Our criteria would be sort of relatively low country risk,
reasonable grade or low cost to bring into production for us to
to be shortlisting projects. Brett Smith, executive director
of Metals X, among many other titles, which we'll get to when
the first time you probably, you probably were shown or, or
someone, someone showed you some commentary that we or that I've
made about Metals X. Did you ever think you'd be
invited to sit in here and have a conversation with us?
Or do you think these guys are Muppets?
I didn't think Muppets. I sort of, I understand what you
guys do and I think one of you came along to one of our Agms
and there was a chance to have a bit of a chat with you then.
And it's look, it's I like the, I like what you guys do.
I think it's interesting. You, you, you know, your mix of
guests brings different perspectives.
You know, good luck. You know, hot cop has got a
certain following. You know, you, you, you, you
guys present a pretty balanced view of things.
Yeah. I appreciate that.
Glad, glad, glad to be called balanced, mate, yeah.
Pretty balanced, don't get. Ahead of yourself.
Which which Muppets would you like to have?
I don't know. I just I just I reflect on yeah,
I reflect on the the journey it's been talking about metals X
and like, you know, we're upfront Ding Ding, Ding metals X
shareholder. You also see on the the board of
the executive chair of no non executive chair of.
Of. Matt Gibson, which which
shareholder of we also got to do a Ding, Ding, Ding of as well.
So we'll get the disclosures out of the way.
We're conflicted, but we, we thought you'd be a very
interesting person to talk to because of a few reasons. 1 is
just our, our long relationship with, with the mystery of metals
X the, the, the continuous discourse we've had about
capital allocation, the intrigue of this, this, this, this, this
shareholder AIPAC and the, you know, the curious kind of like
discount that AIPAC entities seem to trade at when they, when
they're quite cash generative, being Middlesex and, and, and
Matt Gibson keen to unearth a lot of that.
You're a, you know, you're a, a very experienced operator like
you, you were the, the CEO of Asenko amongst many, many roles.
And, and I, I just think there's a rich conversation to be had
here about tin, about Middlesex, about capital allocation, about,
about China. And we're delighted to to have
you accept our invitation to join us, Brad.
Yeah. Well, I think you know, given
that you, I don't know when you bought into Middlesex, but I
think when I come on the board it was about 8 cents, seven and
a half cents. It's now $0.87.
So I think regardless of whether for any shareholder, I think
that's been a pretty good turn around.
Are they? It has indeed.
And it's in one of the most fascinating commodities, one of
the most fiercely loved commodities out there in in the
world of punters that follow the metals and mining space.
So, yeah, tin it's it's an endlessly fascinating commodity.
The the supply Side Story is, is extremely fascinating as well.
And yeah, there there's so much we want to talk about with with
regards to to Middlesex. Where where specifically do you
want to keep this one off? Trav company or?
Let's let's go to the, the, the beginning, because when like,
yeah, when, when you came onto the chair, well, Gameshare, like
Middlesex was a much more kind of complicated company.
There was a distressed asset in in in Nifty which was which was
taking a lot of management time, attention and and capital.
Worse, worse than management time.
It was costing us a million, 1.2 million a month.
Yeah, in holding costs. It was a yeah, it was nifty.
And it was the Wingalina, Yeah, nickel cobalt assets.
You know, this just, again, just looking at how we change
Middlesex, there's only one employee of Middlesex.
That's me. Yeah, I'm, I'm a firm believer
in that companies generally have too much overhead.
And so it had a big corporate office on, on, on the the, the
terrace, whole bunch of guys who were doing stuff that probably
didn't need to be done. And these assets which were just
sucking cash, you know, that the, the, the tin asset, which
was their jewel was mortgaged against a loan to support the
development of Nifty. They were in breach of their
banking covenants. They were, they were, you know,
I can't, I'd like to use an F word that you'd probably have to
edit out, but they were in serious bloody stress.
So we had to look at, you know, getting the overhead costs down
as quickly as we can, finding a way of getting rid of the, those
assets which had value but just didn't have, we couldn't do
everything at once. We couldn't maintain the cash
burn, refinance the company and, and, and fix the 10 assets.
It just wasn't possible to do everything.
So I got rid of all the overhead, looked at APAC for a
loan so that we could pay out the Citibank debt.
That took the pressure off the, you know, losing the 10 asset
because it was mortgaged against the 10 asset and then started to
a sale process for Nifty. And I think we did quite well
out of that selling that to the guys.
Now that the the Cyprian Strike pack ride guys are looking at
turning that around. We've retained a significant,
yeah, we got a fair bit of money for it.
And then we've retained a significant number of
convertible notes which are now in the money which will give us
a return there. We spun off Wingalina into a
separate listed company. Now no one knew what was going
to happen in Indonesia at that stage with the massive increase
in the latter production there. But that that, that looked a
good strategy until all that production came online.
And so we got rid of those two assets.
At one point, Nikko had a pretty healthy market.
Cap Oh, it did. It did.
It did because it's a great asset.
It's one of the best undeveloped nickel cobalt assets in the
world. It's just, it required, like all
of the laterite jobs, it requires a huge amount of CapEx
to get it started. But it's a great asset and it'll
eventually get built. It'll eventually get built.
So that freed us up just to focus on the tin.
We, we, we at that stage had no debt.
And then we started just looking at what we could do to improve
the performance of the tin asset.
It had been starved of capital because everything had flowed to
Nifty. So we started to look at
regional and near mine exploration because nothing had
been spent on it and doing the little things we could do to
improve the productivity of the process plant.
Renaissance. Renaissance is actually making
free cash at this point in time the entire way through.
It's coming. It's it's just bubbling out of
it. Yeah.
And so even when even when like metals X was was distressed
because of of nifty effectively renison is the jewel that's
still. Got a profit things out, yeah,
yeah. But but that it's it's not a low
cost mine. It has been shut down in the
past when the tin parts. Tin parts dropped, yeah.
But we have that period in 2122 where tin just goes goes through
the roof for for a period and the cash flow is, is really,
really strong, right. It's pretty strong now too.
Yeah, I mean today, but we're at a pretty healthy tin price, you
know when when you look back now 37,000.
Oh, it's great. It's and I can't see significant
increases on the supply side, which is going to erode that tin
price in the medium term. You know, we, we and I spend
most of my time looking at potential acquisitions.
And so I've looked at every tin project in the world more than
once and there just isn't, you know, the, the guys in the Congo
are going to complete their expansion and that'll bring a
bit more tin back on. I don't believe Indonesia ever
stopped producing tin. It it was just porous.
