Schon lange keine Postings mehr von der allseits beliebten Silly Sally
Martin Siegel:
Die australische Sally Malay veröffentlicht ihren Jahresbericht für das Geschäftsjahr 2004/05 und gibt den operativen Gewinn mit 15,8 Mio A$ an, was einem aktuellen KGV von 6,9 entspricht. Sally Malay bleibt auf dem aktuellen Kursniveau von unter 0,70 A$ eine Kaufempfehlung.
Minews Story
Date: October 25, 2005
Australian Investors May be Missing the Trick With Sally Malay Which Is Making Great Progress At Both Mines
By Our Man In Oz.
The markets have been unkind to Sally Malay over the past few weeks, which is ironic because the company itself has never looked in better shape. :)) Problems earlier in the year with the ore-grinding mill at the company’s namesake nickel mine in the far north of Western Australia have been resolved and production is rising there, and at its 75 per cent owned Lanfranchi mine near Australia’s nickel capital, Kambalda. If all goes to plan the company, which is named after a 19th century Afghan camel driver who worked across the north of Australia, will produce a record 11,250 tonnes of nickel in the current financial year, and lift its profit from last year’s maiden A$12.2 million to an even more respectable A$30 million.
“It really is going better than expected,” Sally Malay chief executive, Peter Harold, told Minesite from his Perth office. “We’re on track to switch from open pit to underground ore at the Sally Malay mine, and progress at Lanfranchi has been excellent. Cash costs are falling at both mines and we’re pursuing our goal of being a three-mine business, generating more than A$100 million a year in earnings before interest, tax and depreciation.”
The annoying thing for Harold is that while most events in the field are going well the nickel price itself has been heading south, taking with it Sally Malay’s share price which has eased from A80 cents at the end of September to around A68 cents today. On the London Metal Exchange, nickel has slipped from US$7.50 a pound a few months ago, to around US$5.50/lb. The fall in the metal price (and the share price) is not welcome by any producer, but the nickel price is still well above its long-term average and a country mile above Sally Malay’s estimated cash cost of US$3/lb at its namesake mine, and well above the US$3.50/lb estimate for Lanfranchi, which is 25 per cent owned by the unlisted Australian company, Donegal Mining.
Investors, by watching the LME too closely and directly applying an easier nickel price to the Sally Malay situation, might be missing the point about a business which is doing everything asked of it in production terms and continuing to deliver excellent exploration results. On October 14, for example, Sally Malay slipped another A1 cent on the ASX while announcing fabulous ore-grade intersections from drilling at the Helmut South orebody at Lanfranchi. Best assays were 17.44 metres at 5.44 % nickel, and 35.2metres at 4.09 % nickel. Both are at the upper end of anything previously reported from the orebody which was first worked by WMC Resources.
As well as looking at the potential of an expanded Lanfranchi operation there is little doubt that the underground phase of the Sally Malay mine will have a much longer life than the four years envisaged in the original design. A fresh drilling program is confidently expected to expand the “deeps” aspect of the orebody which extends beyond the current mine plan. The Perth-based stockbroking firm of Hartleys likes the Sally Malay story and is tipping the stock as a buy at a price below A80 cents. Hartleys said in report dated October 18 that Sally Malay’s total nickel production this financial year would be around 11,150 tonnes, rising next year to 13,700 tonnes – a level which should see the company rank as Australia’s fourth or fifth biggest nickel miner.
“The Sally Malay mine has been a surprise in terms of reconciling nickel in the ground with what we projected,” said Harold. “The first mining stope we’ve delineated underground has an extra 700 tonnes of contained nickel, so from all accounts our reserve estimates are pretty conservative.” Harold told Minesite that the transition from openpit to underground should be a seamless operation. “We’re developing the underground stopes now. The openpit comes to an end in the middle of the first quarter next year, and underground is ramped up, with no difference in metallurgy.”
The question of mine life at Sally Malay is one which has had some investors thinking, but Harold is confident that he will deliver an upside surprise. “At this stage the underground phase lasts four years, but there is a non-JORC resource of another 1.5 million tonnes further down in what we call the Sally Malay Deeps, which we plan to drill in the second half of next year. So the plan is to prove up at least another two to three years, taking us out beyond 2012.”
Another issue which has raised some concern with investors is a breakdown in the relationship between Sally Malay and Thundelarra on the nearby Copernicus nickel deposit. Established as a joint venture, there is a dispute between the parties about expenditure levels and development plans. “The dispute is unfortunate,” Harold said. “We’re hopeful of a court hearing in December which should resolve the matter. There are two possible outcomes. The first is that we’ve spent the money and earned our 60 per cent interest in the deposit. The second is that the court finds against us. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“We’ve been very much focused on getting the mine up and running,” he said. “And you’d have to say that the results have been pretty positive. The plant is working well now and we’re hopeful of being able to get 900,000 tonnes a year through it, compared with the nominal capacity of 750,000 tonnes. Now that we’re operating smoothly we can step up our regional exploration work.”
Harold said work at Lanfranchi had been slowed by labour and equipment shortages. “We were a little ambitious in terms of our timing,” he said. “The market got extremely tight which is why we dropped the contract mining option and decided to slow up, owner mine it, and just go for the high-grade core at Helmut South, which was definitely the prudent approach. If we hadn’t done that we would have ended up with a lot of people, and gear, spending a lot of money, and I’m not sure we would have made a lot.”
In its review of the Sally Malay, Hartleys said that catalysts for a higher share price include delivering better than expected production, further exploration success at Sally Malay Deeps, or at the Lanfranchi project, increases to reserves, especially at Sally Malay Deeps, and further growth through acquisition or merger.
http://www.minesite.com/storyFull5.php?storySeq=3070
Beim Streit zwischen Thundelarra und Sally sollte noch eine dritte Möglichkeit, ein Vergleich, denkbar sein.
