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@anon.y.mouse valid points but reference point a) I didn't say 'on the 28km stretch there is as you say 8km that needs little rehab'. I quoted @bohercom who extracted the comment from CRTM historic statements that "the last 20km are on a dirt road" (off the N1). My point is CRTM said 20km previously and yesterday its now 28km (https://www.miningreview.com/base-metals/critical-metals-plans-fresh-start-at-molulu/). I am saying CRTM math doesn't add up (historic vs yesterday). I didn't say only 8km needs little rehab thats misleading. The rest of your point is valid on the basis sections of the 28km may not have deteriorated but that's based on speculation.
In reference point b) the big questIon is if and when but should CRTM plan to upgrade the whole 28km as per their statement yesterday this is a positive sign. CRTM wasted much favour with insider trades and lack of transparency and that isn't good management. I hope perhaps the work is done and this isn't an attempt to push along investors with FOMO in a 90 day period whilst more undisclosed events are occurring. Copper has value and on the rise but you need to extract and process or its just words. I will buy when I see the ground truth which isn't through CRTM lens.
@investpest - Maybe worth noting part of the 'dirt' road had already been rehabilitated 22/23, this was solely for the rainy season and solely for the use of Critical Metals getting trucks in and out of Molulu.
The story goes the road rehab increased the local traffic by villagers and 'loggers' in the area so the rehab that had been carried out wasn't sufficient for the 40T trucks that OM Metals were using to collect the copper ore.
I think this answers two of your questions;
a. Maybe this is why the time taken is significantly below what you expect as on the 28km stretch there is as you say 8km that needs little rehab to get to a standard and within the 20km of dirt road there are parts that will not have deteriorated much from prior works.
b. I think in this in mind they have gone the 'whole hog' so to speak, rather than patching only areas of concern in the rainy season or only doing the 20km of dirt road, RF has taken it upon himself to play cautiously get a contractor, price and rehab the full 28km at the same time this should hopefully give a constant supply chain and no delays in production/delivery going forward.
Copper plays are obviously going to get more and more in vogue as the copper price increases, I think you need to invest in the management and with the resource both of which are why I'm invested here in CRTM.
Molulu alone without further M&A has a predicted 15 year mine life and I'd urge you to look at some of the copper grades intercepted in Q323.
@bohercom you hit the nail on the head. I read the same information "Although the route to Lubumbashi City is mainly on the N1 tarred road, the last 20km are on a dirt road. Although the Company plans to fund the upgrading of about 12km of this road". When I saw yesterdays information on "28km" I wondered if a) they read these threads b) someone left the calculator at home that day. Looks like the N1 tarred road is getting an 8km upgrade!
When I read the strong buy positions by @anon.y.mouse I am mindful that the connected company Phoenix Copper through directors is already listed in US and appear at face value a better option, or at least a good template for CRTM to follow. Shared information may give rise to CRTM improving.
@korriban I think 90 day completion of the road would indicate it mustn't be in severe decay if the intention is to make all weather and longterm road worthy for 40tn vehicles to move product. A lot of work goes into road building and is especially impacted by pre-existing, soil condition, terrain and topography etc. The estimated time is 4-7 days per kilometer in the area depending of degredation and provided the road materials, personnel, permissions etc are available. So at the low end I am thinking 110 days and higher 200 days for them to create such a stretch of road. CRTM to prove me wrong and maybe it is I who left the calculator at home today and someone can tell be the speed 1km of road can be rehabilitated especially in an area prone to rain even after the rainy season has passed (https://www.weathercrave.com/weather-forecast-democratic-republic-of-congo/city-610705/weather-forecast-kasenga-today). I will probably have to setup an imagery account to show the current state. Timely they came out 5 days after my post and said road works starting. Maybe they listen to me more than my wife or finally decided to use their money after the rise in negative commentary.
That's a lot of road to be done. Expect 90 days to complete & anything else a bonus. After that game on.
What a great RNS to wake up to Monday morning.
- Confirmation the 28km of roadworks has commenced.
- Offtake agreement with OM Metals still in place.
- US Listing impending should be the end of the month.
Roadworks scheduled to take 60-90 days so essentially between end of June & end of July we should be able to deliver what is on the pad to OM Metals and then restart production with a view of 10k/month as soon as possible.
Look @ the copper prices and you will see the type of profit that will generate @ a £3m MCAP this is an absolute no brainer IMO.
@InvestPest - I for one would be very interested to hear anything you find out about the road. Unfortunately I don't believe that the official CRTM communications are reliable, so any independent information is valuable.