So what was leaked, what was being leaked out, leaked out
through unofficial channels. But that concentrate didn't seem
to disappear from the market. It just didn't flow through the
official channels. And mine was coming back on, but
coming back on quite slowly. So your your friends at at
Yunnan, do they help give insight obviously on that, that
Myanmar aspect they they'd have reasonable insight into that
wouldn't. They, well, they buy, they buy a
significant amount of their tin from Myanmar.
But I was up in Yunnan Province a couple of weeks ago, which is
on the sort of border with Vietnam and that sort of area.
They're talking to all of the the smaller smelters who also
bought a lot of teen from Myma. And you know, we got one view in
Australia as to what was happening in Myma.
You talk to the people there and you got a very different view of
what was happening. And that that that involved
trying to balance the relative power of the two different
militias by. And so there was this, you know,
China also wanted to see certain stability in that region.
So there was some some some use of Chinese purchasing power or
stopping purchasing, which could be used to help balance the
power between those militias. So it's a lot more complicated
than we thought, which was just that these guys decided not to
sell tin. Perhaps no one was buying tin
from them. And that's slowly starting to
come back on now. But because they had been, you
know, they'd had disrupted production and all sorts of
other problems. It's only ramping up fairly
slowly, but there's a global shortage of tin concentrate.
Just looking at all the little you know what's happening in
copper where people are dropping their treatment charges because
there just isn't enough Capricorn, That's going to
happen in tin because a lot of the old smelters had had their
own minds, so they had a supply chain to provide concentrate or
to provide tin to them. Those mines now have dropped in
grade or exhausted. So at some stage they'll have to
be a like a consolidation because some of these smelters
can't exist competing at lower and lower treatment charges for
tin concentrate. So I think we're going to see
short term, we're going to see treatment charges drop.
Longer term, we're going to have to see a consolidation of that
tin smelting capacity, particularly in China, because
the smaller guys who had their old, had their own minds and had
their own concentrators don't have the raw material from their
own supply chain. And they're going to have to
compete globally to buy the concentrate and that's going to
keep the keep the price up. Yeah.
Can you speak to the point there just one more on on Myanmar of
the the higher grade resources actually being mined out?
Like is it a a point of them not not selling any sorts of things
or well? I, I, I think that there won't
be a lot of what we would classify from a Western
perspective of, of exploration in Myanmar.
So there probably is opportunity for people to go back and have a
look at it with a different exploration lens on.
But the what's what's happening there is people just mining
what's an existing Nolan resource and and that that gets
depleted relatively quickly. This is the the man more complex
to it we're speaking about specifically in Myanmar, Yes,
yeah. Yeah.
Is that is that what you're asking?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And is, is that like, what is
the nature of that like mining operation, Is it just like?
It's a combination of Hard Rock and alluvial, depending on where
you're where you are. Yeah.
And some of it is quite small scale, yeah, like you'd see like
you'd see in parts of Africa. I've tried to look at it on
Google Earth and I just get confused on yeah.
Yeah, I do know. I do know, you know, concentrate
traders who are going into Myanmar and actually talking and
buying from these guys. And they're describing it to me
like I remember how the Congo was 35 years ago with this sort
of small guys collecting, you know, semi beneficiated product,
putting it in bags. There's other contractors buying
those bags and trucks and then taking them to places and then
therefore being further processed.
So it's sort of Artesia, you know, it's it's not a very in
places, it's not a very sophisticated operation.
So that in that, that means it's difficult to ramp up quickly?
So the Congo is still like that, aren't they?
I. I think they still might be.
So this, this all ties in really well Brett with, you know, you
assessing the options out there and and M&A and you've obviously
done some deals elementals comes to to to mind first team as
well. So how do you kind of pick and
choose and and speak to the the assets that you have sort of
done a deal with? It's nice to have more than one
horse in the race. So that's that's that really is
our strategy that both of these we think are good projects.
I used to be, even before I was involved in Middlesex, I used to
be on the board of Ello Entos. So I've always liked that
project. That Petrogic in Spain is a,
it's a good low cost, open cut, simple concentrator relatively,
you know, sensible operating costs in an area which needs
economic development. So they're the sort of things
that you would think would make it a good project to develop.
Europe is complicated for permitting.
I know that from Dragon where it's taken us in a longer than
you'd ever expect to get permits for new mines, but the, you
know, the Elementos guys have taken their feedback from their
previous permitting applications.
They've learnt what was necessary now to resubmit.
And they've done a good job sort of changing the, you know, some
of the layouts considering what the water management issues are.
And it's usually water in Europe, which is a permitting
issue. And I've resubmitted the permits
and I think they've got a pretty good chance of, of seeing those
within 6 to 8 months. And that, and that'll, that's,
that's, that is really the key for, for having confidence
because all of these projects, you know, should you can do
usually the metallurgy is OK, Usually the, you know,
everything else you can manage. But the permitting is always
such an uncertainty wherever you're developing A mining
project these days. Then two, you have confidence
that you're going to get the permit.
Taking that risk on a major investment is just difficult.
So instead of taking a a full risk, you, you've, you've
bought, you know, a, a very considerable seat at the table
with a, with a, yeah, substantial shareholding
awaiting a permitting outcome. Is that the right
interpretation? That's and that's the same thing
we did with First Teen. Yeah.
So the idea there is that we can make a decision as to do we do a
list code play or do we look at a asset related joint venture or
you know some other form of investment at A at a asset level
to enable us to have a a significant stake in the
development of the project, both the first TIN project and the
Elementos project. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And 1st tin like as it comes to
permitting for them, do you think there's a similar time
timeline in front of them? Yeah, it's, it's NSW, but it's,
again, it's in an area which has been a historic tin mining area.
They've done their public consultations just recently.
And there's a, there's a trigger in New South Wales that if you
get more than 50 objections, you have to follow a longer
permitting path. They only got 5 or 6 so that
they're not on the extended path for the permitting, which is
great news. And again, they've done a, a, a
very considered sort of, you know, not rushed permit
application. It's, it's a very benign, it's
not a sulfide type ore body. So there's no acid rock draining
type issues. It's, you know, the, the waste.
There's very little overburden because they've basically
classified everything as ore. But it's, it's so it won't, it
won't provide a significant environmental legacy.
So it should be a relatively and it's in the middle of nowhere.
There's just bloody feral pigs and prickly pears around there.
So there's no environmental damage that you're going to do
to that area. Yeah, the the thing that like
with 1st 10, it's a a lower grade.
Yeah, I didn't understand. To be honest, I didn't
understand how it could work at that grade, because normally if
something's less than 1% ten, I don't even look at it.
