A1M - AIC Mines

[peter2]

At long last. Finally seeing some demand for A1M in the market. Keep it coming please.

 

[Tyre Kicker]

I’m with you Peter. Loaded up on this a while back, nearly added more recently but I’ve got a big bundle of moolah across a few copper plays so talked myself out of it.

May the copper price strengthen and the A1 sp climb high!!!!!

 

[greggles]

Management has managed to get costs down a little, and drilling has increased reserves at Jericho. A1M is well positioned to benefit from an increasing copper price. 2025 may be the best year in a long time for this copper mining junior.

 

[greggles]

$8,091,000 net profit for the half year ended 31 December 2024. With the copper price turning bullish A1M is finally coming into its own. $45 million in cash means no more capital raisings.

Management has done well at reducing costs where possible. 2025 should be a good year for the company.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

.
Updated Mineral Resource estimates for its Eloise, Jericho and Eloise Regional projects following exploration and resource definition drilling completed in 2024.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Mineral Resources at Jericho have increased significantly to 19.2Mt grading 2.0% Cu and 0.4g/t Au containing 381,000t Cu and 245,500oz Au representing a 33% increase in contained copper and a 39% increase in contained gold. Jericho remains open along strike and at depth.
• Importantly, the Indicated Resource at Jericho has increased significantly to 9.4Mt grading 1.9% Cu and 0.4g/t Au containing 180,500t Cu and 120,500oz Aurepresenting a 54% increase in copper and a 68% increase in gold – potentially providing a material uplift in Ore Reserves.
• Mineral Resources at Eloise have decreased slightly due mainly to mining depletion to 5.9Mt grading 2.5% Cu and 0.6g/t Au containing 145,800t Cu and 120,800oz Au representing a 6% decrease in contained copper and an 11% decrease in contained gold. Indicated Resources remained relatively stable.
• Mineral Resources at Sandy Creek have increased to 2.6Mt grading 1.1% Cu and 0.3g/t Au containing 28,100t Cu and 22,200oz Au representing a 20% increase in contained copper and a 7% increase in contained gold.
• Combined Mineral Resources at Eloise, Jericho, Sandy Creek and Artemis have increased to 28.4Mt grading 2.0% Cu and 0.4g/t Au containing 563,000t Cu and 409,600oz Au representing a 16% increase in contained copper and a 14% increase in contained gold.

Commenting on the Mineral Resource update, AIC Mines Managing Director Aaron Colleran said:
“Exploration and resource definition drilling conducted in 2024 has successfully upgraded the Jericho Mineral Resource in terms of both resource category and size – providing further confidence that Jericho will be a reliable, long-life operation for AIC Mines.”
“The combined Mineral Resource base of 28.4Mt, all within 20 kilometres of the Eloise processing plant, provides further support for the plant expansion and underpins our confidence that Eloise will continue as a regional processing hub well into the next decade."

 

[finicky]

From Market Matters this afternoon

AIC Mines (A1M) 42c

A1M +7.01%: Announced commencement of drilling at their Jericho copper deposit, ahead of schedule, 4km from their Eloise project in Queensland. The drilling aims to upgrade inferred resources, with exploration at the site already extending resource estimates by 95%.

With the primary asset ramping up production, A1M is in a comfortable position to capture elevated copper prices whilst continuing to explore and develop its tenements. In addition to Jericho drilling, planned electromagnetic geophysical surveys should provide incremental upside by generating new drill targets, bolstering management’s plan to turn Eloise into a regional processing hub.

 

[greggles]

Interesting reading this evening:

Dear AIC Mines Shareholder

The current copper price is $8.13 AUD ($5.10 USD). AISC for the Eloise copper mine was $5.15 AUD for the 2024 financial year. More recently it has improved to $4.75. Profits are also coming, EBITDA was $51.8m in 2024.

So why is the AIC Mines share price still languishing? All kinds of reasons will be given but the real reason is share price suppression. Some high profile investors and companies want to take over the small and medium size Cloncurry mining companies. The nearer to production the better for them because all the hard work has already been done, and if they are already in production like AIC Mines, they use third parties to cap the share price so the takeover won't cost as much.

Glencore

There are some bigger fish than AIC that could be interested to takeover AIC but the whale in the Cloncurry is Glencore. AIC already use the Glencore processing plant at Mt Isa Mine. Now that AIC has increased its mineral resource estimate for Jericho, AIC plans to bring Jericho online and increase copper production to 20,000tpa. It is my expectation that the price will be contained until just before production of Jericho begins and then it will be taken over. Why do I believe this? Because of what has happened in the Cloncurry up until now.

Greg Campbell the Mayor of Cloncurry

The mayor expresses concerns for Cloncurry mining companies being taken over by bigger fish in the following articles,

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/cloncurry-hit-by-recent-mine-closures-job-losses/104906510

"We've just got to find a way so that the pathway for junior miners to get established is more secure, because often the bigger mines start with the junior working it" he said.

https://www.northwestweekly.com.au/...fter-collapses-costs-town-millions-2025-01-22

In this article Mayor Campbell believes the fault lies with the onerous government approval processes placed on the resource sector that jeopardise the economic viability of new projects before the machinery has even rolled on to the mine site.

This I agree with and is why I am writing to you.

