Talk about incy wincy spider.
29Metals (ASX:29M) shares are down nearly -35% in the first half hour of trade as Australia’s freak rainfall of late has led to the company suspending its Capricorn Copper operations.
This comes, unfortunately for the company, as copper prices experience something of a small bull rally on international exchanges.
This also comes as the third project this journalist is aware of that’s had to be shuttered temporarily due to Australia’s current weather patterns.
“The decision to suspend operations follows an extended period of rainfall between late January and mid-March 2024,” the company wrote on Tuesday.
“[This comes as] a result of the weather in the region following consecutive tropical cyclones, resulting in a steady accumulation of water in regulated structures on site to levels now similar to the levels following the March 2023 extreme weather event.”
People really don’t want to use the term climate change, do they? The desert is flooding, but a US-style culture war rages on, for some reason.
And before you say “this has always been part of Australia’s history”, yes, you’re right. Except for one thing: “consecutive” cyclones in the space of less than three months aren’t really the status quo.
“With water at these levels, dewatering of Esperanza South underground mine (‘ESS’) cannot continue,” 29Metals clarified on Tuesday.
This ultimately delays the restart of mining at ESS – a delay so bad that the company has suspended operations wholemeal for the time being.
After ESG considerations, the company says it wants to “conserve cash and retain value”
““Unfortunately, the combination of elevated water levels at the beginning of the wet season (as a result of the event a year ago) and the sustained rainfall since late January this year has more than offset our successes reducing water levels,” 29Metals chief Peter Albert further explained.
“The duration of the suspension will be dependent on a number of factors, including reducing the water levels held on site and securing the regulatory approvals required to set Capricorn Copper on a sustainable footing. 29Metals’ objective will be to ensure the period of suspension is as short as possible.”
In other words: they have no idea.
If only we’d stuck with Gillard’s carbon tax – literally the only policy the world has ever seen that actually got a country to drop its real GHG emissions.
29M shares last traded at 35.7cps.