Yes @Schwerms I bought $10K of NMG for my SPF on Thursday after trying to buy them on Tuesday at lower levels after the previous two day's sell downs, but they rose a little on Tuesday instead of falling further as I hoped they would, so I missed out. They then went up another +9.23% on Wednesday and by Thursday I was like, bugger it, I NEED to buy some of these.

I did hold them briefly last year at much lower levels, I actually had two NMG trades between Feb and April in my IPF (income portfolio) prior to establishing my SPF in April, then another short term NMG holding between April and June in my SPF (Speculative company/Speccy Portfolio), one was a breakeven trade and the other two were profitable (1.6 cps to 1.9 cps in my SPF and earlier 1.5 cps to 1.7 cps and then a breakeven 1.6 to 1.6 cps trade that was only stopped out by me selling them out of that IPF and buying them instead in my SPF at the same price (1.6 cps). I made a little money on those trades, but nothing huge.

And then, while I was NOT holding them, they went from 1.9 cps up to 7.7 cps, and are now @ 6.2 cps (cents per share).

Why did I sell out in June last year? Because they looked content to sell their ore to Westgold and it looked to me like Westgold (WGX) were getting the better end of the deal at the time - The Ore Purchase Agreement (OPA) between WGX and NMG has been in full effect since April 2025, with mining and transportation of ore from NMG's Crown Prince gold deposit to Westgold's Bluebird mill starting in September 2025. My concern was that NMG were selling their ore from the Crown Prince deposit directly to Westgold Resources under a binding Ore Purchase Agreement (OPA), rather than paying for toll-treatment.  However I failed to fully grasp how much upside NMG had negotiated for themselves in the details of that arrangement. The following summary of that OPA is from Google:

Key details of this arrangement include:

• The Agreement: NMG’s subsidiary, Zeus Mining, sells their gold-bearing ore to Westgold’s subsidiary, Big Bell Gold Operations.
• Process: The ore is hauled approximately 33–36 km by road to Westgold’s Bluebird processing plant [which is a little south west of] Meekatharra, WA.
• Sale Terms: Westgold purchases 30,000–50,000 tonnes of ore per month. The payment is based on the contained gold in each parcel at the prevailing A$ gold price, minus agreed costs for processing and capital recovery.
• Agreement Life: While the initial period covers the first 24 months, it is not a fixed-term contract but is aimed at developing a long-term partnership.
• Benefit: This structure allows NMG to transition into a producer without the high capital expenditure required to build its own processing facility.

OK, so the first thing was I didn't realise how much gold price upside NMG would get through this arrangement - i.e. both parties benefited from a rising gold price under this arrangement rather than just Westgold, and the second thing is that Crown Prince turned out to have more gold and higher grades than I had anticipated.

So NMG have been making HUGE amounts of cash without having to build a mill, and that has been desrisking the business as they build that huge cashpile. Not only have they been finding more gold, they have also been selling more ore to WGX than they had been guiding the market that they would, so they have overdelivered in terms of both grades and volume.

Now they have always talked about building a mill, but do they really need to?

Here's where their projects are in relation to WGX and MEK which both have working (currently operating) gold mills:

And here's a wider shot showing Catalyst (CYL) to their north east as well:

My other concern when I sold was that WGX's MD, Wayne Bramwell, had made it clear that he saw the company's (WGX's) future being as an underground gold miner and that has since been reinforced with WGX only acquiring underground gold assets since then and divesting some of their open pit assets. NMG's Crown Prince deposit is a high grade open pit:

Source: https://www.newmurchgold.com.au/our-assets/crown-prince-gold-mine/

So my thoughts were that NMG were giving away part of their gold value through the arrangement with Westgold (WGX) and that WGX were unlikely to be interested in acquiring NMG because NMG were open pit gold. Or are at this point at least. And, as I said, I didn't know how much gold NMG were going to find subsequent to that point and that it was going to be such decent grade gold as well; For the quarter ending December 31, 2025, New Murchison Gold (NMG) reported an average gold grade of 4 grams per tonne at its Crown Prince mine and the mine is averaging over 4 g/t with some high-grade zones, such as the caprock, significantly outperforming earlier estimates (Source: Google).

Also:

Source: December 2025 Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 5B for NMG released 27-Jan-2026.

But Meeka and NMG might be a decent merger, or the acquisition of NMG by MEK, and I haven't entirely discounted the idea of CYL acquiring both MEK and NMG at some point, or one of them.

