WGX, MAI
West Australian gold/nickel miner Westgold aka WGX released it FY24 financial results. (Unfortunately, WGX is one of those companies who for some reason does not align its financial year with the calendar year, so this covers the period July 2023 to June 2024.) I face a difficulty in coming up with meaningful commentary as I am still familiarizing myself with the combined company after the merger with KRR., so please read what I have to say with that in mind. Also keep in mind that some of the numbers will not be meaningful because they apply only to pre-merger WGX.
All that said, given the already factored in problems WGX experienced, FY24 does look decent from the numbers, with revenue, EBITDA, FCF, and Net Profit all up meaningfully, plus their cash stash grew to $263M. OTOH, gold production was down about 10% from FY23 to about 228k oz, though the high gold price and a 12% reduction in costs still allowed them to declare a dividend which is expected to continue for the combined company.
FY24 was always going to be a transitional period for WGX in any case, but with the merger complete it is essentially now a new company. We will have to wait to see if they can carry out their plans as seamlessly as Karora did.
Message 34802323
WGX also released a presentation to accompany the FY24 results,
westgold.com.au
Mexican gold miner Minera Alamos aka MAI released an operations update and its Q2 results.
To review, things ground almost to a halt on its operating Sanatana mine last year as they waited fruitlessly for permits to expand the heap leach due to interference from the outgoing Mexican government. This is expected to improve once the new, more pragmatic government takes office, but in the meantime MAI developed a new approach to better utilize the existing heap leach. This necessitated a virtual halt to mining, but that is now over, and mining levels are now back to what they were in 2022. And this will continue -- planned mining in Q3 alone will exceed production for the entire ty of 2023 -- and the mine is expected to return to cash generation in Q4. They are also extracting and storing higher grade material for future processing pending more metallurgical studies.
Although they sold only 505 oz Au in Q2, MAI remains in good financial shape in spite of their cash stash having dropped to $8.6M at the end of Q2. This number will begin to grow again going forward as production increases.
Meanwhile, MAI has made the final payment to complete the purchase of their next mine build, Cerro de Oro, for which permitting is proceeding. And they wait to see if the new Mexican government will follow the urging of local and state authorities and resume the issue of permits to further expand Sanatana.
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