Member Info for Alfacomp

More a gentle tickle I would say - a full-on tree shake is somewhat more aggressive and they really block buying during it. Worth doing I guess if you can see that there is a stop-loss that might be triggerable and the whole thing can be over quickly and painlessly for all except the poor soul that got mugged.

Jonny - it is not just that they may need to buy shares - that could easily be achieved by simply putting the price up. They need to buy shares but at a price that is less than they have recently sold them for - this is a harder thing for them to achieve - the only thing they can do is intermittently cut the price back and hope that for whatever reason (distressed seller, panic, sunny weather) they can get a steady trickle of sells back to them. They start to get problems of course if people just keep buying.

should read : between periods when they are SELLING and happy to increase the price,

Jonny - on the assumption that the MMs simply take a fixed percentage of each trade the maximum income the MMs would achieve would be at the point that trade volume is maximised (assuming no wild swings in price). There is no reason for them to believe that simply increasing the price increases the total volume - of course at the limit ultimately at high prices buyers will dry up. However this is an extreme simplification - the MMs do not take a cut on each trade, instead they sell at high prices and buy at low prices and that is how they make money. As a result the SP tends to oscillate between periods when they are buying and happy to increase the price, and other periods when they are trying to pick up the stock they need and increasing prices is the last thing the MMs want. In the last few weeks when the price has been increasing day on day the typical pattern was sell in the morning whilst walking the price up, then put a lid on it and then walk it down in the afternoon to try and buy the stock they need. When Erongo was being dispensed with the pattern was slightly different - the MMs knew where they could always get stock from and so they did not need to walk the price down below 8p to get it - during periods of strong buying they allowed the price to move up a bit, but never beyond 9p, at least until all the Erongo shares were sucked up.

I don't think that they can keep it back for much longer - 3 MMs trying to buy and only one selling at 23.5p (actually I just paid 23.125p so a great deal right now)

LS - now over 10% rise today - that will be three days in a row - I suspect those who sold out immediately hoping that they could buy back in later may have missed the boat unless they are very quick.

Well the 25.0p is simply a rounding of the previous 24.94p that was put out on the 27th April - nothing substantive has changed since then so it is hard to see how any price change could have been introduced without a good explanation.

Sanchez and BBN - I think we all agree that Largo is the easiest comparison to make but perhaps the most conservative because BMN has so many more strings to its bow which have not yet been released - Mokopane, Brits, Electrolyte production and BE - we have gone over them many times. Even this very conservative comparison shows that we are significantly undervalued with respect to Largo. And Largo is starting to rerate also.

I had forgotten about the Largo warrants and options - thus when fully diluted there would be 682M shares - at 1.94CAD this gives CAD 1323 market cap. However if you wanted to buy the business then you would have to also find the CAD 244 to pay off their debt so the enterprise valuation is CAD 1.567 Billion, or 894 Million in GBP. (Note the Debt essentially knocks the Market cap down from the Enterprise Valuation - it is the Enterprise Valuation that should remain constant, all other things apart from debt kept constant - take on more debt and the share price falls - which is kind of what you would have expected.) By comparison BMN has a fully diluted market cap at 23p of 252M GBP, and negligible debt - that amounts to an enterprise valuation that is only 28% of Largo's. Largo is currently producing around 9250 Tonnes of V2O5 per year - this is 5180 Tonnes of contained Vanadium. Vametco produces 3750 Tonnes of contained Vanadium and BMN owns 59.1% of this - 2212 Tonnes. This is 43% of Largo's total. Thus even if you ignored everything else that BMN has and only valued us on a direct comparison with Largo we still have another 53% to add from where we currently are .

vauch where's the ability to put emoticons on posts - I'm looking for the 'you cheeky monkey' one !

vauch - it proves that the wider market is waking up to Vanadium producers, our SP has a lot further to go, and what else is there to do whilst we wait for actual news of the exciting developments from BMN

Up 8.4% for the second day running - now at CAD 1.94 the highest point in the last 4 years.

