Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
15p is not based on funding secured, highfields was just at the stage we are at that the banks had offered up X amount but not received it. 15p minimum for me is EISA and offtakes moved to binding.
The EISA has technically been partially rejected already but by them asking for new water ideas. It was not a no, it was we would prefer another water source than the fresh, which they have been given. The same thing would arise again if they didn't like the current proposal, EML would put forward ever increasingly more inventive water ideas. However, Morocco cannot put themselves in a position that no miner can get an EISA because they use water, because they all need water. This would kill their mining industry as in no one will put money into the sector as they won't get permits. They are worried about water and they should do, but better rain this season is comforting after a few bad years and they themslves are mitigating future water issues by planning desalination plants and more reservoirs to store more water. Miners will use the least effect on fresh water by using processed/recycled water and the Gov will increase their country wide water supply and storage.
Before Highfield had problems with a permit, they had offtakes booked and debt package similar to ours on the go and less favourable economics and they were at an equivalent 17p. So I'd like to see 15p on ESIA and firmed up offtakes as a minimum. Suspect offtakes will not go binding until EISA is in bag.
https://twitter.com/SamsonLi7/status/1631322737472937987?s=20
It was put forward and and further discussions, confirmations, questions.... Amongst other finer points.
Equally if it was nit suitable from day one it would have been rejected ages ago..
I believe there are other factors still being added, the road layout etc. Has environmental and social impact.
The waste water has a shorter pipeline.
deep well injection suggested savings
less private land needs bought
some pre mining work already done?
A lot of things will have changed, with the additional salt line $450m max would be acceptable. Highfields had a 9% increase. It matters not in the long term, with $310m debt, $40m from CLN, 350 of 450 is a sizeable chunk in these markets.
https://twitter.com/HuddlestonNigel/status/1626176216846721024
Old Redmetal is thundering away at their keyboard on twitter now..... Haha. spamming the ARCM hastag with same drivel as on here.... Some people need to get a life.
Dude.... They have only outlined the total, rates etc comes later.... But holy cow that is huge amount towards caoex, add 40mill loan the equity will be peanuts!
We are using a piddly $1112.....same basket and make up pretty much ast BKT has a DFS now using $1500 base ($1700 if they put out 98% regularly). All peers now using $1300....
Specualtion is around other alternatives if say the current 'new' plan fails to impress the EISA board, currently the EISA submission is for use of the wastewater plant, until they say yes or no then it is a mute point.
Shipping water in bowsers has a capital expenditure if you have to buy the bowsers (how many depends on water useage but small $ in comparison to rest of the project), operational expenses definitely. This has an effect on ESG unless you are going to buy/rent battery powered bowsers, extra trucking using diesel over piped water is a downgrade in ESG (again compared to rest of mine, but every bit od carbon counts these days). Mine sites are now starting to use battery mining vehicles, not only are they cheaper to run over LOM but they are tremendous advantage in underground mines as they can reduce need for ventilation using diesel vehicles. There is one ore transport on the market that does not even need charged, it is so heavy coming down hill it recovers more power than it takes to make the journey up hill. But battery vehicles are of course more expensive to buy upfront. Can all be part of net zero attempts by a mine.
Apart from the vehicles the site will be electrical and gas. I have no figure on how much water the plant needs daily but assumed that with an orignal wet tailings a good amount of water was used in the plant to process. The DFS talks about slurry, so well watered using brine and fresh water. There is a certain amount of brine that is not recoverable to reuse and so is discarded and hence more fresh water is added to the circuit. It is a water based circuit there is no doubt.....how much fresh water must be utilised a day is not mentioned. However, given the brine must be diluted with fresh water it cannot be salt water that is brought it, so it must be fresh. So where does the fresh come from if not the waste water plant. As it is secondary water then even if the country had new desalination plants they would just enter the system as primary use first and end up at the waste water plant anyway. Would once refined sewage be enough of a clean supply, I can see why golf courses love it though.
