Excellent analysis, as usual.I would merely point out that the...

Excellent analysis, as usual.

I would merely point out that the first production announcement indicated that we wouldn’t be hitting higher grade ore until the end of August, and with approximately 300 kt dmt of ore already mined (some even partially processed), and a month of “subpar” ore to mine before we get to “the good stuff,” I believe that the first 2-3 months of processing is not going to be like what comes after, when we start processing “the good stuff.”

I suspect that the reason that the announcement indicates a 12-15 month ramp-up period is that the first three months of ramp-up will involve lower grade ore being processed. I also suspect that this is the reason we made the deal with Sinomine for our first ten months of ramping production. It’s probably NOT going to be SC6.

Those first three months of production can be utilized to try to process lower grade ore to something approaching SC6, or it can be utilized to try to optimize the actual flow sheet intended for the higher grade ore to be mined from September onwards ((but probably not processed until October or November).

My GUESS is that we won’t see the REAL ramping data until late October or early November, and that the ramp-up to what is expected to be 78% recovery, to SC6.3, will take 9 to 12 months, once we start processing the “real” ore.

One last note, tying in the announcement comments regarding looking at all grades of production. As you mentioned, early on, PLS was only hitting recovery rates of 55%. They were also producing SC6, all the way up until the middle of 2019, when they improved their recovery rates significantly by deciding to produce SC5.5 instead of SC6. As it turns out, they finally found their sweet spot at SC5.2/5.3.

Given the much higher grade of ore available and the far more sophisticated flow sheet, I firmly believe that LTR will settle in at SC6+, and will probably meet the 78% recovery rate target, but given that we are probably “wasting” the first 3+ months of ramping to process inferior ore, the 12-15 month ramp-up schedule is realistic. There might also be a bit of sandbagging (under promise and over perform) involved, as well.

Best regards!