Lots of information from Auryn and hope they follow thru.
My beef is with mdmn not giving the AUMC shares to mdmn shareholders
Mdmn is non reporting and on gray market where we are locked out
Ask yourself why we haven’t received those shares!!
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Why would anyone question AUMC’s ability to build a bunk room with a solar panel and satellite connectivity?
Wonder what that stockpile is worth as Gold continues climbing. I also wonder what the POG will be after the audit of Fort Knox.
Good question, and something you should know. Devaluing the progress Auryn has made so far lacks discernment of important details while creating a negative spin.
Quoted from the January Shareholder Update …
"Completion of New Mining Camp: Our new mining camp at Fortuna is complete. As previously announced, the camp has sufficient capacity for our entire operational workforce, provides accommodation for our management team, and can host academic missions. It is equipped with solar panels, ensuring clean and sustainable electricity. This setup has enabled us to connect our mining site to the internet via Starlink, ensuring connectivity, communication, surveillance, and monitoring of our operations and personnel."
Note: The mention of solar panels is plural. It’s not a singular panel. Nor is it a singular ‘room’. That’s no bunk! 
Yes, I’ve seen the pictures. Its a cabin on a mountain with solar power and a $120 a month subcription to Starlink.
For your sake, I hope the bar you are setting is a LOT higher than them setting up a camp site.with at least two (plural) solar panels. For clarity, the ESG and water and road structure discussions were directed towards the mine, not the bunk room.
This is a company currently valued at over $50M!! A “normal” investor might look past Smokey the Bear’s new digs, with an eye toward the status of permitting (submitted in January), any sort of engineering design for the FF plant, estimates for time and money needed to edify the roads,(referenced in the last update), what sort of equipment needs to be pre-ordered, lead times for criticial compoenents At this point you only have an estimated date (third quarter).
I’d be pretty impressed if they stick with the Q3 target in the next PR. Any commissioning before the first half of 2026 would be a worthy acheivement.
The last update referenced a mine plan but the only details seem to be that the volume will be under 1000 tonnes a day (to stay within the exploitation permit). An actual mine plan would help folks properly assess progress once things get under way.
In the meantime, you can rest assured that new episodes of “Gold Rush” will be actively streaming via Starlink. Elon Musk facilitating baby steps.
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audit of Fort Knox will NEVER happen, the US has leased most or all of it’s gold. This is a house of cards. Check back through the years when they ‘leased’ out the gold to hedge funds, so they could make US$ profits.
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I was setting no bar(s) and making no predictions, as you seem to indicate. Keep your imaginary “for your sake …” notions to yourself. 
That almost sounds like a veiled threat, though I have no idea why u say things like that. I quoted directly from the January Update and noted prior company communications. The pics show the bldg is far more that just a ‘bunk.’ The mining site is totally separate from the lodging facilities; stop twisting my words. If you want to make this into your own personal scenario, that’s your perogative. Just leave me out of your assumptions as we previously agreed.
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Hi MDMNJaded,
Stick to your guns on issues like the completion of the new housing facility. It represents a solid accomplishment that irrefutably proves that management is on track to checking off on all of the boxes needing to be checked off on prior to officially commencing “production”. Logic dictates that you don’t build a facility like that unless you plan to fill it up with workers in the near term. Those workers are likely to make the Auryn investors a great deal of money throughout time.
I would recommend that you look at this accomplishment, not as a solo event, but as one of a variety of parallel accomplishments necessary to be made prior to commencing production.
SUMMARY PIECE ON AURYN
If I had to summarize the “Auryn story” as we currently watch things play out, I’d have to say that it’s all about “FORTUITOUS TIMING”. In my opinion, the “sweet spot” for investing in the junior miners has always been looking for a junior “explorer/developer” about to transition into becoming a “junior producer”. Such a tiny percent accomplish this that you might as well let nature “cull the herd” for you. It’s the “producers” whose share price takes off quickest when the price of gold breaks out to all-time highs. Why? It’s because in this particular industry, incremental increases in the price of gold tend to drop all of the way down to the bottom line.