Yeah. And what changed the game?
There the the the the the recovery, the very simple
recovery process flow chart that you need to recover the tin your
base. It's basically just grind and
gravity. The considerate is a very coarse
crystal and in even if it in crushing it fractures and
separates quite easily. So you can just screen and then
a gravity type circuit to to recover the considerate.
I think there's upside being a junior, it's looked at
increasing the tons of tin in the ground and the size of the
thing as high as possible because they think that's the
right thing to do. As a junior.
I think when you actually come to development, you could look
at a the same way you'd mine a narrow grade gold system where
you'd be digging selective even if you're open pitting it, you'd
dig selective trenches rather than just do a big mass bulk
excavation process. When you can see the ore body.
The considerite is in bands. You know every a couple of
meters there's another band of considerite.
If you looked at a more, you know, a different, you'd reduce
the total tons of tin, but I think you'd up you'd bring up
the grade you were processing and that may affect the
economics. But for the IT, it works the way
they've done the financial model, but I think you could
improve it later as you move closer to to actually developing
a mine plan. Elementos is autopassa as well
is far below 1%. Yeah, Yeah, there it's well, but
it's a very low cost mining, very low cost mining, yeah.
And what should we, what should we read into the, the assets and
the, and the projects around the world that that Meadows X hasn't
been able to do a a deal with, given that you've looked under
the hood at as many as you can? Well, when you say we haven't,
haven't yet, haven't yet, haven't yet, you know, of
course, you know, Stellar is interesting because it's just
around the corner to us and we're in constant conversation
with those guys. And you know, I know Rusty well,
yeah. So you know, there there we is
is a sensible collaboration in that area.
One of the things that's interesting is we have a rentals
project, which is a tailings and and you guys you you guys seemed
prejudice towards or prejudice against tailing free processing
projects. If you've watched enough for you
I podcast. You're the mining engineer, not
me. I I think I've come to
appreciate like the, the like, like I was, I was being critical
of that relative to returns to shareholders that could be
distributed and you know, the, the IRR on rentals for the CapEx
that required. I was thinking, why don't you
just, why don't you just buy back your stock?
You're so cheap. Yeah, yada, yada.
And we can, we can get to that bit later, but we'll.
Start well, we'll talk about capital and we'll talk about
capital allocation and investment theories and all that
sort of stuff. But the yeah, MMG up the road
have got a problem with tailings.
Anyone who tries to develop a new mine in that area is going
to have a issue with tailings. We've got we're out of the
tarkwine we've got now we've got the NGOs are quite happy with
what we're doing down there in terms of the tailings thing.
So having a having a single large tailings resource that the
regional mines all pump tailings too, it would be an easier
solution for a number of players to get permitting and to develop
their projects. They'd not be quite quite an
expensive endeavour to pump. How far would the tailings have
to be pumped from all of these operations?
From from Stellar or from MMG? From MMG, yeah.
No, we're just up the road. OK.
Yeah, both. You can pump tailings relatively
cheaply. OK.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, and. So Stella said, coming back to
that, Stella's an obvious one. That's interesting.
There's, you know, the the lower grade stuff up in North
Queensland, in Australia's. I don't think that's that
interesting. You know, I had a look at the
stuff in Brazil when they were selling the stuff up in the
Amazon and the smelter in Sao Paulo, the stuff in Morocco's
interesting, but maybe maybe a bit late now for us to get
involved in that. Congo's, you know, my board is,
is probably not that interested in in Africa, though.
I'm not scared of Africa. I've worked in the Congo of
Cinco in many different places and that was coming.
Yeah. So I think, you know, our
criteria would be sort of relatively low country risk,
reasonable grade or low cost to bring into production and a
reasonable way down the permitting Gale for us to to be
short listing projects. Yeah.
So we've we'll go to Stella
first. But with Stella there's there's
there's you know, you say JVII think synergies in my head that
that could be had there. It's down the road.
The the, the, the one thought I have though is like metals X
metals XS interest in in Renaissance is is via this this
JV and maybe you can give some context on the JV, but are there
any, are there any limitations to like to, to, to doing
anything with with stellar doesn't have to be done at that
JV level? Stellar is in the area of
influence under the J VS definition, so it would have to
be discussed at the JV level before anything was done.
There's a sort of circle of so many kilometres around the
asset, but that that wouldn't be an impediment.
Yeah, yeah. And when we, well, maybe we
should talk about the JV as well.
There's so many moving parts with, for a company with one
employee. There's a lot going on, Brett,
the, the, the JV like Middle Middlesex, you know, over the
last last 12 months has, has, has publicly been trying to, to,
to potentially consolidate part of that JV.
Can you add some colour on on like how that situation came
about where it where it got to and you know, like what, what,
what, what are the kind of restrictions or sure or
permanent? Things within that JV Renison is
a 5050 JV between Middlesex and Unintin Australia.
Unintin Australia is a 20% owned by Unintin, the Chinese smelting
company and 80% by Green Tech, a Hong Kong listed company which
is a single asset company. It has a small tin trading
business, but it's, it's, it's main asset and it's only revenue
source is really it's revenue from that joint venture.
They were suspended on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange because the
auditors couldn't sign off on the accounts.
It's, it's so that made it that, that to us looked like an
opportunity. We thought that with the
suspension there may be a number of shareholders who could be
interested in selling. There's two major shareholders
who own probably about 6 between the pair of them, they own about
60% of the company. We thought we could probably mop
up a number of the smaller shareholders and then look to
use that as a platform for a bid for the whole company or to look
at doing what would be the equivalent of a 249 day in
Australia to look at questioning the board and the reasons for
the suspension. We, we, we did make a bid was a
low bid. The guys in Hong Kong being
savvy, only a small number sold to us.
So you can get some come back. Yeah, they, they thought that
we'll come back and make another bid.
So we are considering of course another bid and and yeah, we've
we've of course worked out what we think it's worth based on our
EV value and what that revenue stream would be and everything
so. But there's financial due
diligence that. Financial due diligence is
difficult when it's under suspension because they can't
legally release any information to us which hasn't been released
to all shareholders. So you're making some next to it
or or you're making? Yeah, you're making some.
Next to, well, we and we don't, we don't really want the listed
Hong Kong entity. We just want the revenue stream
of the 80% of the joint venture. That's that's what we'd like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And like where? Like what's this?
What's the status of of? We have to, we have to wait
after making a bid up again. The Hong Kong regulators have
rules which are different to Australia.
There's a time period that we have to wait before we can make
another bid. Yeah.
And so that's that's sort of late December, yeah.
