Contrary to rumour Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) is...

Contrary to rumour Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) is not dead but is obviously alive and working for FML as a forward estimator.

I mean to say who else could come up in April with a June quarter forward development expenditure figure of $3.3 million and then see the actual June figure come in at $21.705 million – even if they managed to swing the production surplus forecast of $7.037 million ($59 million forecast to $51.963 million actual) over to development expenditure this still leaves a black hole of some $11.368 million that someone in the FML accounts section in March/April failed to realise was going to be spent in the June quarter (someone else has already commented on the administration costs blowout, so I won’t comment further on it).

What we need to remember is that these forward estimates are not produced three months in advance, but just over two months in advance – the quarterly always comes out at the end of the next month, so whoever is producing the forward estimates has pretty well a month of data to hand before they peer into the crystal ball and put on paper what is likely to be the expenditures on exploration, development, production and administration for the quarter.

Frankly, I think the credibility of FML management is starting to wear thin, especially when you have a look at some of the other matters that appeared in the June quarterly.

All of a sudden we have production ounces for the month of July being announced at the very end of July – brilliant, if you can do it for July, then why not August, September and every other month?

Forecast development expenditure for the September quarter is noted as being $2 million and yet we are starting development of the Alicia open pit, plus will have attributed development costs associated with existing mines – to my mind this figure is way too low, so I will certainly be asking some questions of FML on this forecast (appreciate that you need a bit of slack in mining development costs, however a bit is not a chunk).

Stated production ounces forecast for Coolgardie in the September quarter is expected to be in line with the March quarter (21,853 oz) a reduction of some 2,913 oz from the just completed June quarter of 24,766 oz, and yet there is no explanation as to why the Coolgardie production is anticipated to shrink – some clarification needed on this?

On paper FML looks pretty good in terms of what it is producing and what is in the pipeline, however it seems to have this troll that appears at the end of every quarter in various guises that shoots down expectations with some sort of gay abandonment, and even the most stalwart shareholders are getting sick and tired of it all.

Big question is, is this going to be the redeeming quarter that FML needs?