The statistical odds for a junior “explorer/developer” being able to check off on all of the various “boxes” needing to be checked off on in order to advance into “production” are pretty much nonexistent. Perhaps the key for prospective investors is to FORCE management to IRREFUTABLY PROVE that they are indeed at the brink of commencing production prior to committing funds. In other words, do just the opposite of what I did.
What does a management team do right before commencing production? They line up any necessary FUNDINGS for procuring plant and equipment and they do things like building a camp to house all of the new employees about to be hired. They also need to make arrangements to “in-source” mining operations by hiring managerial staff or “out-source” mining operations by entering into contracts with professional mine operators like “Stracon,SA”. Auryn chose the latter approach. “Stracon” currently oversees 80 different mining operations in Chile, Peru, Mexico and Colombia. Auryn, acting as their own “mine operator”, could not possibly match the economic performance of a “Stracon”-type entity.
If the about to become “producer” is going to do some of the ore processing on-site and it involves “sulphide ore”, then a “froth flotation” plant is going to need to be designed by the engineers, signed off on by the regulatory authorities, funded by the about to become “producer”, constructed, and commissioned for operations.
The very first preparatory step in this process is to “MINE AND STOCKPILE” a sufficient amount of ore in order to keep the new facility “fed” with “ore feed”, while the intra adit production profile ramps up. Before commencing production, you’re going to need housing for the miners, the flotation plant operators, the tailings storage facility operators, the assay lab operators, the truck drivers, etc. In this operation, they need to house a little over 50 people to start with. As you can see from the recent quarterly updates, Auryn is CLEARLY on a path to checking off on all of the boxes needing to be checked off on, in order to commence production.
If you agree that when the price of gold is breaking out to the upside, the “sweet spot” for investment in this industry is to identify the juniors that are CLEARLY about to go into production. The goal is to identify them before others do. If the actions of management do not CLEARLY indicate that PRODUCTION is imminent, then wait on investing until management does provide that evidence.
From an INVESTMENT point of view, all of these various “boxes” needing to be checked off on, amount to RISKS needing to be mitigated in the “derisking process”. For the current junior “explorer/developers” the most daunting RISK today is, of course, the “FINANCING RISK”. As a whole, the juniors are having a terrible time in landing financings for things like working capital and the funding of diamond drill programs. This only makes sense because of the distant odds for ever making it into production and gaining the ability to pay off a loan for any junior lucky enough to land a debt financing. The more common approach is for juniors having to settle for highly-dilutional “equity raises” in which any willing financiers are going to demand large discounts to existing share prices BECAUSE OF THE INORDINATE RISK INVOLVED.
The “DISCOVERY RISK” is always huge because, on this particular planet, a lot of the “low hanging fruit” has already been plucked. Even the majors are reducing their exploration programs because of the intolerable RISK levels for making an economic discovery. Today’s majors and mid-tiers are digging deeper and deeper for lower and lower grade deposits in more and more geopolitically risky environments.
For the tiny percentage of junior “explorers/developers” making the transition into becoming a “junior producer”, the single most important parameter is always GRADE. This is because GRADE is the single most important parameter in determining the ALL IN SUSTAINING COST (AISC) to produce each ounce of gold produced. “High-grade" deposits are, usually by definition, “low AISC cost” deposits which, in turn, means that they are highly profitable deposits. But enjoy it while you can because after a decade or two, production profiles will eventually plateau out and the grades being mined will lessen. A junior in the process of transitioning into becoming a “HIGH-GRADE GOLD PRODUCER” is obviously the preference, but again the “supply” of juniors in this category is de minimis.
From a “FORTUITOUS TIMING” point of view, I can’t sense how it could be much better than having a junior explorer/developer” with a high-grade gold deposit transitioning into becoming a high-grade gold producer AT THE EXACT SAME TIME that the price of gold is at all-time highs. What are the statistical odds of pulling this off? Yet another layer to add to this “FORTUTIOUS TIMING” thesis is accomplishing all of this with only 70 million shares issued and outstanding. This translates into the potential to accomplish some extraordinary EARNINGS PER SHARE figures and EARNINGS PER SHARE is the single financial metric that most closely approximates POTENTIAL SHAREHOLDER REWARDS.
