Monsters of Rock: Back to your regularly scheduled dividend and en-Core, do you want more (lithium)?

There are a few things of certainty in life – death, taxes and a 30c a share dividend from the ASX’s own conjoined twins Rand Mining (ASX:RND) and Tribune Resources (ASX:TBR).

The quiet and mysterious companies once sprung by the Takeovers Panel for their cross-holdings have been a regular payer since 2017 when the microscope started to be placed over the Anton Billis led firms. Each of the past seven years have seen exactly 10c per share offered by Rand and 20c by the larger Tribune.

Today’s roughly $16 million payout marks another return for investors who have backed the tightly held Kalgoorlie gold stocks.

Together they own a minority stake in the East Kundana JV, which has delivered a tidy profit over a number of years under a string of owners including Barrick, Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) and now Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN).

The under-the-radar miners famously spent years accumulating their cash in the form of gold bars.

They eventually liquidated much of the bullion to pay respective special dividends of $1.25 and $3.50 in 2018 the same day a Takeovers Panel declaration was made that eventually saw a 19.9% stake in Tribune sold to Evolution. That came amid tensions with then JV partner Northern Star, which failed in an attempt to buy its partners out for $150 million.

According to Rand and Tribune’s annual reports, their share of gold from the EKJV, now part of Evolution’s Mungari operations, came in at 31,497oz of gold and 3657oz of silver, the lowest since 2006.

Their share of the EKJV hit a high of 119,834oz gold and 20,567oz silver in FY19.

Gold was paying US$1987/oz yesterday, scratching at the US$2000/oz mark as conflict in the Middle East spurs safe haven buying, or around $3134.50/oz AUD.

Rand (ASX:RND) and Tribune (ASX:TBR) share prices today

What the hell are you waiting for?

Who you know fresher than Core Lithium (ASX:CXO)? Probably a fair few people given their well-documented ramp-up issues at the Finniss lithium project in the Northern Territory, the first spodumene mining operation in Australia outside WA.

Early doors Core has struggled with lithia recoveries, improving from 49% to … 50% in the September quarter. However, it has improved that again to 55% so far in the October quarter, after shipping 23,424t of 5.2% Li2O con to offtakers Yahua and Ganfeng in the three months to September 30.

Concentrate output lifted from 14,685t in June to 20,692t in September.

Initially expected to deliver 175,000t of 6% Li2O spod con a year, the mine is currently forecast to ship 80,000-90,000t at a lower grade of 5.5% Li2O.

It doesn’t process fines onsite, either, instead expecting to produce 85,000-95,000t of 1% lithium fines this year. Relativities to spot lithium remain profitable for now. But with spodumene prices falling around a quarter this year it’s unclear how long that situation will last.

29,197t of fines were extracted with a maiden shipment of 15,002t sailing from Darwin. A further shipment consisting of 10,155t of concentrate and 15,049t of fines left Darwin subsequent to the end of the quarter.

Core MD Gareth Manderson said the market remained favourable for now, even after competitor Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR) dumped plans to sell a DSO product as falling lithium prices hit ramp up plans for its Kathleen Valley mine.

“There’s a few value levers for Core in that space. So one is it obviously provides additional space in our tailings facility. So extraction of that material reduces the need for dam wall raises and capital spend in that space,” he said.

“And then probably more importantly, and to your point, it’s a product that has some value in the market and has to date. We are still seeing interest in that product. But we are mindful that as prices for spodumene concentrate come down, it may come under pressure.

“So we’re watching that and based on demand and pricing, if we can’t get the right sort of pricing from that it doesn’t make sense from a business perspective. We won’t sell that product into the market.”

CXO was producing at grades of around 5% Li2O in September, but has altered one of its offtake agreements to be able to sell product as low as 4.5% Li2O in order to be flexible enough to improve recoveries.