I gotdistracted I know, I did promise a post on chalcopyrite and this isn’t it, but Ithink you’ll find this intriguing none the less.The reasonI have thought the share price has suffered has been the lack of knowledge onwhat they are trying to achieve. Heap leaching is rarely seen (copper leaching,not gold) in Australia, although it is a fantastic environment to do it,especially in WA. Many of the gigantic companies such as BHP and the likes leachcopper internationally - it is what is considered the most effective way toleach low grade copper oxide. However, leaching sulphide is what CYM are goodat which is worth its weight in gold.
My researchhas lead me to the one in only copper play other than CYM…or atleast the onlyother copper heap leaching operation that I can find. So its only fair a peercomparison is in order.
This is thesoon to be listed Austral Resources
Austral Resourceswill be listing in – shares issued – in November
For aMarket Cap of 89M
The director,who was the director of the original company, before becoming Austral, has ashareholding of 58%, He is a major shareholder of Yellow Gear.
Yellow Gear will remain a major shareholder Yellow Gear will hold 52.79% on completion of the Offer and will be in a position to exercise influence over Board constitution and matters requiring Shareholder approval.
The Director, Jauncey - similar salary to Barry I think from memory.
There is also over 22 million in performance rights allocated to Director Jauncey.
They are doing a big raise, similar to CYM, and looking at raising $30 million
Another similarity I found after doing some deeper digging is that one of the staff they have working for them also worked for Finders resources. Below is an excerpt from the Austral ‘meet the team’ section on their website.
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Lady Annie (MtKelly) in that Finders image above is one of Austral’s projects
Two peoplethat worked closely on the Wetar project, are both looking to produce LME Agrade copper plate and are the only ones I can find looking to produce copper plateinstead of concentrate in Australia.Why aren’tthey working together?
Who ownsthe intellectual property to heap leach copper?
Everyone atFinders? including past employees, Barry Cahill and Darren Holmes?
I think ourchemistry nut Barry Cahill does.“Austral is an Australian copper focussed company that ownsan operating copper OXIDE ore processing facility, the nearby AnthillCopper Project and highly prospective exploration tenure holdings”.
“The Anthill Project, an undeveloped, fully permitted, openpittable mine with a JORC Ore reserve of 5.06Mt @0.94% Cu or 47,500 containedtonnes of copper in oxide ore.
Ore reserves
AUSTRAL
CYM have well over 1.2 metric tons of containedcopper resources. More than Austral with SIGNIFICANT upside to adding to theresource at all three! Not to mention the HUGE landholding in the Patterson inthe IGO JV. More than 3 or 4 times the amount of copper once Nanadie hasa JORC.
Austral –“manage contract mining of the Anthill Project to provide oxide orefeed to Austral’s Mt Kelly processing facility. Mining is scheduled to commencein the fourth quarter of 2021 with first ore expected to be delivered to theleach pads in the first quarter of 2022.
The Anthill Project is expected toenable Austral to produce 40,000t of copper cathode over a four year periodfrom the commencement of mining”. Or up to 15,000tpa at peak production(including Mt Kelly/Lady Annie)40,000 over four years (Austral) or 20,000 every year for20 years at Nifty alone! With the vision to have 60,000t per annum (CYM)
“Austral’s processing facility is the only currentlyoperating copper oxide plant in the area”. Not really an inspiring statement tomake, but maybe it is to investors that are none the wiser.
The truth is, copper oxide is straight forward. Hascopper been leached before at Anthill? They say it is right for a leachoperation but you never know what lies beneath. Atleast we know 200,000t ofcopper has been previously leached and well understood at Nifty.
CYM is leaching copper sulphide, a whole different ballgame and requires a lot of knowledge and expertise. Does Darren Holmes havethat? I think not… Barry and CYM are confident they can even crack the holy grail,chalcopyrite which NOONE has been able to master at a commercial scale. Theyare going through a patent process to boot! I won’t waste my timecomparing anymore on this but its clear they are in different leagues altogether.
Who will be producing first? The answer is Austral, theywill be piling up the heap leach pads Q4 2021.
Austral who is about to list has similar assets to those atNifty, they have an SXEW, mining camp, workshops etc.. BUT no concentrator..Assets at Nifty are worth significantly more, concentrator, air strip thatcan take 100 seater planes. And 4G!
AUSTRAL
14 million of the 30 million in the raise will be repaying aloan!
The rest exploration, and getting it into production
Then we have this....Absolutely ridiculous, you are starting operations in Q4 and have no idea what the future revenues or expenses couldbe? Yet you want investors to help you raise 30 million dollars. Which only half is to be used going forward. Get outta here!
Copper Oxide, I know I keep banging on about it, but it is ACIDCONSUMING. Operating costs may still be low but the amount acid dumped on theheap will be a big expense none the less.
CYM, who will be treating copper oxide/transitional material for a while because its there, already mined will incur this cost also but I imagineare better than AUSTRAL at keeping the amount used down to a minimum. The saving on this comes from being able to leach sulphide. Sulphide is ACIDPRODUCING.
The sulphide and transition mineralisation comprise324,000t of contained copper in the Mineral Resource Estimate, providing acompelling case to further explore the potential to develop these ore types, whichcurrently cannotbe processed with Austral’s heap leach processing facility. Austral intendsto review sulphide and transition mineralisation treatment options withexisting (conventional milling and flotation)and emerging technologies.CYM have a big concentrator, Austral would need to find and buy one to processany ore that is sulphide.
It is worth noting that this company has tried listing allyear! got everything wrong and it neverhappened. You can see shareholders get screwed reading the comments on the Australthread if you want to check. They were left in the dark wondering if they wereever going to list or if they would get their money back. Eventually it was all refunded after months of delays.
A couple of months later they said they were listing for100 Million market cap! Now 89 Million.
Who is your pick out of the two?
I think you probably understand by now who I would/have chosen toinvest in.
