production is increasing

Hi everyone,

Today we got the confirmation that production levels are increasing since PLA has taken charge of the mining at Smokey hills.

"Operations continued to improve at a steady rate at the Smokey Hills mine after the Company took over as owner-miner in mid-January this year. Tonnes milled increased to 83,629 from 70,359 last quarter and 4E PGM in concentrate production for the quarter increased to 7,404 ozs 4E from 6,259 ozs. Underground operations showed very significant improvement, with an increase of over 50% in tonnage broken to 99,554 tonnes, while tonnes trammed from underground increased almost 30% to 88,581 tonnes"

Although long overdue, I believe that PLA is on the right track and will fine tune its operations.

They can see now at first hand where the issues are, that have constrained production and have taken the hands on approach by solving these issues when they come across them.

"The improvement achieved in broken tonnage is in line with that forecast in taking over operations, however improvements in tonnes trammed, while significant, has lagged due to poor availability of the mobile fleet as a result of inadequate maintenance by the contractor in the period immediately prior to the move to Owner Operator. It is anticipated that this will be largely overcome by the end of May, with two new loaders due to be operational in the second half of May."

PLA management has still some hard work to do to make this mine work, but they are on the right track.
Its also good to see that we had no strikes or work stoppage during this time , which shows that owner miner has its postives as griefances can be adressed directly by the owner itself without middle man involved.

I am cautiously optimistic that PLA can turn this mine around now.

good luck to all

jojo