General Discussion Topics, page-86869

Not really mate. I think has revealed bits and pieces throughout much of his narrative along the way. You just have to remember it I guess , and then apply that with what you can then interpret from his ' Confidence Levels '

But I believe Lynch did mention that very point in that candid interview with that ASX kid ( or was it that Alan Kohler fellow - can't remember ) back in July 2021 that it was around 250 ktpa .....and that the operation was BIG in that it would cost at least around a $ million to a couple of million bucks per week as it gets into full operational stride.

Now obviously these numbers ( if I have remembered his comments correctly ) were ' Rough ' . But I'm pretty sure he said 250 ktpa . And 250 is obviously MORE than 226. Not by much though. And his comment ( if substantiated ) could have easily been spoken more ' Conservatively ' . In any case , 250 is approximately 10 - 11 % higher.

Bottom line is we don't really know yet. But the fact that he has recently stated several times that 226 is outright achievable - Who's to say it will not be higher given the spend on the upgrade. Maybe he doesn't know.

Or maybe he does. Remember that the PFS allows for the operations to be running at 1 week for 7 days as DOUBLE shifts of 12 hours and then 2 weeks for 14 days at 12 hour single shifts.

So if you allow just for the standard 28 days or 4 weeks deducted for Annual Leave as the accepted norm , you'd be in a starting PFS situation of 16 DOUBLE shifts of 24 hour operations versus approximately 32 days at single 12 hours shift days for 7 days.

So if you then stepped up the operations by shifting production gears throughput at the ' Concentrator ' level by DOUBLING the DOUBLE shift day weeks to 32 equivalent man hour weeks and drop back the currently factored in 32 equivalent weeks of SINGLE shift days to 16 equivalent single weeks at 12 hours by 7 day weeks , you'd get a total equivalent SHIFT weeks of production increase to 64 equivalent weeks v 48 or a 33.33% increase. If you then apply this increase to the 168,000 tpa nameplated 6% production , you get 224,000 tpa .

But when you increase again from that point the ' Equivalent ' working weeks by the FULL 48 available weeks at 12 hours per day 7 days per week , you'd get 96 equivalent man hour weeks against the original PFS assumed of 48 which is a MASSIVE DOUBLING of potential which couldn't possibly be reflected in the PFS assumed nameplate because nameplate by its definition is the possible production capacity multiplied by the total number of hours available per year as against the actual production measured as the dry stacked product coming out of the Concentrator process.

So using these comparisons and allowing for the many stages of ' through put ' production like crushing , sorting , grinding , separating etc.... , you can see that the PFS figures have been based solely around this 1 week 2 week shift configuration which obviously has room to move upwards.

Whether this translates into 250 ktpa with the improvements and new equipment spend is yet to be proven out. Because there are obviously a lot of interrelating components required in getting the product out of the ground and up to and through the Concentrator , and MAN hour equivalent weeks in just one part of it.

However , and if you can get the people to work in this environment while prices are relatively HIGH , why wouldn't you step up the assumed Concentrator production working hours in endeavoring to maximize BOTH revenues , cash-flows , and profitability.

But i get that these levels will take some time in getting to. But certainly there is scope to increase working hours here to compensate or even increase the overall productivity of the NEW concentrator facilities.