And I think they they will, if they can't satisfy the
requirements of the Stock Exchange, they'll be delisted in
March or April. Yeah.
So there's, but we've, you know, we've got Chinese New Year in
there, which is it's like Christmas in Australia in terms
of when it is sensible to do or to look at tabling A
transaction. So we've got to work through all
of that timing and to work out you know what, you know, the
team prices move since we made our last bid, all of those sorts
of things to work out. What is a sensible strategy do
you think to do? Do you think those two, I mean
those two shareholders, if they control like 60%, like do you
think there's a, a world where there, there's a deal to be done
at? A Yeah, I don't think that they
both agree. OK, on yeah, What's happened
with the suspension, which gives us a door to one of them to
potentially negotiate a deal? Gotcha, gotcha.
That helps. Not if he wants too much for it,
yeah. Yeah, everything's got a price.
But like if, if a deal can be done at a reasonable price,
surely that is that is the most accretive thing you can do with
your cash balance is? Yeah.
You agree? Yeah.
That's why we, that's why we made a bid, yeah.
Yeah. And then yeah, with, with the,
the JV dynamics, yeah, like like covered, we'll go, we'll go
across the the globe again. Are there any other like tin
like projects that you've you've looked over undeveloped or or
otherwise that that just aren't on the the radar?
There's little stuff up in Nova Scotia in, there's bits and
pieces in in some of the other around was that extension of
that Congolese belt. There's smaller deposits in
Africa, but again, they're all fairly small.
Uganda's got a little bit this. I think Bolivia's been a place
that's been just forgotten because the government, you
know, being a socialist government and having a certain
agenda scared a lot of people. But there, you know, I think if
rentals works, there's enormous, enormous deposits of tin
tailings in Bolivia which could which someone should have a look
at. Peru is a a big producer of of
tin as well, yeah. Well, it was the Peruvian guys
who had the assets in that, the Peruvian family who had the
assets in Brazil who sold them out recently.
So, yeah, but I think that's quite closely held.
I don't think there's any interest to sell the Peruvian in
assets, yeah. Yeah.
And those Bolivian ones are within the state owned minor as
well. So makes things a bit harder.
So capital allocation then? This is this.
Is this. Yeah, this is this.
Is where you started with us. Yeah, totally it is.
Totally. I didn't understand the company
as well as I do now and I was maybe I was a bit critical, but
but I'm glad that things have had like I'm glad that there was
like, you know, the announcement of a buy back.
I'll bet you didn't have to buy back much, but you know.
Yeah. Well, we would have bought back
as much as you know, it was a function of the share price.
We didn't set a limit on to how much we could buy.
The share price started to move so.
This is an interesting point because you like most companies
don't do a buyback and say, oh, we're going to buy it back when
the when the stock is is less than or equal to a.
Certain price, most of the ones, every buyback I've been involved
with in a public company, the board has set a ceiling.
They've set a ceiling. Yeah, but not publicly indicated
that ceiling. Well, we didn't publicly
indicate it or. You can infer it, but but you
know, yeah, there's I think I think it's more uncommon than
not to have a just a like a flat yeah, ceiling price.
You can have like some sort of volume weighted allocation
within a band or a range. Yeah, but anyway, that's.
But I appreciate the discipline. Like I think that's the way
buybacks should be done, but. You'll be looking at net like
look at the cash balance. What if they have just plowed a
hell of a lot more into into the stock at low, low, low prices?
You would have pushed it to that level Quite quite.
You would have you would have moved the price above your
ceiling. You could do a tender offer at
a, you know what I mean? Like if you just go, OK, we're
like we're going to do a tender offer $0.10 above the current
price and we'll mop up everyone that wants to sell.
We'll take it all. Yeah, yeah.
The, the, my, my view is you use the buyback to support a share
price when you have other things.
So, but when you have a macroeconomic change like an
increase in the team price, save your buyback capacity for when
that's not there naturally supporting the Tim price.
So that was kind of the philosophy we followed.
You know, we, we, we, we have publicly stated since I've been
on the board that as soon as we have franking credits, we'll re
look at dividends. Yeah.
So, so that that, that we've said that at every AGM and we
will, we will if we needed to recommence a buyback because
there wasn't support for the share price, it's still there.
We would re enable it, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
That's the counter cyclical approach as well in in contrast
to what we saw in in coal and a couple of years ago as well.
Yeah. And I can appreciate the value
of that cash. It's not like, you know, we've
talked about all of the ways that that can be deployed.
There's great optionality that you know that exists not in just
the organic but also the inorganic stuff and there'll be
a time and place to deploy that cash.
Like you can't be opportunistic on your JV partner if you don't
have the cash backing to support that.
So I can I can understand. Appreciate I'd like us to be
producing, you know, through greater ownership of
Renaissance, through the development of rentals, through
the development of one or both of the first tin and Elementos,
you know, 20/20/2000 ton of tin a year.
Yeah, doubling what we produce now is just as Renaissance.
And that's so that's, that's, you know, we want to be as big
as bigger than alpha mean. Yeah.
So that's, that's our, you know, our strategy.
And I think that will move given as you mentioned, the complexity
of the team market, if you can be producing sort of 20% of the
world's team concentrate, you will get rated accordingly.
Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about ratings
because because it was X Mount Gibson like they're always like
they always traded just you know like 1 1/2 times EBITDA, 2 times
EBITDA at most if they've been trading it positively cash back.
Yeah, they're. Two very different companies
now, as I said, you know, when we when I came on the board, we
were eight cents. We're now 87 cents.
Yeah. So that's, that's, that's fixing
itself by being consistent, by doing what you said you're going
to do and delivering on what? A company's performance.
Poor old man Gibson, you know, that's, that was a disaster,
that rockfall totally unexpected.
You know that that section of the wall was maybe 200 meters
long, 150 meters high, 3 meters thick, had 18 meter rock bolts
in it all, you know, very heavily bolted, meshed and shot
creded and it fell within 5 seconds.
Yeah. So of course that's going to
knock the share price down significantly.
Yeah. And I think also, you know, if a
if a mine is on its last 18 months of production, you're
going to see an erosion of its share price because people and
it did, it didn't really have a strategy of what it was going to
do post, post coolant. Yeah.
And now it has. Now it has.
So that that's, yeah, now it has.
But at that, that's the bit I'm getting to is like, I think the
the market had for better off or worse, there was a perception
that, that you know the these companies that have a very large
shareholding from APAC and maybe their real agenda is just to
accumulate stuff. And maybe maybe there's most
shareholders in the market want to see some distribution of
these big cash balances to them and that generates the rewrite.
You guys have heard of Ferb? Yeah.
