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1 on board 2more to go
Another challenge RMM will face here is whose radar is a mine this size even coming up on? For most copper miners, the Ming Mine isn’t even a drop in the bucket against their production forecasts. Even at full production (assume 10kt copper a year) this mine is effectively only equivalent to a gold operation doing 50koz per annum. In the grand scheme of things that is absolutely tiny.
I know the industry pretty well and I’m having a hard time finding a good fit for a buyer here. Maybe the best option is a restructure and spin out into a new entity with capital but even then you need some pretty serious backers.
With increase tpd which it can double move mine only thing that rmm need is 100 million.
To get Rambler to anything near 3000tpd it’s going to cost a good bit more than $100m… They would effectively have to completely rebuild the mine and bring in a new mill + tailings facility for that.
Buying the Teck mill is just one part of the cost... They would then have to strip it apart, relocate it, try and piece it back together, re-engineer everything for different metallurgy, find a new location for tailings, find enough power to run the thing, and on top of all that like you mentioned they would need to permit the thing. All told that alone is probably $15m+ worth of work... which is why they never went through with it in the first place (money issues aside).
Once they've spent the $15-20m building the mill, they need to upgrade the mine to try and get production up to feed it. Rehabbing and re-outfitting the historic shaft they have in place is probably $25-35m+. But the problem there is that the shaft bottoms out well above where they seem to be currently mining. Sinking a new one is likely not an option since the going rate in Canada to sink, outfit, and commission a shaft is something on the order of $75,000 PER METER. So a 1000m production shaft is going to set them back $75m.
Throw in buy something like $25m for new equipment, upgrading the ventilation system, upgrading the power distribution, etc etc etc and you're looking $75m as a bare bones base case before even throwing in covering the debts.
Also need to consider that Rambler's reserves are only something like 30% of their resource (7.4Mt of ore). At 3000tpd that's just shy of 7 years of mine life which isn't nearly enough to justify a massive capital outlay like that.
@Moose.
So clearly, you have strong knowledge of Canadian Mining process.
You joined LSE at the end of December, well into the financial foul up. Since then 31 posts. All on RMM ... Nothing to say on any other shares?
All not only telling us what we have sadly all found out.... The financial mismanagement. But also hammering it in that regardless., that indeed also the resourse isn't up to industrialising it. For all the reasons you point out repeatedly...
Kinda begs the question(s)....
A) So where were you a couple of years ago, to save us all the monies of investing then in something that you clearly see as having had no economic future ?
B) Why are you now using all that expertise banging away repeatedly here on this lemon though ... When you could be making money on viable plays elsewhere given your knowledge strikes one?
I am not disputing your very jaundice view now. As a large investor here I will be amazed if this isn't gone now from us the way it's been run. I try and be objective, as much as I would like it not to be so.
But... I do find the motives of some people here now, hard to fathom sometimes..... Or maybe it's not so difficult to under stand some of them, even at this stage....