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So when do us mdmn shareholders officially become AUMC shareholders?
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“Fortuitous timing”. A phrase used liberallly around these parts for the past couple decades. Time for some new material and/or a more grounded perspective? One suggestion: wait for the permits before assuming that production is imminent. People could have saved a lot of money around here if expectations were managed more responsibly.
To be clear, I believe that building a mine camp is a great first step. It probably cost the better of $150k and is a solid sign of confidence. But its also the easiest “box” to check. The technical permits, which they said they would submit in January is a big deal. AUMC can’t really pre-order equipment unless they know it will be approved. Stratcon can be helpful in pushing the process along but it can take 6+ months before its reviewed. Once they have all of their permits in place (environmental, engineer) they could possilby have the FF built within 3-6 months. Once they have the FF built they will be able to test recoveries etc. Once they have the right process in place to optimize recoveries they can focus on volume. Volume or “feeding the plant” requires a constanct feedstock of high grade ore which is not an easy task without a mine plan.
Point being, there are lots of incrementally bigger and more important boxes that still need to be checked during a period of time where the company is spendiing, not earning $$. If Stratcon thinks the assets are worth anything, they will front a lot of the bills (which is their side business) but its not a free lunch (Ashmore Group, etc, etc).
A Starlink subscription on top of a mountian is pretty cool but, for those who never seem to learn, wait a bit for the fat lady to sing
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I’m just noting from your post that IF the froth floatation plant is first designed by engineers & then signed off by authorities before the FF components can be ordered & manufactured, then the January Update makes it clear that Auryn must have convincing evidence that the permits for the FF plant are imminent. Looks like they already passed first base 
Either that, or what they’ve accomplished so far, as noted in the update, does not yet require such permit. The update’s first paragraph leaves little doubt that Auryn’s progress for the FF plant is well on it’s way. I’m aware that typically these permits could take months. But I’m guessing that Auryn now has their ducks in a row to quickly reach production. MC/Auryn needs this done as much (or more) than anybody.
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Hi MDMNjaded,
“SERNAGEOMIN” is the main mine permitting authority in Chile. Several of their reps were on-site a while back at the DL2 Mine operations. They were heaping praises on the job Auryn was doing especially in regards to the high-tech nature of Auryn’s operations and their compliance with the various new ESG protocols.
The mining regulators had reps there from some of their various “seremis”/branches, and several Auryn employees even teamed up with various mining officials to hit the road and provide “workshops” to the various players in the mining community as to things like ESG compliance and even technological breakthroughs in the industry.
One of Auryn’s geoscientists, a Senor Albujar, is apparently renowned for using the most advanced and safest blasting techniques available to the industry. Maurizio, literally “wrote the book” on accepted ways to maintain compliance with the new ESG protocols. He started his own software firm that sells the software to the mining community. I think you could safely say that Auryn is in pretty good stead with the Chilean mining regulators. Maurizio is a “master schmoozer”.
A 100 tonne-per-day froth flotation facility is about the most benign ore processing facility on the face of the earth from a permitting point of view. If you use “dry stacking” for the storage of the discards/“tailings”, as Auryn opted to do, the environmentalists absolutely love you. The other way to store the discarded “tailings” involves the construction of “tailings ponds” which have earthen walls/burms, that can sometimes breach and release toxic components into the local watershed. “Mt. Polley”, in Canada, is a good example of this.
FF facilities have a vast variety of “cells”, “banks of cells”, “columns”, etc. that are used. The characteristics of the ore being processed will dictate the combination of these components and the idealized “flow sheet” to put into use in order to maximize recovery of the sought-after metals. “SERNAGEOMIN” wants to protect the surrounding communities where mining occurs. They insist that you file with them a “TECHNICAL DOSSIER” outlining every tiny detail of your proposed facilities. If a miner files with them an assertion that they are going to use a certain concentration of “ethyl xanthate” as a reagent and if the miner later opts to use a reagent that is much more caustic to the environment, then SERNAGEOMIN has the right to yell at the miner.
