Thanks Nessie,Let's hope Citi have got it right this time."News...

Thanks Nessie,

Let's hope Citi have got it right this time.

"News Direct Fri, September 22, 2023

CitiGroup, ....compared the upcoming copper surge to the 2008 oil rally when oil prices went from $50 a barrel in mid-2006 to over $140 a barrel by the end of 2007.

Copper is now considered the "new oil" due to its role in electric vehicle (EV) batteries and green energy technologies like solar panels and wind turbines and in turn, could see a similar upside in the next three years.

Although copper prices are expected to decline in 2023 due to China's economic struggles and slower global growth, Citi sees this as an opportunity. Layton suggests that cautious investors start buying copper gradually over the next year, anticipating that China's economic reform and energy transition will drive prices to $15,000 per metric ton by 2025,

Goldman Sachs even predicts that prices could reach $15,000 a ton by 2025."

Even though thats hard to believe, commodities are fickle little suckers that regularly have dramatic surges and experience eye watering crashes.

Let's hope we aren't sitting on a pile of hedging at $12,500 if the price rises to $23,000.

I've been giving a bit of thought to where the resources could come from to fill the plant by 2025.

A cu price of $23,000 is way above whats needed to drop the cut off grade to the 0.4% required to get the 35% of the 60% from the Halos which leaves the need to find only 25%. 4.5mt is 40% so we are looking for 2.8 mt

A rough guess indicates that about 10% of the Kavanagh resources in the MRE are below the 650m RL where the mine plan terminates. That reduces the available resources from the MRE by 600kt.

A rough guess for Nugent would put about 200kt below the depth reached by the mine plan.

The MRE has 6.985 kt less 0.8kt = 6.2 - 4.5 = 1.7 of the 2.8 kt needed to fill the plant. Should be a walk in by 2025.

I have also been wondering when the Nugent stopes
will start delivering ore.

The mine plan has 39 months of stope mining with 33 running at full capacity. It seems therefore that the nugent decline will be developed using cash flow from the first 6 months of mining.

The norm for progressing UG stope mining is circa 60 vertical metres pa so Kavanagh will progress about 30m more than Nugent in the stage 1 mine plan.

Give or take that looks about lining up with the plan.