How can a pack be accumulating beyond what Ferb will allow it?
To be no, no, no, I mean like within the vehicle of, of, of
not not accumulating more shares, but, but, but like,
let's say those entities can, can embark on their own capital
allocation, you know, decisions. Some of those decisions might be
to pay a dividend which other shareholders might want, but
maybe might not be what what I pack once and I think that was
part of the markets you know like discount that has been
applied to those. Yeah, I think a question came up
in the Matt Gibson AGM the other day about dividends.
And the the CEO reminded the audience that it had paid out
something like 320 million of dividends, you know, up until it
ran out of franking credits. Yeah, I think, I don't know,
franking credits is a real consideration when you're
thinking about paying dividends. Yeah, APEC, APEC to me has
saved, saved tantamize us, save Middlesex's us.
And it did a lot to help Matt Gibson in terms of being a
supportive shareholder when no one else was supporting them.
And that's, that's that I don't think is being generally
understood, you know, providing unsecured loans, helping with
restructure all of those sorts of things, participating in
placements or participating in rights issues to ensure there
was funding that's that that saved a lot of those companies
from going under. I'd love to RIP the curtain off
here. Like what are the misconceptions
about AIPAC? What do you think other people
think AIPAC is? And like what is the reality of
the type of shareholder AIPAC is well?
AIPAC when I, when I, when I was more involved with the
management of AIPAC, I restructured it so that it had
three, three funds. Each of the analysts then had
their own portfolio for trading and then there was a long term
strategic fund. And so APAC has an energy fund,
it has a resources fund and then it has its long term strategic
holdings. They, they operate differently.
The trading funds are like any other, like any other trading
company where they buy and sell the equities.
You're up and down without restrictions.
Another, another issue with the Hong Kong exchange is that if
something is considered a significant asset, you actually
have to ask shareholder approval to increase your ownership or
decrease your ownership of that strategic asset.
So it's got all of these restrictions on what it can do
with these companies. But the strategic holding is
where APEC believes it has, where this is a strategic asset
which needs a long term focus to assist in its development or the
generation of the best outcome or the best value for that
asset. And that should that would
benefit all shareholders. So you you think you like the
way you interpret it back is like they're just a very aligned
shareholder that has the the same intentions.
And A and a long term and has because because it has these,
you know, companies like Mount Gibson and Middlesex in its long
term portfolio, it's not having to trade them in and out or it
doesn't short, it doesn't have to trade them in and out like a
fund would do. So it's they're looking at long
term, you know, long term value of that equity and that that
isn't understood by someone who wants to play day trading with
the stock and hopes it goes up and down within sort of on a
cyclic nature. Yeah.
Can you share more about the the strategic nature of the assets
that it looks at understanding? That they're based on, they're
based on the percentage value of them on the portfolio, because
that's a requirement of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that if it's
an asset which is above a certain percentage of your,
your, you know, I don't remember what the correct term is, but on
your balance sheet, if it's above a certain percentage, you
can't trade it. You have to ask shareholders to
buy and sell above a certain percentage change.
So but they are assets that where they believed that a long
term strategic view of that as an asset was an important thing.
Tanami Tanami would have driven most people nuts in terms of the
amount of time that's taken to get that to, to get that project
moving. But there's, you know, AIPAC
have been supportive of Tatami. It it did, it did.
Again, it was before my time, but it did, it had almost gone
broke as well. And it was it was AIPAC which
provided the fund for it to stay solvent.
Yeah, AIPAC irons north of 50 odd percent of.
I don't know. I remember I said I'm not good
with exact numbers, but it's a major shareholder.
It's a major shareholder, yeah. Yeah.
And the Tanamoi interesting history, but this asset, it was
a it was a joint venture with Northern Star.
Northern Star had done had done a deal and not all that long ago
to increase their, their, their, their participation that JV by
an extra 10% and and that gave. No, not exactly.
I actually negotiated the deal with Northern Stars, the Reese
casting of the joint venture agreement.
Yes, originally it was a earning with the free carry where Tanami
had a free carried interest and Northern Star had to spend up,
had to get the plant into production of so many ounces by
a certain period of time to earn into its ownership, right.
Kind of my challenge that because they weren't actually
doing what they said and we then there was a stalemate.
There was a stalemate. So we renegotiated that joint
venture where the free carried was dropped and it was a 5050
JV, both parties contributing equally to the development of
the project because I personally thought that was stumbling block
for the development of the project and both parties
contributed a significant amount of money.
We were spending sort of $20 million a year plus as a joint
venture on drilling in those areas.
The reason it never really progressed was Northern Star
wanted a much bigger project. They wanted a 3 million on per
annum plus project. We would have been happy with
with the tonne of my hat on of a 1.21 point 5 million tonne
project, refurbishing the plant, getting a cash flow and then
looking at. So they're both correct
philosophies, but different philosophies and each philosophy
informs how you explore and what you allocate drilling for.
If you're chasing, you know, something that's two or three
times as big, you're doing regional drilling to try to fill
out what could be your potential or sources.
If you're trying to get an existing, you know, 1.2 million
operation into place, you're doing focus drilling to develop
a mine plan to get something into operation.
So that was then neither is right or wrong.
They were just different. They were just different and
that's that's what and they and both parties worked harmoniously
and, and everyone was in support.
But because of that difference, I don't think it fitted
strategically what Northern Star wanted to do, hence the
divestment. And now MGX have real alignment.
You've spoken in the past with with the MGX hat on about that
1.2 million ton per annum type operation 100,000 ounces.
Plus. There a an asset that we start
producing in in hopefully within 2 1/2 years or.
So. Importantly, MGX has has the
understand there'll be some some cash costs associated with
cooling now, but I imagine there's there'll still be a lot
of cash left in MGX. Yeah, and cooling's not as bad
as we first thought. You know, we've got we could
significant low grade stockpiles on the surface.
So we now believe we can and they're, you know, they're,
they're 4245% and also they're not crap.
But we look, we think we can sell those people will blend
that. So that'll that's a that's a bit
more cash than we thought. We are we we in in discussions
with a couple of different groups as to take over the
island as an asset for, you know, for servicing, you know,
infrastructure or tourism. It's very close to the Timor Sea
oil platforms. So to make a very good base for
much in it, you know, and if you're in a helicopter and you
want to rescue someone from a rig, it's maybe an hour earlier
than it is from Broome or Derby to get there.
So it's got, it's got and they and they, and it's also a
strategic asset for the defense. So we, we, we don't believe
we're going to have the full rehab cost because we believe
we'll be able to repurpose the island and sell it for, for a
future use. Gotcha, Gotcha.