BBN - the Sojitz buyout might also be a prelude to being able to introduce a leasing arrangement on all electrolyte sales. This is the idea - BMN retains ownership of all the Vanadium that is contained in Vanadium electrolyte that is made by Bushveld Energy. Bushveld Energy turns it into electrolyte and then charges VRFB customers a monthly fee to use the electrolyte in the batteries. BMN sacrifices a small fraction of the short term profit it currently gets from steel customers but instead grows the long -term market for VRFB energy storage - it is only a small fraction of sales at the moment but could be the majority in time. The thorny issue of charging Bushveld Energy the going rate for Vanadium is thus avoided - this would have left BE with a big cost hole that it would have had to to filled in one of three ways 1) charge VRFB manufacturers the going rate+ for V-electrolyte - this is a non-starter as it would impact VRFB adoption. 2) BE pays BMN full rate for Vanadium but leases electrolyte to VRFB users - this would leave BE having to find a large stack of cash to pay BMN with which a) might come from some kind of finance house, but unlikely or b) through some kind of loan from BMN - possible but all a little too circular to be readily appreciated by PI's If sojitz were in charge as they have no stake in VRFB sales or production they would rather simply sell every Kg that Vametco produces to steel customers. By removing Sojitz from the Vametco structure, but allowing them an equity stake in BMN we align their interests with our own - I suspect that this arrangement might give FM a free-er hand in bringing the electrolyte leasing model into play at Vametco.

faramog - one big thing that has changed in the last month is BMN's share price - it is up 53% from then. Thus any calculation of how many BMN shares sojitz might be able to get for their stake will end up with a number which is some 35% lower than it would otherwise have been. Purely on this basis it would have been a smart move for FM to delay the signing of any Sojitz deal so as to allow BMN's SP to appreciate as much as it could first.

Endion, the growth of Vametco is almost over, once the expansion to 5000 TPA is achieved that may well be as far as Vametco can go. All further growth after that will be attributed to all the other parts of BMN and that is what Sojitz should want a part of.

Bubby - of course Vametco is controlled by BMN, making Sojitz a minority partner, which is always a somewhat weaker position. I don't think that Fortune would abuse this position but equally Sojitz may wish to participate in the benefit that BMN will get once Mokopane and Brits are able to start producine ore and Bushveld Energy starts contributing value to BMN. I fully expect that any Sojitz deal would involved some cash, some future royalty payment (i.e. a deferred payment) plus some equity in BMN.

NickD a good summary. I'll make it even shorter. There are 3 figures those of a fish like concentration span need to know. 1) We are undervalued at present. Current PE is between 4 and 5, we should be 15 with our growth prospects. This is undervaluation factor no 1 = 3.0 2) If we buy out Sojitz that's an extra 25% straight away. Factor no 2 = 1.25 3) Production increase from 3750 Tonnes to 5000 Tonnes gives Factor no 3 = 1.33 ignoring any operational gearing, which will go in our favour. Put all of these figures together and you can see that we should be a factor of between 3 (Factor 1 only) and 5 ( Factors 2 & 3 applied) where we are now. This ignores anything to do with Mokopane, Imaloto, Bushveld Energy, any value for Brits or Afritin. We've already seen just how badly the AIM market does at valuing businesses (we went from 8p to 24p in less than 2 months with zero news). What is there to say that 23p should be the stopping point - diddly squat of course. We should be at �1 now.

coffecups - personally I would not be happy living underneath half a tonne of concentrated sulphuric acid. Stick it in a double walled plastic vessel in the ground in the garden for easy removal/access and locked away from children. Also benefits from the local thermal mass of the ground which reduces and possibly completely eliminates the need for thermal stabilisation of the electrolyte.

Sanchez - I agree that definition of urban is rather broad - however I was speaking primarily from the perspective of low state involvement, as we have in the UK, where they assume they can solve major problems such as global warming via incentivised individual behaviour nudging - i.e. here's a rebate, now can you put some panels on your roof, facing approximately in the direction of the sun, pretty please. Naturally properly planned projects are much more efficient but I suspect in the UK this would require a level of state engagement in building and energy projects that we have not been familiar with for the last 20-30 years.

Back to the original question - how big might such a battery be ? We know that typical concentrations of Vanadium in electrolyte solution are 2 molar - thus we can get 2x 51g as near as makes no difference 100g of Vanadium per litre of electrolyte. Thus 50 Kg will take 500 Litres. That works out about the size of 6 wheeliebins. Thus the size is not insignificant, and this is not going to be appropriate for urban dwellings but more than possible for rural ones, which of course are the ones with greater capacity to accomodate the 16 M2 of solar panels that you would need to power this system ( https://www.insulationsuperstore.co.uk/product/2kw-plug-in-solar-metal-roof-mounted-diy-solar-panel-kit.html )