Nice to see a small bounce in LIN with the REO price post FS...

Nice to see a small bounce in LIN with the REO price post FS delay confession. Rising since 2 Apr 11c low on modest volume, not a long enough low period to call it a base, then again a short double bottom at 11c could also reflect simply a finally oversold support?

The thing about FS periods is they are generally a news vacuum for the market, with some small variation in infill and MRE from early expectations. My gut is the infill drilling will deliver a bit lower grade Reserve than market was hoping for, lower than I was expecting anyway. Final Reserve grade depends on what strip and cost LIN are prepared to accept in an effort to high grade ore feed and maximise production to capex ratio for the small plant. To some extent the higher grade only saves a modest amount on front end crushing and gravity sep plant sizing, because the back end all runs according to tonnes of HMC from the early gravity sep (ie 50% extra tonnes at 66% ore grade delivers same HMC tonnes to the back end of plant). Savings on smaller front end plant is offset against higher strip and minig costs, so savings may not be that great in the wash up. Gravity concentration of Kanga style ore is beautifully suited to economies of scale expansion, back end being the bottleneck...

Anywho, the big shoe to drop is the FS and it's implications given very high expectations that were set by company way back (very low capex and opex). My base case explanation for the share price falling so far is partly to higher capex and opex than originally guided. Regardless of whether the board have been giving special interest the heads up on FS progress, so many people inside the company and outside are always in the know with feasibility studies and the numerous iterations they go through, that news will leak into the market no matter what. Being in a RE bear market only amplifies the frontrunning of worse than guided FS results.

Note in yesterday's release they plan to drip feed out results from what was an obviously slow-tracked infill drilling assays (drilling completed Oct'23) for tactical timing reasons. Maybe it was a simple as buying time in hope the RE prices turned around and could provide a tailwind for the FS unveiling, maybe related to more genuine delays?

I will be taking the mine "development" capex with a pinch of salt until I see the FS given the potential to kick a lot of capex back into sustaining capex from future operating cashflows, which of course impacts on project valuation metrics. Likewise, I'll be keeping an eye on what 'opex' they pre-release... cash-cost, AISC etc?

In short, i always expected worse than guided FS results would be priced in prior to release. Also not surprising that delays in the material newsflow (eg FS) was priced in as nobody wants to be a sitting duck in a possibly toppy market too early before a newsflow driver (eg mid-March Euroz Hartley conference met with a sell off not share rise). That is the way juniors and the grapevine usually works is my premise, tethered to the Lassonde Curve curse of course. Hoping that those in the know have pushed LIN as far down as worthwhile frontrunning the delays and any disappointment and now it's time to accumulating for the Apr Qtr run home into MRE, Reserve, FS and possibly more off-take deals with rising RE prices at their back? The appearance of new big swinging dick HC posters who personally spoke to Twiggy recently also points to a change in the tide...

Still a cracking deposit, even if in a structurally f'ckd industry... GLTAH