That'd be positive for Matt Gibson equity, which which will
be then focused on the development of kind of my gold
project in conjunction with 10 of my gold, both 10 of my gold
and and and Matt Gibson. I'm sure it makes sense for
those two entities to come together, but there are
complications with the the the shared shareholding and.
To act to merge with it's actually harder with a common
shareholder than it is the, you know, that related parties issue
means it's it's it's almost too odd.
So there's no reason that you couldn't look at an asset level
deal which had different percentages adjust from 5050.
But I think in this gold market, Tanamar are pretty confident
that they can raise money to maintain their 50% ownership of
the project. Yeah.
And there's a Phoenix shareholding as well, 10%
ownership of Phoenix. Which came about by the by a
sale to yes to to Phoenix, Yeah. And, and, and Matt, Matt Gibson
not only has it's, it's, you know, that was some of the
questions that came up at the AGM yesterday.
You know, is it, you know, why, what is the sudden jump?
Is this just an opportunistic thing?
Is it an AIPAC conspiracy thing? Why have you suddenly got into
this? But Matt Gibson have, you know,
they've been looking at, you know, possible alternatives
knowing that the island was going to run out for years and
they've got other equity stakes in in a little in copper plays
in various places. Substantive shareholding,
Marinin. Yeah, it's an substantial share
shareholding, yeah. Victory North.
Yeah. So there's there's there's a
whole basket. There's a whole basket of
things. And the idea there was that if
you get it's not it's similar to what?
What metals X is done was taking a strategic shareholding in
first tier, no elementos on a smaller scale, but in but a
similar idea. So it's looking not just at the,
the, you know, the gold opportunity, but a number of
copper and base metal opportunities, you know, in that
sort of Queensland central QLD regional area.
And, and, you know, again, they're looking at projects,
which would be a sensible jump given their sort of bulk
commodity mining operation. But there isn't many of them
around. The Phoenix one really came on
the back of the, the sale of that asset.
And Phoenix is a bloody good operation, Really clever, the
way that they've married that IP of infrastructure, IP of
transport and infrastructure into an iron ore mine to
actually get a lower transport cost, which has helped them
develop these isolated assets where no one else could have
done it before. Their wholeage costs are
gobsmackingly low. And it's, it's, it's, it's
state-of-the-art. If you ever get a chance to talk
to them, you know, the, the, the changeover, the preventative
maintenance, the, the satellite monitoring, the level of
automation or the on the trucks to make sure that you don't have
planned breakdowns. It's all really clever stuff
which has allowed them to do that.
So they're really, really sharp, sharp operation.
It's mighty impressive what they've done and, and the, the
cost at which they can operate. I want to touch on on Tanamar
Gold just just once more, because when people run the
numbers similar to Meadows X, they, they see the cash, they
see what the market cap of the company is.
And you've done the deal now with, with Tanamar.
That's clearly a key piece of it.
What do you feel is kind of misunderstood about the the
value in in the gold asset? I think joint ventures are
typically undervalued and there was just fatigue.
There was investor fatigue with Tanami because it just, it's
been sitting there undeveloped for so bloody long.
People got bored or frustrated with it.
You know, there's been a couple of long-suffering shareholders
there who sort of seen what we're trying to do.
But I think now there is a real opportunity to accelerate its
developments. It's not, it's not complicated.
It's actually the plan that Tanami took to Northern Star is
we put in an exploration decline.
That'll that'll cost like. 7070 with the because you're also
going to put all the surface infrastructure on to support it
yeah it's not a it's not a it's a cost which isn't lost because
one it opens up 6 or 7 levels that you could kick stop from
yeah and you're going to need a decline anyway once you start
mining look at refurbishing the existing process plant or or
building as lower cost new plant as you can it's.
A pretty, pretty old plant. It's a pretty old plant.
Yeah, maybe. Build a new one.
Yeah. No, but but the, the, the other,
the other value there is the permitting.
Yeah, yeah. Because you've got the
permitting for the tails, you've got the permitting for the
process plant, you've got the permitting for the runway and
all of that to get all that again now.
Yeah, is, is to do that and we, we reckoned you could get it
into operation or, but you know, between 200 and 250 million,
you'd still have to spend another 200 in sort of
sustaining capital to look at doing the non essential post
production things like upgrading the camp and all of the
upgrading the airstrip and some of the other bits and pieces.
And then you're, you know you're 1.21 point 5 million tonne per
annum, you know 3 to 4G a tonne producer are.
There refractory concerns. With no there is a significant
amount of refractory or but that's being excluded from the
modelling of the process plants. It's just a free milling stuff
to start with, you'd put in a pox plant later, you'd leave
space to put in a pox plant. Then you can bring in all of
that gyms is the exciting one. Just just have a look at the
drilling was at the last drilling results from gyms.
That's that's, that's, that's, that's going to be good and.
That's. And it would be open pit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting to the to the stakes
that Mount Gibson has in in some, you know, junior miners or
developers. So there's there seems to be a
clear interest in some of that kind of Queensland.
Yeah area with with AIC mines Eloise very proximate to to
Marion and then then true, true North.
But those are the three that I I know that I know that and that
gives another has or. Has had yeah.
And, and, and we don't really have a clear favorite.
It's just we identified the the guys identified that there was
room to have a consolidation in that area where there's a number
of sub optimum sized base metal projects, which if someone could
get a get their foot on a number of them and pull them together
into perhaps a central processing plant, you you'd have
a different story. So that's kind of been the logic
behind that and it's now working through which is the best
starting point to able to make that happen.
If I, if I ask a bigger picture question in that neck of the
woods, obviously Glencore has been in the news a lot, Mount
Isa and everything. What, what sort of implication
does that have and has that changed how you think about
those assets there it? Shows if you cry enough, the
government will give you money. Glencore's not and this is
interesting. This is something from that I
picked up in, in the, the Shanghai Metal Exchange thing
with the, all of the smelters in China, people who just have a
smelter struggle. So if you're not integrated
upstream and downstream from the smelter, there's not a lot of
money left in smelting. So I'm not surprised, you know,
when Mount Isa was a, a booming, you know, operation with its own
minds and all of its fade, the smelter was probably making a
fair bit of money. Now it would be struggling.
To be fair, that was just a joke before.
Now it would be smelting because it's really hard to run a
smelter if you're not upstream and downstream integrated.
You hold that view across all all medals in this day and age
base. Medals.
If you just have a smelter, it's hard.
Yeah, yeah. There's, there's such value in
there in the, you know, in the, in the offtake.