The issue of the suitability of the road was known about since CRTM started, so it is surprising that it's recently become the blocker to any progress. The initial prospectus said -
"Access to the project area is from Lubumbashi City to Malambwe village travelling northwest on the N5 (Kasenga road) on good tarred road, from Malambwe one travels in a NE direction to the Molulu project area which is accessible through “Mama Sifa’s” farm on poor dirt road."
"Although the route to Lubumbashi City is mainly on the N1 tarred road, the last 20km are on a dirt road. Although the Company plans to fund the upgrading of about 12km of this road, until this takes place, there is a risk of difficulties getting to the Project and/or trucking minerals produced from the Project for processing as in the rainy season the dirt roads can become treacherous." .
"Road rehabilitation to commence immediately to provide trucks transporting copper and cobalt ore with a stable access road during the rainy season, which typically runs from October to April;"
"One of the first activities that the Enlarged Group intends to undertake after Re-Admission is rehabilitation of the dirt road leading to the Project. Historically, the road has not been well maintained, which coupled with several rainy seasons, has made the road treacherous. Using a road grader and creating a simple drainage gradient would allow the road to be used in all seasons. The upgraded and improved road would in turn allow for the ore hauling trucks to deliver ore to third-party processing plants in the Lubumbashi or Likasi areas, following expectedly successful oxide mining."
This was all written in 2022.
Funding has also been raised on several occasions - the initial raising in 2022 said $320,000 was to be spent on "capital expenditure including road rehabilitation". There was a raise on 9th Jan 2024 of £215,000, which was to be used for "used for advancing the diamond drilling campaign at Molulu and for the upgrade of the public road to Molulu". Then the latest issue of CLNs on 10th April 2024 to be used for "Improve the public road to Molulu".
It's all very perplexing.
I have been watching CRTM a while and have numerous questions before I make any decisions but the main ones are around leadership, transparency, road worthiness and importantly the potential for profit. To this end I have sought out 2 people with help from my niece online to get the ground truth on the road that appears to be the route cause for investor concern. Ignoring Critical Metals claims I just want to know the feasibility on moving the metals as I cannot invest in something which as the baseline doesn't even have processing covered. I absolutely agree with Katstangler there has been a 'manipulated and deferred progress' report on the mine. So lets get the facts and make an informed decision. I don't seem to be able to update with images so will look elsewhere to post and leave a link here.
But i doubt they'll get an answer: why have there been two placings for the same drilling and roadworks, considering at least one of them benefitted Fryer and his 'insider dealing'. or is he going to say he never knew about the placing until the last minute?
trouble with this share is folk are now too scared to ask real questions for fear it'll harm their chances of getting their cash back so have to be complicit to whateve Fryer does.
I suppose as long as he recovers the share price he'll be forgiven. he'll probably have rerate his 10p warrants down to 5p first, though! (joking... or am i!)
I'll leave you two to chat as can't be bothered speaking to the uninvested who troll this board posting anything negative they can find with half the facts
Just for the avoidance of doubt - every single piece of information in my post is in the public domain. I have no special or inside information. All the information is out there if you look for it.
I didn't want to bring it up but the US debt recovery by M+T bank was what i was alluding to.
when i said 'i read it somewhere' i just didn't want to be the person posting that news. i have friends and acquaintances in this still and it pains me that they bought the t-shirt when so many things have failed to materialise.
I woul say that pi's have been taken in totally by someone who has manipulated and deferred progress with all sorts of 'reasons' while chucking out carrots like US funding when the company is really no closer to that funding than it was at the beginning of 2023.
for all the stupid ticket stub pics and similar, all that's really been done is destruction of pi investments, the mass selling of warrants that have been resturctured to make them easier to profit from, some clay brickworks and worthy academic tuition and... some drilling from back in Sept. but, to my knowledge (sketchy on this one), can XRF results be used in a JORC or does it need formal testing? not heard, afaik.
only person benefitting atm is Fryer, who sold his stake to himself as CEO, paid for by investors.
needs to get his act together to realise the faith he's squandered over 15months.
The talk of US funding, grant aid or loans, just seems bizarre to me.
Russell is being taken through the courts in the US for one of the companies he owns (Baobab Physical Commodities) failing to repay a previous bank loan( to M&T Bank). It's not just the company - Russell himself is named as a defendant in the proceedings.
Baobab Physical Commodities is a subsidiary company of Baobab Asset Management (also owned by Russell). CRTM owes around $1m to Baobab Asset Management, following the buyout of Madini Occidental (part owned by Russell) by CRTM late last year.
