Hmmph.
Disappointing, but then as others have discussed, we knew it was not going to be stellar quarterly.
The low cash burn was impressive, all the more so when you consider they are still having to use low grade stockpiles to feed the plant.
If they could just feed it with reserve ore only, then the grade would likely be around 1g/t, which would more than save their bacon.
However, it would seem they are still not quite there yet, although wet weather has somehow affected January as well?
Cash (the bullion has been sold) of $22.4m, plus the extra $12m borrowed and drawn in Jan, means they have liquidity of just over $36m.
Which is lucky, as they are going to need it to survive the March quarter.
Projected cash spend of $43m will likely see them burn around $10m for the quarter if they only produce 15,000 ounces (which I would have said a month ago is low, but... as they are likely still going to be using some of the low grade stock piles... well, grade and recovery rates will suffer a bit more). Also, ironically, their hedge which at the time was a good price, means that they have 10k for the March quarter hedged at AUD $1712, with a further 4k at $1775, so most of their sales is not benefiting from the now, very high AUD prices. (the hedge reduces in the June Q) The June Q however, will finally allow them to start really benefiting from the AUD $1800+ prices.
They will obviously get their current loan repayment schedule altered, which should see a much reduced payment amount for March and probably June too. This will be an important bit of news to watch for.
While January 2019 so far is below par, it is however interesting to note that the grade is 0.9g/t, meaning that the actual ore processed in the plant grade has been heavily diluted, hence the low amount of actual gold produced. This means once they finally enable the plant to be fed at even the low 0.9g/t grade, the plant can produce over 80k p.a. The grade obviously should be much higher than this, at closer to 1.2g/t at least, however, as explained in the quarterly, reconciliation is still challenging, because of Golden wings and a small part of Gilbeys. Not sure what to make of Sly fox.
I would like to have a better understanding of reconciliation across all 3 pits.
The plant is humming, which is so annoying, as they cannot quite fill it with reserve ore, but are using all they have including some stripping etc.
Another 100t excavator is coming next month which will hopefully, finally... enable them to dig the required amount of ore to feed the plant and enable the company to actually become cash flow positive.
I expect that if they do produce around 15k (that is the low end of what I believe they will produce), then at a AUD sale price of around $1740, they will be down to about $20m in cash/bullion at the end of March.
This stock is not for the faint of heart, however, they clearly are lucky to have the AUD gold price getting close to record highs again (I think in the near term it will break the $1888 recently hit, whether this is the next big run, I have no idea, but... I hope GCY are a little prudent and lock in a bit of hedging for June/Sept, but not yet...).
A shame about the drilling. GCY is a sitting duck for T/O, I think most shareholders would be willing to see a proven operator step in and take the reigns. Script prices for the big boys is very high compared to GCY.
Damn is it hard to hold this stock.
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