Then if you're a producer. So how do you think about about
Metals X's off taked supply as well?
We, we, we re tender our off take every year.
Yeah, yeah. And we look at the lowest, we
look at the best commercial outcome for Middlesex.
When we do that tendering, we don't like to have just one like
what happened with COVID when the Malaysians called force
majeure. It's good to have more than one
smelter, but we tender that every year.
So right now it's Malaysia and China.
It was in years gone by also to Thailand, but that but that
dropped off recently. Yep.
What was the the rationale behind that?
Again, just. Commercial terms, yeah, Yeah.
And certainly all the way back to Metals X again, let's talk
about rentals because yeah, this is, this is another potential
use of of cash favorite CapEx, technological uncertainty or do
you think? It's pretty sure it's, it's,
it's hydraulic mining that's just pumping mud, fine regrind
and differential float, making a copper float and a tin float.
It was more complex when the pyrometallurgical part was going
to be in Tassie as well. But we'll just make a, you know,
a commercial grade copper con and we'll make a tin con of
between 13 and 15%. Yeah, it's to get good
payability on. Yeah, because.
It's the MPV of the project. Didn't change that much when we
took the pyrometallurgical part out because that was fairly
expensive. Oh, a lot of the upfront
capital. Yeah.
But also, you know, we aren't in the Takwine, but we're on the
edge of it. Yeah.
And so if you've got a buddy, big stack, regardless of whether
you've got good gas treatment or not, it's visible from that main
road in and out of the Takwine. It's it's not going to be
popular. We would have had to bring in
coal because coal is a reagent coke and coal is a reagent in
the box fumes to be burning coal in the sort of clean Tasmania
branded area on the edge of the tacroine, which probably not
economic. Yeah, not environmentally or
from a stakeholder thing, a good idea.
And there aren't a lot of pyrometallurgical people.
It's hard enough to get float plant operators in Tasmania to
get power metallurgical people to run a Box FUMA.
There's I don't think there's any other box fumes in Australia
would be difficult. So they're the reasons we
decided to let Unentin build the Box FUMA either in Thailand or
to reconfigure one of their ones in China and split the project
in two. I'd love to hear what the the
benefits of that partnership with with Yunnan more broadly in
the joint venture and if you're, if you're willing to, to share
any of that, the downsides of that structure.
I don't know if there's, as I said, it's a joint venture with
the joint venture Yunnan Tin's one of the largest tin and base
metal producing companies in the world.
So we've got access to all of their technical knowledge.
You know, they're representative on the JV committee's, got a
PhD. They, they, they're good,
collaborative, intelligent guys. So having access to all of that
is a real, is a real benefit. You know, we've, they will, they
are keen on rentals, which is great.
They, you know, they need concentrate the same way all of
the other smelters in China need concentrate because the, the
grade in their minds is falling. So there's no, there's no issues
with that. If there are funding issues
where perhaps one of that joint venture didn't want to fund its
share of rent house, then there could be some complexities.
But there are, there is a provision in the joint venture
agreement which lets one party sole source the development of a
new capital project. Yeah, and you of course, you
have to pay something for the use of the joint venture asset,
which is the tailings. But that's not, that's not,
that's just a commercial and that smelt a royalty type thing
that you have to negotiate. So they if you took the scenario
that Middlesex sole source the development of rentals, the
existing joint venture agreement allows that to happen and and we
would just have to agree and that smelt a royalty associated
with the tin and the copper that was in the tailings that we were
processing in that sole finance project.
Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, with, with Stella
one more time. So Stella, they've, they've
struck it, you know? They've looked at the old
nickel. They've looked at the Avery
nickel plant, which which is a plant in need of a good ore
body. Are you worried that that that
that might find an alternative path to market that's not not?
In I'm not worried if they if they do that, that's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably not the most
sense. If it was me, I'd just put all
sortters in crush and grind and sort and ship a beneficiated
product to Renison. Much cheaper way of doing it
than all of that. Yeah.
The all sorting component is something they've looked at,
although obviously incorporated as well.
Yeah, yeah, we got, we got sorters at Renison and they're
working well, yeah. Can we talk about the impact
that sorters are like the application of sorters too?
They're not a magic bullet. Everyone who just published puts
out an ASX release saying that sorters have beneficiated their
all. Of course they're going to
beneficiate their all, but it still means you've got to have a
a project and an economic reason to actually be looking at
sorters in the 1st place. Yeah, the technology works.
They just change the sensors and it works on most store types.
For most commodities, yeah. I've, I've, I've heard stories
about some of these sensors now and like the yeah, the, yeah,
the tech sounds like it's come a long way, right?
Like the, the the the the ability to to to detect and also
then like rapidly blow away. You know where the technology
came from. Was it the Argo?
No. No, no, no, that it started it
would no, it was treating municipal waste.
So the municipal waste, the original trauma Ron stuff was
municipal waste sorting where they had belts, where people,
the dump trucks that emptied in and it had sought out the metal
and the cardboard and all of that.
So it's that's that's improved. That was the genesis of it, and
then it. In what era?
Oh, I. Don't know, 30 years ago, 20
years ago, yeah, OK, yeah, but but now it's the but that's the
same principle. You just need the correct sensor
to differentiate the different streams and the software to
understand what you're doing. There's a bit of work in making
sure you crush it to the right size and to screen it and to
have what washed if it's a certain thing.
But there's enough variation in sensing technology now, I think,
to sort accurately most types of all.
But you do lose stuff. So when you sort gold, you may
upgrade what you're feeding, but you do lose ounces, you know.
So yeah, we've looked at it for the operations in in Scandinavia
and we're going to, we're going to put them in again now because
we're capped in terms of the throughput of our flotation
plant, their permits capped at a certain number of tons per year.
So the only way we can increase gold production is to lift the
feed grade. But we didn't put them in
previously because we would lose gold through the sorting.
You lose a percentage of the gold.
If you could do a, you know, you can't do heap bleach anymore,
but if you could actually feed your reject stream to a gold,
heap bleach would be OK. It's just you can't do that.
Anymore, Yeah, Renaissance, Renaissance as we look at that
asset today like it's been producing a while the plan.
Next, soon, we'll publish a new life of Mind.
Yeah, and it's no shorter than our previous one.
Previous one was, was it 10 years?
Yeah, so. 10 years at yeah, mostly 10,000 tons per annum.
Yeah, yeah. What are the?
What are the constraints to to output?
The float, The existing float plant.
The float plant, Yeah. And what's what are the mining
constraints? Oh.