In a “TECHNICAL DOSSIER”, a miner needs to outline how it is going to take care of precious resources like water. SERNAGEOMIN needs to keep the people over at the Environmental branch of the Chilean government, the “SEA”, happy. Auryn’s engineers will work with the engineers at the manufacturer to delineate all of the technical specifics of the plant design that Auryn chose.
If a miner is going to have trouble in permitting, it will probably be associated with the SEA. Thankfully, the SEA signed off on the new Chilean “SMALL PRODUCERS MINING STATUTE” wherein they have promised to fastrack the environmental permitting for any miners voluntarily agreeing to keep production rates at 1,000 tonnes per month maximum per adit being mined. Auryn is operating under this new statute.
A producing miner like Auryn, will do preliminary studies of their ore characteristics on a “lab bench” scale. This will give them a rough outline of what froth flotation techniques works best on their ore. Once you build the physical plant, then the serious “tweaking” occurs to the “flow sheet”. You need significant “sample size” to do the fine-tuning. In the lab you can only get a preliminary read on what works best because the “sample sizes” are so small.
One thing that is critical to establish is the idealized “grind size”. A lot of times this comes out to be around 75 microns as being the particle size that results in the best recovery rates. All ores are different.
“PERMITTING” in Chilean mining is not a single event, it is a long-term process. Starting out with a good rapoire with the permitting authorities is a very good start. Over time, Auryn will be ramping up the “throughput” of their FF plant to who knows what levels. As noted, the new Chilean “SMALL MINING PRODUCERS STATUTE” markedly streamlines the permitting process if a miner voluntarily agrees to mine no more than 1,000 tonnes per month from each adit they put into production. This is a very good thing for a miner with 6 different “Main Veins” to choose from.
If a miner wants to put in a “CARBON IN LEACH” (“CIL”) plant, which uses cyanide to harvest the gold, then the permitting process is going to be a lot more complicated and take longer. I could see where Auryn might opt to put in a “CIL” plant later on, but for now, with the price of gold where it is, they can make a fortune with just an FF plant.
You might vaguely recall a statement made by one of Maurizio’s collaborators at the San Sebastian University’s Mining Engineering Department. His name is Luis de la Torre. He used to be the Head of Underground Operations for Yamana (a major miner taken over by Pan Am silver) at their immense El Penon gold-silver mine.
At El Penon, Yamana also had 6 “Main Veins” they were developing via 38 different adits. Luis de la Torre predicted that the ADL Mining District operations would have many of the same characteristics as does El Penon once established. Seasoned mining professionals have the ability to visualize where a certain mining district might be headed through time. They’ve been through enough mine cycles to predict where a deposit might be headed. Maurizio is also a visionary; he’s built a lot of corporations through the years in a variety of industries.
As far as the nonstop dire predictions including things like it might take light years for Auryn’s DL2 Mine to become permitted, I would recommend listening to Maurizio’s prediction that they figure on commissioning the FF plant “BY THE 3RD QUARTER, 2025. He’s in constant communication with the manufacturers, the regulators, and the firm he hired to draft the “TECHNICAL DOSSIER”. Think about it, would the financiers over at “Stracon” cut a $4 million check to Auryn if they were concerned about inordinate delays in the permitting process. They manage 80 mines between Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico. They have been involved in the permitting process for many dozens of FF plants in Latin America.
Auryn management has clearly articulated that they have already placed orders for the new “mill” components like crushers and ball mills. In their most recent quarterly update they cited: “The engineering and construction project for the plant is in full swing. While the basic components of the flotation plant are being manufactured, we are commissioning the fabrication of other individual units and completing the project’s technical dossier for submission to SERNAGEOMIN in January 2025.“ We don’t know how much these new “individual units” (flotation “cells”) that recently got commissioned for fabrication, OVER AND ABOVE THE ORIGINAL ORDER PLACED, will add to the daily “throughput”. Why would management “double down” on their original order if they had concerns about the timing of permitting?