I am not saying it is not possible, hell we'll do what is required if needs be. In the grand scheme it's better then no water.
And if you think about costs vs grade, I was put off by the fact it was underground on an island. The logistics and costs to set up a mine on a rocky island and get the material off I doubt will be in the lowest quartile to peers. Boats, helicopters, materials moved in and out of mine site, workers movements (do they live on island, I do not imagine there is a thriving local population for cheap labour like say Africa) Is the mine plant on the island or mainland? So do you drill and boat the ore over to a plant for processing or build a plant on the island. Many factors there alone in logisitcs and costs.
This is not a put down of the mine, just not what I considered easy or cheap to do......grade will need to make up for all of that.
Groc graphite is twice the purity per tonne if not more, so basically cheaper to transport and refine per tonne etc.....
Do not confuse 'purity' with resource 'grade'. The only thing grade gives you is economies of scale when you are 'extracting' the product from the ore. There are many other factors that effect the operational cost of this and that is where you do it, how you do it and how much overburden you have etc. So in say an open pit mine a 5% grade from surface could cost the same to get X ton of end product as say 10% that starts at 50m (also tabular vs incline).
Now for output then they all pretty much will output X ton of end product varying between 94% and 98% graphite depending on how well you can recover from ore, so then no one has an advantage over transport because you are shipping exactly the same stuff (except where you ship from and distance to ship to market- Syrah struggles with shipping, not a very big internatinoal port so shipping costs are higher or not at all as they found out during Covid), just getting more money for a 98% product over a 94% product because less processing needed on 98%.
Lastly you can think about 'purity' this is in reference to other materials left in the end product and that can make a big difference in demand due to less effort to get a finished end product. BKT has possibly one of the puriest likely outputs on the market hence POSCO and Urbix are all over them. Urbix described BKT output as on of the best they tested across 34 mines. I do not own BKT by the way, ACP is however their neighbour which means they probably have the same purity.
I 'believe' I as in I am aware of some first hand information that would link the 2....fixed it for you.....
But given my previous posts with no ill directed at you, your last post just shows you cannot give it up.... it is a character trait, now everyone can see it. We'll designate it the 'Mouth Piece of TestikalPack' board. Everyone needs to be vetted for being childish, rude, name callers and thoroughly up their own jacksy to qualify for comment..... The floor is alllllllll yours, you are the only one that qualifies.
Different times and sentiment, but if it was circ 8p early on for deal that was priced in, so how can 4p be priced in now?
I'm sure there are a plenty of interesting and obscure ways to get water to the site but they need to be sustainable in ESG terms and consideration of upfront capex increases or long term opex, versus current plans.
I believe Mining is referring to new options that are being advertised by current companies in the field and has informed the company that they exist, 'but' the company has made no annoucement regarding further options publically. The company as per RNS' I make an assumption the current plan was discussed with Gov for submission with final queries on how it would work is currently being considered (it was not written off, but taken as a positive upgrade on the previous water option - if it was wholly unsuitable at first look they'd not be onto the finer details queries, but asking for another rework getting water elsewhere). I doubt company will be rushing to add new options until they get told to add more options, but possibly keeping ear to ground for future alternatives and/or analysing them now to add to EISA if required.
This EISA I imagine is being closely watched by all future mining companies as to what level/requirement they will need to submit at (so no fresh water dam use by anyone). At first submission no one said don't use fresh water, one minister threw spanner in works and wanted a more ESG option, so EML has done that. Other than catch rain water yourself or build your own salination plant, Morocco needs to work out how to get companies mining with X risk in water consumption. Can't have their cake and eat it. Mines need water.
Company response to question - Trust our RNS more than journalists….
Grammar, sentence/paragraph structure and object in a sentence are things journos of today have no education in.
NorEsco....get a life, seriously. You sound bitter and desperate.
Company response to question - Trust our RNS more than journalists….