Monsters of Rock: Which miners are running hot in the early going?

• Early updates from the ASX trenches have landed ahead of reporting season
• FY25 production numbers are starting to flow through from gold and uranium miners
• We check out the numbers and some analysts’ commentary from early figures at CMM, VAU, BOE and EMR

Reporting season is on the horizon, the first look at the numbers spewing forth from ASX-listed miners since April barring the handful who report on unconventional timeframes.

There are plenty of benefits to doing this now.

Number 1, reportin’ season can be pretty crowded. An early release can get production numbers a bit of airtime with investors. Then there’s ensuring you’re keeping up with your reporting obligations – if something goes wildly better or worse than guided you don’t want to be accused of hiding things from the market.

An early release of some not-so-great results can dull the pain and clear the air for director commentary when the final results are released as well.

Let’s unpack the trickle of producers who have put their foot in the door early.

Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM)

CMM on Friday announced 32,216oz of gold production for the June quarter, taking its FY25 output to 117,076oz.

That’s the upper half of its 110,000-120,000oz guidance range for the Karlawinda mine in the Pilbara, with all in sustaining costs also projected within guidance of $1370-1470/oz, almost $4000/oz below the prevailing gold price.

Some serious cash being spat out then – $62.5m for the quarter – though a lot of that was sucked up by capex.

The Mt Gibson gold project is being developed, with $10.8m going to capex there and at the expansion of Karlawinda (most at Karlawinda), with $50m spent closing out the CMM hedge book and another $50m of debt repaid.

That includes the completion of a 400-room accommodation village at Mt Gibson ahead of the start of construction and a 120-room expansion at Karlawinda to allow construction workers in for the expansion project there.

CMM closed with cash and bullion of $356m, 12% down quarter on quarter.

Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU)

Vault churned 96,000oz of gold out at its King of the Hills, Mount Monger and Deflector gold mines, pumping out ~385,000oz for the year, a touch shy of its 390-410,000oz guidance range.

Consensus estimates had clocked in at 390,000oz. For the June quarter, Vault was 5% below consensus though 7% up in gold output QoQ.

KoTH delivered 194,000oz for the full year, falling shy of its full year sales guidance of 210-230,000oz.

VAU still generated a healthy $61m in cash flow for the June quarter, up from $49m in March, but was hampered by a hedge book that saw 31,700oz delivered at $2781/oz, well below current spot prices.

Canaccord’s Tim McCormack had estimated gold sales around 8500oz higher for the quarter, which would have translated to ~$41m, according to the analyst’s estimated average spot gold price of $4852/oz.

Analysts will be looking out for costs and potentially FY26 guidance in Vault’s full June quarter results later this month.

The company is sitting on $686m in cash and bullion. RBC analyst Alex Barkley said that was $51m shy of the bank’s estimates, mainly because of $31m paid on stamp duty from the merger between Red 5 and Silver Lake that created the mid-tier gold miner.

Full year cost guidance is $2250-2450/oz, with consensus estimating $2383/oz on higher than actualised gold production.

While the Leonora production unit disappointed and Mount Monger at 82,900oz also fell shy of full year guidance (85,000-95,000oz), the Deflector mine near Yalgoo in WA’s Mid West outperformed, selling 108,500oz against guidance of 95-105,000oz.

Boss Energy (ASX:BOE)

Uranium producer Boss Energy has already delivered the key milestone for its Honeymoon uranium mine very early, reporting mid-last month that its flagship South Australian operation had met first year production guidance of 850,000lb of drummed U3O8.

Up to June 17, 328,102lb were drummed in the June quarter, an 11% increase on March two weeks out from the end of the period.

Boss’ quarterly report is due on July 28, when all important cost and construction updates and the final production and sales results from June will be released.

The company claimed higher extraction rates at the Alta Mesa project held by US and Canadian listed enCore Energy at the tail-end of June. Boss owns 30% of the Texas project.

It was trading down slightly on Friday after announcing the extension of a US$10.4m loan repayment date to December 27 and a new cash facility issued to enCore of US$3.6m.

enCore has so far repaid US$11.9m including interest on the loan, which consisted of 200,000lb of uranium inventory valued at a spot price when the loan was agreed of US$100.54/lb or US$20.1m.

“Boss is pleased to support our JV partner with an extension to the Uranium Loan Agreement which will provide enCore with additional financial flexibility during the ramp up of Alta Mesa in order to meet its offtake obligations,” Boss MD Duncan Craib told the market.

Boss has first ranking security over Alta Mesa under the loan, and can elect to convert its debt into a controlling JV stake in the event of a default.

Emerald Resources (ASX:EMR)

Cambodian gold miner EMR flagged a 21,000oz rate for the June quarter in an update late last month, declaring it was on track to achieve FY25 guidance despite a weak end to the year.

Accelerated earthworks and waste movements for a cutback at the Okvau mine were blamed, with costs anticipated at around US$1200/oz.

That’s still at the very low end of the industry, with EMR at least helping number crunchers out with some very early guidance numbers.

It’s tipping 25-30,000oz in each of the September and December quarters at costs of US$900-1000/oz, with FY26 guidance set at 105-125,000oz in line with life of mine costs of US$966/oz.

The $2.6bn miner has set a path to becoming a 300,000oz producer within 18 months by developing an underground expansion at Okvau, a second Cambodian mine at Memot and a first Australian operation at Dingo Range in the Northern Goldfields.

Gold production for June is set to come in around 27% below the 28,800oz tipped by analysts at Argonaut.

But the broker maintained a buy rating and $6.70 price target, with feasibility studies for Dingo Range and Memot key catalysts.

The ASX 300 Metals and Mining index rose 4.87% over the past week.

Which ASX 300 Resources stocks have impressed and depressed?

Making gains 

Coronado Global Resources (ASX:CRN) (coal) +25%

Patriot Battery Metals (ASX:PMT) (lithium) +23.4%

Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) (lithium/iron ore) +18.2%

Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) (lithium) +13.3%

Eating losses 

Lynas (ASX:LYC) (rare earths) -11.3%

Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) (gold) -5.5%

Ora Banda (ASX:OBM) (gold) -5.4%%

Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) (gold) -4.8%

A flirt with a price rebound had downtrodden lithium stocks running high, while Coronado rose sharply amid M&A rumours for the struggling coal miner, which at $261m is trading at a market cap that’s roughly a third of the $774m raised in its 2018 IPO.

Lynas continues to cop sell ratings from analysts, with Bell Potter reaffirming its concerns about valuation at the rare earths producer. Macquarie warned on the overly optimistic NdPr price assumed in the company’s market cap last week.

Meanwhile, a volatile week for gold prices saw some selling in precious metals stocks.