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It appears they can order equipment. Custom ordered, no less…
https://x.com/aurynmining/status/1894070363539071256
Also, just to be clear, it’s Stracon, not Stratcon for those trying to identify the parent company of Amecosa.
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I think that’s where Stracon comes in. I know you will continue bringing up the difficulties that not having conducted a drill program present, however are there other successful ways to go about this? Is there enough known and enough expertise to be able to churn out some impressive production in the next few years?
Is it too crazy to think that this reverse method so to speak might be smarter? If a big player wants to buy in after we have shown impressive performance without a drill program and without a feasibility study, then they can pony up that money. If not, we continue reaping the benefits while they watch on the sideline. I think thats the leverage thing Doc talks about. The dividends of bootstrapping.
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Ballsy. Maybe they already have permits in hand and haven’t announced? A ball mill and crusher are pretty standard pieces of equipment but the technical/engineering permit review the entire flow sheet so maybe they felt comfortable enough ordering this equipment prior to receiving the permit. We have so little info that it’s impossible to know
Question BB,
Just a thought, are you suggesting here that a Carbon in Pulp (CIP) process might be used which would probably be less efficient than the CIL process? CIP would definitely cost less than CIL, but would it also generate more cash quicker with a process that is considerably less complicated? I think that it could. The main advantage of this would be to primarily concentrate gold and silver that could then be melted down to create doré bars. This would be the most efficient and least expensive extraction method saving not only chemicals, but also save immensely on the transportation costs if the resultant product is an 85% gold/silver doré bar instead of a bulky concentrate.
EZ
Hi EZ,
Decisions like that have a lot of moving parts. The permitting process would be more complicated when you start playing with arsenic in a CIL plant. The transportation costs for shipping dore bars versus a “float concentrate” would be lessened but the gold concentration in Auryn’s float concentrate is going to be high enough that the transportation costs (always measured on a “per ounce” basis) are probably going to be de minimis anyways.
At the DL2 Vein you’re starting out with very high-grade ore, especially if Auryn can continue to mine it “DIRECTLY FROM THE VEIN WITH MINIMAL DILUTION”, and then the FF process magnifies that already high grade upwards by a “concentration factor” of in between 2-fold to 20-fold. A 20-tonne truckload of “float concentrate” is going to carry a lot of ounces of “gold equivalent”. The TRANSPORTATION COST, which is always measured on a “PER OUNCE” basis, is going to be dirt cheap. Compare the TRANSPORTATION COST PER OUNCE, of Auryn shipping a float concentrate grading out at perhaps north of 100 gpt “gold equivalent” with a miner mining “average grade” vein ore of 4.18 gpt, and shipping it. Both miners pay the same amount for a 20-tonne truckload making a round trip, somewhere around $500 per round trip. Auryn’s TRANSPORTATION COST PER OUNCE TRANSPORTED line-item entry for AISC, is going to totally blow away that of the “average miner” mining 4.18 gpt gold. In this example, each Auryn 20-tonne truckload of ore will have almost 25-times as much gold in it. FF plants inexpensively and markedly drive down ALL IN SUSTAINING COSTS (AISC). This is why you build them.
With the price of gold where it is now, the key for Auryn is probably just to start froth floating the ore ASAP and ship it to Glencore or Trafigura. I have no doubt that down the road they will be producing dore bars. For now, the profits might be better allocated to cranking up the intra adit PRODUCTION RATE in the short term, rather than thinking about a new CIL plant. Who knows how long these gold prices might last?
Auryn has an interesting situation in that they hired Stracon to manage the mine “operations”. Stracon operates 50 different mines in Chile, Peru, Mexico and Colombia. Some of these mines are in the “world class” category. Stracon’s “affiliate” just handed Auryn $4 million in a debt financing at “SOFR plus 4%” with “SOFR” being the “Secured Overnight Financing Rate”, which is basically the old “LIBOR”.
A junior miner successfully landing a $4 million debt financing is pretty much unheard of nowadays, in the currently difficult financing environment for the juniors. ABSOLUTELY NOBODY TOOK NOTICE. Fortunately for Auryn, Stracon is owned by “THE ASHMORE GROUP” which is a $65 billion London-based fund that invests in “emerging market” opportunities including mining deals.