So there is a close and unfortunate link between CRTM and the company being taken to court for non-payment of a bank loan.
I've no idea on the details of the case - it might be totally invalid, might be thrown out of court, or Russell might win. Of course, anything is possible.
However, if someone in the US government spends even 15 minutes doing basic background checks - it seems very unlikely that they would have the risk appetite to approve any financing given these connections, especially while the case is still running.
Kat, I agree, timelines have been crap however as per Korriban's post and mine I still think this will end positively
But yet again you spout rubbish on here and no doubt anywhere you can
Has Russell broken any rules? I don't but if has I'll leave it to the FCA to pick this up
"i read somewhere that the friday rns related to a debt he had to pay to the banks from his Baobab company?" Must be true if you read somewhere!!!!! It isn't
For me, if he was selling while the stock was going up and he made gains I'd be annoyed- he didn't he sold on the way down and had no choice but to take part in 9.6 raise as it's written into his contract. If he wanted to screw us he would have sold at an average of 10p (which it was over all trades so 9.6p is hardly a great return anyway) and then taken part in the CLN at 4.8 doubling the holdings. But you don't mention this do you
Basically he has chucked most of what he has into CRTM to the point he needed to sell some shares to pay a bill. Yes, if he'd have hit his own targets then I doubt he'd of had to but we are where we are and I refer to my last post around what we need next and it isn't idiots posting lies
Both valid & plausible replies. If progress is made & SP rises all of this will be forgotten about imo. Agree Kat some progress needs to be happening sooner rather than later after FRI rns now. However if I was backed into a corner & ask over the long term do you think the company will achieve what it set out to achieve I'd still say yes given all I know. However that confidence has taken a little knock won't lie but I continue to hold.
Those are all the same targets as per 12 months ago. the difference is the total loss of belief in the ceo for his honesty in dealing with the retailers.
from having fake names in tg's to punting the same, endless stories about US funding to the principle two big mistakes: the lack of any sales (which might hide several reasons beyond the obvious one) and the very suspicious funding (and repeat funding!) of the drilling and roadworks. his conduct from Friday's rns also throws suspicion that he's playing for personal gain over and above pi's. i read somewhere that the friday rns related to a debt he had to pay to the banks from his Baobab company? no idea why he needed to sell shares in CRTM unless it suited his then buying cheaper on that dubious first funding for drilling and road? i doubt he'll ever make a formal statement but just trust that some 'good' news will hide his activities. but it's nearly May and still no start on the road... which means 60-90 days to completion which means Aug to first delivery... assuming there's not going to be another explanation for another delay!
it has been the most tragic investment of the last 12 months.
We just need to change the general investors' perspective of this stock and the only way that will happen now is forward momentum through news, actions and delivery
Road started, Jorc started, US listing, US money, Jorc results, stock off-take, plant news, production started etc etc
So much potential which just needs to happen now and hopefully, these dark days will be behind us 🤞
Many selling as I thought they would Monday morning off the back of Friday's rns will probably be the ones buying back in when the SP rises with less shares than before. Always happens with investing/investors. I'm betting mm's play this game today, let's see
That last post is meant to end with -
then SOLD shares at 9.88p on 9th January.
As someone on Twitter spotted - he sold shares on 28th November at 14.03p, 14th December at 11.08p, and then bought shares in the placing 8th January at 9.5p, and then shares at 9.88p on 9th January.
So now, in a Friday evening after market RNS, Russell discloses that he’s been selling shares since November 2023.
On 10 different occasions.
And didn’t feel the need to disclose it, despite being CEO.
During the whole period where there was hardly any real news on road and processing plant, and whilst the share price was in free fall, he was selling.
Sold them to pay a “tax bill”.
You actually couldn’t make this up.
I can’t wait to see what the next announcement is.
Can't see what's happening ? So Russell didn't say at the AGM that he needed another 500k for the road and drilling?
And I'm thick lol
But don't let the truth get in the way of your BS mate
"It astonishes me how people can be so thick they can't see what's really happening or maybe they have their own agenda rather than actually considering the wider optics of a situation
Reduce warrants or do another raise to dilute ALL current shareholders "
So, what does it say when a company does both, including duplicating a placing from only 3 months back and, apparently for the same reasons?
what would warren buffett say about that!
Maybe next time you'll take the great mans advise ;^)
"Warren Buffett once said that it's wise for investors “to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” This statement is somewhat of a contrarian view of stock markets that relates directly to the price of an asset. When others are greedy, prices typically boil over and one should be cautious lest they overpay for an asset that subsequently leads to anemic returns. It might present a good value investment opportunity when others are fearful. "