My personal opinion is that if WGX truly ONLY want to be underground miners, that's fine if they're the best in the world at it in terms of efficiency and low cost, but they aren't, and open pit gold mining, especially in flat scrubland like where they are in central WA is SO much cheaper and therefore more profitable than underground mining. The costs are lower with open pit gold mining, no argument about that, there are far less risks, so less tends to go wrong with open pits, so underground gold mining is only superior when the grades they are mining underground are significantly higher than what is available in open pits in the same area. Otherwise you'd go with open pit mining every day of the year if given the option.

Which is all to say that I think Wayne is a little bit unhinged, and it's one of the reasons I don't hold WGX shares. I've held them previously as a trade, and I've usually lost money on them when I have held them. That said, over the last 12 months (and especially over the past 6 months) the WGX share price has outperformed most of the gold companies that I hold today, and a bunch more, as explained last night over in the gold thread. So I clearly would have done even better than I have done if I'd held on to those WGX shares that I sold last year. WGX have done very well over the past 6 months, but I still think you have to embrace both OP and UG gold mining as a mid-to-large-cap Aussie gold miner, rather than say you're only going to do UG gold mining.

Obviously Wayne doesn't extend that rule to where the gold comes from with OPAs, but anyway...

So why buy NMG shares now? My thoughts since last weekend are that NMG management deserved a lot more credit than I had previously given them, and they have done VERY well from their strategy to date, as evidenced by how much cash they have accumulated with zero debt and zero hedging. There's a great deal of value being a totally unhedged Aussie gold miner that is actually producing and selling gold (or ore than contains plenty of gold) when the gold price is already at record highs and can move up another $1,000/g in just a few days (as it did recently, and then down again by almost as much).

Here are the two dot points that really caught my eye from NMG's December quarterly report: [bottom of page 1, under "Corporate"]

• NMG remains unhedged, has no debt and finished the December quarter with $92 million cash.
• NMG sells gold bearing ore to Westgold and therefore does not sell gold bullion. For the purposes of providing industry standard information, the attributable gold bullion price received was A$6,315/ounce against an attributable ASIC of A$2,149/ounce.

Do the maths. That's outstanding! And they don't do anything except dig up the ore, crush it, then deliver it by truck to WGX's Bluebird mill (gold processing facility) 35km south (by road) of Crown Prince.

Thing is, Crown Prince is just ONE of NMG's projects - NMG owns all of the ground and the gold projects within the orange/gold outlines down the left side of the following map:

So my take on that is that considering what they've found already and the tenements they own, and their proximity to other proven gold deposits, including some really big ones that have been found in prior years by other companies, is that NMG's land is highly prospective for more gold discoveries than just what they have at Crown Prince, and what they have at Crown Prince is great and getting even better.

If they find high grade gold at a decent depth that is going to require underground mining then they absolutely would then be on (WGX's) Bramwell's radar for M&A even if that meant WGX subsequently selling off any open pit assets to willing buyers like MEK or even an emerging goldie like Great Boulder Resources (GBR), also near Meekatharra, just southeast of Paddy's Flat and east / northeast of WGX's Bluebird mill - so GBR are on the east side of that geological fold, while WGX's multiple gold discoveries in that area have been on the west side - GBR are not shown on that map but are finding gold in their own tenements in the same area.

GBR's projects are a little northeast, east & southeast of Meekatharra - so from around halfway between the white Legend square in the map above and Meekatharra township and then north from there with Mulga Bill (shown on the map above) being around the middle of GBR's tenements (see GBR tenements map below in relation to Meekatharra townsip) - and WGX's Bluebird mill is a similar distance southwest of Meekatharra, as shown on the map, however Westgold also have gold projects directly south of Meekatharra (and closer to the town) such as their Paddy's Flat group of deposits.

GBR Tenements - Source: GBR, 10th Feb 2026: Investor Presentation - RRS Summer Series Conference

There's plenty of M&A coming at these gold prices, especially when you've got underutilised mills and also goldies with plenty of gold but no mills. Consolidation is a logical step and I expect a few deals this calendar year. I don't know if any of these companies will be among the names that those deals involve, but they could be. M&A on its own is usually NOT a good basis for an investment thesis, but it's extra cream on a decent cake if it happens, and NMG look really good even if nobody acquires them.

Disclosure: Of the companies I've named in this post, I hold all of them except WGX, so I hold CYL in my SMSF (and here) and I hold MEK, GBR and NMG in my SPF (and MEK here). However I only bought the NMG shares back on Thursday, so I've enjoyed no upside from that purchase yet, but I reckon it's coming.

NMG's website: https://www.newmurchgold.com.au/

GBR's website: https://www.greatboulder.com.au/

MEK's website: https://meekametals.com.au/

CYL's website: https://catalystmetals.com.au/

WGX's website: https://www.westgold.com.au/

It's a busy area and I reckon it's going to get even busier from here.