I don’t pretend to know what’s going on behind the scenes, but you can sense the potential synergies present if Ashmore wanted to really crank up production at the ADL Mining District by providing yet more funds. This would then benefit their company Stracon by expanding their role as the “mine operator”. You might be able to sense a potential “Win-Win” being present. With the POG where it is, miners are racing to crank up production.
Auryn’s financiers didn’t really take a lot of risk with Auryn because that which was being funded, a froth flotation plant, plus a ball mill, plus a cone crusher, get put into action immediately and make it easy for Auryn to repay the loan. Contrast this with Ashmore funding a different mining company doing a round of diamond drilling which may or may not have good results on a deposit which may never be put into production.
Any subsequent funding by the likes of Ashmore, would be even less risky because a functioning ore processing facility is already in place at a time in which the price of gold is trading near all-time-highs. Keep in mind that Auryn owns 100% of all of the mineral deposits at the ADL Mining District. Low-cost/high-grade miners are now in a position to clear $2,000 per ounce of gold mined, for the first time in history. Even a major like Lundin Gold is now clearing $1,800 per ounce mined.
So, I could see where Auryn’s “production ramp up” might be very aggressive in order to take advantage of the current price of gold. Once you have a brand-new ore processing facility like that, you need to not only keep it busy but you want to increase its “throughput” through time. This is why you stockpile 20,000 tonnes of high-grade ore even before the new facility is commissioned.
EZ, a while back you were advocating for Auryn putting in a “gravity plant” right next door to the new FF plant. As you recently read, the 2 newest locations for ore sourcing, over and above that done at the DL2 Vein, are going to be at the Merlin 1 Vein. In the last 3 or 4 quarterly updates, Auryn management has been hinting that the plan is to put the entire ADL Mining District into production. At the Merlin 1 Vin, one of the 2 new ore sourcing locations will be to the south and the other to the north near the Caren Mine area. You might recall, way back when, when Auryn tested the Merlin 1 Vein ore for its amenability to inexpensive “gravity separation” techniques. The ore here passed with flying colors as the “Sepro-Falconer” gravity separation system, using what amounts to be a centrifuge, had recoveries of over 90%.
So, it looks like you’re going to get your wish in that regard. The Merlin 1 Vein ore revealed “bonanza” grades all over the place historically but s ore is different than the DL2 Vein ore. At surface, the DL2 Vein showed massive widths of argillic alteration measuring over 100-meters in width. At the Merlin 1 Vein, the band of argillic alteration made up of clays like illite, smectite and kaolinite, was measured in inches, not hundreds of meters. Different types of ores need different types of ore processing facilities.
Gravity-based processes are wonderful in inexpensively getting a bunch of the contained (“free-milling”) gold out of the ore and converted into cash QUICKLY. Later, you run the rest of the ore through methodologies like froth flotation.
If you lay out the various scenarios for Auryn’s first year of shipping float concentrate, that 20,000 tonnes of stockpiled ore will take somewhere around 1 year to process and ship. During that 1-year timeframe, the Auryn miners working in the various adits, will be busy building Stockpile #2.
Great for Auryn
Wish I had those phantom shares. Mdmn shares show $0.00/share
Yea, nothing like holding on to an asset that is currently worth nothing !
Thanks AUMC for supporting the shareholders of MDMN for 20+ years.
Thanks for converting our MDMN shares, which you said many times would become AUMC shares.
Thanks for keeping MDMN a valid NASDAQ Pink trading stock, so that some of us in dire (or not dire straits) could sell our stock or buy more.
You have been so generous to we shareholders, and we are so greatful to you taking over our project, our land, our investment, our future faith in the project. Good to know you have us in your foresight.
And of course , not allowing any of the MDMN (or ARYN) shareholders to participate in ANY private placements, which we would have of course been happy to contribute to , instead of giving away Millions of $ to anyone but us.
Kudos to you for keeping your investments to your own benefit !
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What happens to those AUMC shares in possession of mdmn if they are not distributed to mdmn shareholders?