Not you could expand more fronts and you could mine more tons
because we've got a hoist and a decline when we bring on ring
rows. Ring rows is at a much higher
elevation so that that if that whole body ends up being as big
as it might be, that would that could bring you know that you,
you may look at another portal. At the moment we didn't want to
do that because we don't want additional surface disturbance
disturbances. So we don't have any additional
permitting issues. So at the moment we'll just cut
a drive across and do it from underground.
But the mining has never been the constraint the ventilate.
But when we we put in a fair bit of money to upgrade the
ventilation, that was because it's a very hot mine, the
groundwater comes out at 6070°C, so it's an uncomfortable place
for people to work. So the ventilation wasn't for
fumes or air quality, it was just to bring to drop the
working environment down so it was more comfortable or safer
for people to work. Gotcha, gotcha.
I I'm just you say, I'm just trying to wrap around in my head
where the like where, where the capital allocation decisions
might be be best at at renison itself.
Is it, is it, is it ring rose? Is it?
Well, Ring Rose will happen
anyway. We've bought Ring Rose into the
life of mine plan now with with what we know of it.
There is a hybrid rentals that we're doing a side study on
where instead of rebuilding the existing float plant, we
actually look at a different communication circuit and feed
everything. Through an, through a slightly
different flow sheet for rentals, Yeah, Tin plants, if
you've ever visited one, they have lots of separate little
unit operations each recovering 5% or 2% or half a percent of
the tin. You could clean that up with a
completely different design plant from the very beginning.
So we may look at it, we're doing a sort of concept study
now that if we change the the communication circuit and then
change the the float circuits and we could probably eliminate
20 or 30% of the smaller unit operations that we have in the
existing flow chart, which would debottleneck the existing
process plant and give us some more throughput there as well.
Yeah. What what is the sort of cost of
upgrading that float plan if you have to get pinned to A to a
number on that? Through upgrading the existing
float plant? Yeah, in the life of mine plan
we've got, I can't remember which year it is, but we got 60
million in to upgrade the existing float plant.
Yeah, Russia and the the, the. Cells are, all the cells are
very old, you know, we've, we've kept them going with patches and
really welded on bits of stuff and but they are very old, yeah.
The the grade variability over over that life of life of mine
you kind of expect similar to what it's been historically or.
Well, we've got for the next, I don't know, six years.
We've got fairly high grade, yeah stuff, yeah.
And we haven't, we haven't really done enough drilling in
the Ring Rose area, which is even higher grades than the high
grade stuff we've got out of the existing one.
And the current current 10 prices, how much cash are you
adding a month? Oh, I don't look at it on a
monthly basis. Have a look at it quarterly.
But it's it's, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 30 to 50.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, interesting.
Sounds like costs will stay. Like yeah.
Yeah, you've still got base CPI inflation.
Wages go up by three percent, 4% each year.
Yeah, Powers has been cheap in Tassie historically.
Yeah, I think. Cheap green power?
Are you going to get a green premium anytime soon?
I that was actually one of my questions that I tabled at the
team conference. Should we be worried Why that
whole issue? I'm just being politically
correct now that whole that whole issue about a green
premium for metals, when you look at what people were talking
about green premiums for nickel and Indonesia just came on
making this relatively dirty nickel.
And you talk to the people and they say, well, we have to buy
it for them because it's so much cheaper at the ITA.
I've also at the teen conference in the the UK are also raised
the thing that there's just that we just don't see a premium for
green teen. So I'm right in thinking Ora
Peso gets 1000 bucks on or that they they.
It's a different smell. That's a different premium.
That's that's a premium. You know, with tin, they don't
typically do swaps because there isn't a lot of tin production in
there that the you get a premium because you're not having to pay
the freight costs of bringing the process tin from another
location to that location. So that smell to premium is what
you get because you're producing locally and you have a much
lower freight cost. It's not a green premium.
Yeah, yeah. It's I sometimes laugh just
thinking of the the the the universe of listed tin like
stocks because you don't get to count very much to to go
through. There's really two options for
for investors to to choose because people aren't buying and
it. Depends whether you prefer
Tasmania or the Congo. Yeah, exactly.
And and. Well, if we simplify the
argument. Yeah, yeah.
But there are the development companies now to be fair, you
know the the Stellars and the Elementos and the 1st 10 and
some of the other guys, they will get into production in the
sort of, you know, 2 to 8 year on frame.
Then none of them are really big.
Cornish. They honest, to be honest I'm a
bit behind on Cornish. I've actually they sent me as
packed over read recently but I just haven't had a chance to
have a look at it. That's that's the only one that
probably has the the volume of tons that is yeah, like
meaningful. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, your your, your, your perspectives on the whole
universe are really, really, really valuable.
The it's a Rome. Rome resources is a tin project
as well. Yeah.
Is that any good? We haven't bought any.
I'll take a look at it. There is a whole, there is a
whole central QLD tin belt which there's three or four people
sort of marketing projects at the moment.
And then around the the area that there's another one in
central NSW at the back of Orange.
What's that one called? That was first team.
No, no, that's this is it's not it's it's, it's very similar all
body. To Sky Sky Metals.
Sky Metals, Yeah, that's probably it's, it's not as far
along the the pathway as the, the, the first team guys are,
but similar sort of project and should work with a similar sort
of flow sheet. I went out and had a look at it.
They're doing all the right things.
It's just a little bit early in the development cycle for us to
get involved. Yeah.
That makes sense.
That, that makes a lot of sense. Brett, is there anything we
haven't talked about today that, you know, you think we should
have gone into detail? How do I get a T-shirt?
We've got actually might have something.
We can make that happen. Yeah, yeah, OK.
It's not great. Great chatting with you, you
know, I hope that has helped a bit understanding team.
I hope it's helped a bit understanding sort of AIPAC and
and their strategy as well and. Yeah, I think they're not fun.
They're not the boogeyman is like a take away.
Like, you know, and I've had that perception in the past, but
you know, I can, I can see the strategy.
I can see how they're aligned with other shareholders.
I can see that. Yeah, like maybe, maybe, maybe
dividends aren't always what you should expect, but that's OK
because there's there's a thoughtful long term growth
agenda that might actually be benefit from the optionality of.
Pay dividends. Yeah, yeah.
I mean the head code they paid I.
Don't buy shares, you know, I, I think.
For people participating in the ASX in the resources space, it's
been a super helpful conversation to to help fill out
players in the market, miners in the market that are they've been
kind of ever present. They've been there for, for
quite some time. So I appreciate you making the
time for us, Brett. Cheers guys.
Thanks a lot for the opportunity.
Thank you very much. Much appreciated.
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Udaroo. Now remember, I'm an idiot.
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