I am actually a top 20 shareholder in Maronan Metals which owns the Maronan lead/silver/gold/copper deposit 90 kms from the Eloise mine. I was concerned that my investment was not being progressed to pay me dividends for the next twenty years but rather being progressed to be 'mine ready' for a bigger fish like Glencore to take Maronan over. In my research I came to the conclusion that all the mining companies in the Cloncurry are in this same position.

The Custodial Accounts (UBS, HSBC, Citibank, Bnp Paribas, JP Morgan).

It is my belief that prices are being suppressed by third parties acting for the bigger fish. I believe these third parties are hidden within the custodial accounts that dominate the share registers. The following custodial accounts own large proportions of AIC Mines.

Citicorp - 9.18%
HSBC - 8.29%
UBS - 2.28%
BNP Paribas - 2.75%
JP Morgan - 1.59%

When I became concerned in 2024 that the Maronan share price was being suppressed I hired a lawyer. Under 672a of the Corporations Act, I demanded from Maronan executives the beneficial identities of the institiutions that are within these investment banks that act as custodians. What happened next was spectacular. Because of the preliminary discovery I was about to commence, UBS, an investment bank well known for short selling and manipulating immediately sold their 3% shareholding in Maronan lower than the placement price they paid and are now gone from the register. I no longer see the suspicious trading in Maronan that I frequently saw.

Previously whenever there was buying momentum, I would witness many large sell orders appear within minutes apart from each other, sometimes seconds apart in a co-ordinated act of aggressively pushing down the price and even undercutting the last traded price all in the space of minutes. On days of good news or silver price rises, the price would often open high, trade higher, then be capped at a price and then be brought down in the final minutes even closing down for the day. Although UBS has only left recently, I have stopped seeing this type of aggressive selling to suppress the price altogether. I believe something illegal was taking place and that is why I was successful.

I do not know who I would have found within the UBS custodial account had the case gone to court but I believe it would have been some entity related to the big fish trying to take over Cloncurry mining companies.

Glencore is constantly feeding - circling - needs more, and more and more.

I am one shareholder that has had enough of the manipulation that is responsible for companies like Glencore taking over their takeover targets. This not only prevents our companies from reaching market caps in the billions, but the destructive effects on all of Australia from these behemoths taking over everything and sending profits to Switzerland are the reason we are not the lucky country anymore.

On the one hand we need to reduce the unfair burdens of regulations on outback mining companies and on the other hand we need to take strong legal action to expose and stop the suppression of our share prices.

Therefore I propose that a number of shareholders request that directors initiate 672a requests to ASIC for the beneficial identities of the custodial accounts I have listed. I have attached my example legal letter to Maronan. I also suggest sharing this email with others who own other stocks. Contacting the Cloncurry Mayor could also be helpful.

8 years ago a politician named Andrew Leigh was surprised that nearly all Australian ASX companies are dominated by these custodial investment banks. He didnt have a good grasp of the situation and was attacked by opposition. These two articles should give you some idea of why custodial accounts are used by institutions like hedge funds to conceal their holdings.

https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/the-...ralias-largest-companies-20170312-guwi2h.html

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-five-faceless-investors-20170315-guyof4.html

The best way for you to communicate back with me for now is by this email. In the future it may be necessary to have an ASIC whatsapp group to make quicker decisions. I know for many people that getting to know other shareholders is a pleasant experience. If you don't wish to receive any more contact please also let me know.

About me

My father was a passionate Australian Shareholders Association member who started the ASA coffee meetings which spread around Australia. In those days my father made submissions to ASIC on behalf of the ASA opposing director options which nearly all directors award themselves for free these days. He also made submissions to ASIC opposing algorithmic trading when it first began. He eventually left the ASA in disgust after the ASA started accepting corporate donations which corrupted the whole organisation. Many others left at that time and now it is an organisation that fails to help anybody.

I have followed his path and tried to expose dishonest ASX practices where I can. My petition "stop dishonest practices on the Asutralian Stock Exchange and demand a royal commission" has 8300 signatures.

I suffered a large loss when Arrium Ltd, Australia's largest steel maker went into administration. This set me on a course of exposing the underlying reasons why these things happen An Arrium article I wrote can be read here.

https://michaelwest.com.au/barely-l...or-financiers-a-misery-fest-for-shareholders/

My goal is to help support Cloncurry mining companies so that we can make the profits ourselves and not give them away to whales like Glencore. True North Copper has already fallen to them. If you hate the situation as much as I do, please consider getting involved in any way, big or small. Even if the best you can do is a reply of moral support, its better than nothing.

We should be the richest citizens on the planet with the amount of metals we have in the ground. It doesn't just have to be about wealth either. With Copper being an environmental metal used for all things sustainable, more ethical smaller companies like AIC and Maronan can behave better than the monster companies like Glencore that are named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers for unethical conduct.

Lets take our country back. Glencore epitomizes everything that is wrong with the world. Everything has been financialized. It's not about investing and having part ownership in a company or enterprise. It's about share price manipulation and skimming wealth from other investors. Not producing anything of value yourself or investing into a company that does but stealing from those that do. Ok that's reality but that does not make it right.

If you are an AIC shareholder and getting this email, the best service you can do for your country is to start standing up for Australian shareholder rights!

Sincerely
Ben Pauley

The following legal letter was attached to the email.

 

[greggles]

I don't really know what to make of this guy's claims and agenda.