disappointed is an understatment.I hold OLY, AZC and MSN. I'm...

disappointed is an understatment.

I hold OLY, AZC and MSN. I'm baffled as to why a company that is effectively in production and has a bright future has lost 30% of it stockprice when a juniour that is producing zilch has hardly dipped. I suppose substance has gone out the window.

Anyway thank goodness for six degrees of separation. Look hard enough and you can always find someone that knows a little more than I/we do. With my own background in mining and a little help from friends who have worked in the industry before I have managed to cobble together the following generic description.

This is my understanding of the process as explained to me.

The mining and wet processing part of these types of mineral sands operations usually ramp up quickly. Separating sand from heavy mineral is not rocket science. Whether it has reached 480 or 550 tonnes per hour ore is neither here nor there. If it had only reached 300 then there would be a story.
The dry processing end of things is where the expertise and tweeking takes place and where it can take a number of months to produce the final products at specification and at the design tonnages. This place seems to have come in at budget cost and reasonably on time. Compare this to projects such as the BHP Ravenswood project that were well behind schedule and 50% overbudget from the original feasibilty study estimates.
The ilmenite circuit is apparantly a simple one to commission hence the early production of ilmenite. Commissioning a dry processing plant involves a bit of art as well as science. During commissioning there is always a little wastage and some of the stuff has to be put through a second time or is stockpiled until everything has settled down. The smart guys don't waste their most valuable asset which is the zircon. They get it right and then the good stuff starts pouring out.
In other mineral sands operations they stockpile the final products until they have enough to fill a small ship which may be 5,10,20 thousand tonnes and there would be no money coming in until the ship is full, has sailed to timbuk two and the cheque in RMB gets cleared.
These fellows must have been smarter with cash flow and have apparantly set up a system where final product for sale goes into shipping containers and is on the next sanpan to shanghai and money is received from Mrs Wong the following week. The fact that a few containers were shipped out simply demonstrates that the product handling system from plant to train to port works. They tell me that if these boys can spit out zircon over the next few months then they are well ahead of the game.

signed
peeved

PS on time and on budget but if the price doesn't go north soon then I suspect silly buggers and I'm on a plane heading east for the next AGM/EGM to get some real answers and not these half hearted press releases