not sure E25 is actually bleeding a lot of money if production volumes are close to or above 90kt per quarter.
