Ryan Mee, CEO of Fulcrum Metals, reviews FY23 and progress on the Gold Tailings Hub in Canada. Watch the video here.
Watcher,
The Stockbox interview where GR said he would provide an update in 2 weeks will be 6 weeks ago as of tomorrow.
The last RNS with results from Zulu was 15 and a half weeks ago.
Bickmaster
Snowking,
Ah, the ole 'institutional buying' chestnut again. I have heard that numerous times before. Do I believe it??? Not a chance.
Just because you said something on here and it comes off doesn't all of a sudden make you Rasputin. How did the huge April and May go for you?
You were adamant DFS would be complete Q3 2022. We now know that isn't going to happen and many of us who actually deal with complex projects knew it was never realistic in the first place.
When I highlighted last year that drilling should have started much earlier with more rigs you said the seasonal rains would not impact progress. And we all know what happened.
You now think a 5 ton per hour plant can produce 4000 tons per month, when running at 100% efficiency 24/7 (which is effectively impossible, 66% would even be a generous factor to apply) could only produce 3650 tons. I'd love to be proven wrong and see PREM producing 4000t per month but it isn't going to happen.
Last week you defended GR granting options to himself. Does he deserve them? I don't think so.
And you think the pilot plant can be built with effectively free finance from Suzhou in exchange for further offtake. PREM has already given away 50% offtake. If they were to give away the other 50% if would be corporate suicide as it takes numerous interested parties out of the equation.
I am not sure why you seem to focus on the me v you argument on here. I am realistic and optimistic, I bought 10m more shares last month and timed it pretty well. You are optimistic and believe everything you hear from GR. Good for you. Though I like to assess and challenge the information put forward as I have seen so many mistakes and poor decision making on here before.
Can you imagine where we would be if GR had actually spent the money raised for Zulu on Zulu back in 2017. Instead he spent more on RHA, Circum and wasted a few $m on MNH. I am doubtful we will ever see a return on any of those assets/investments.
Just remember that a good result for you is a good result for me!! I just think the best result will come from a sale (possible in the next 6 months) rather than mine development (min 2.5-3 years) which brings a lot more risk.
Bickmaster
Acker
As long as we close above 0.4p I'll be very happy. Hopefully we then get one of those rare days where GR delivers a RNS which actually results in the SP increasing by 20-25% (or more) rather than dropping back 10-20%.
Bickmaster
Mcgee,
I hope when the next RNS arrives I wont be saying I told you so!!
MNH or any new ventures is the obvious answer!!
Agreed Acker,
PREM doesn't need to start chasing artisanal gold and spending money on anything other than Zulu/EPO when we know Zulu is a huge resource with hopefully a huge payoff for shareholders.
The reason the artisanal gold is still artisanal gold is because none of the big boys have gone near it yet. Imagine the fun in trying to develop a resource where you will be affecting the livelihood of a few hundred artisanal miners who depend on the resource for their living. Let's leave that battle for another day.
The Lithium, Tantalum and Rubidium story has more than enough potential to deserve PREM's full attention (and funding).
Bickmaster
Snowking,
Pessimistic... , perhaps from your rose tented glasses!! Though I have bought 10m more shares here in the past month and said I would be happy to take 2p in the morning through a sale of Zulu. I don't see that as pessimistic. Indeed it would be 4.5 bags from current SP.
Am I wrong about clearly understanding the risks that would come with having to provide Zulu as security for ~$200m - $300m of debt from Suzhou or another lender? I imagine your response will be that Suzhou won't want security because they want to get the Lithium out of the ground asap.
Unfortunately that is not how it works in the world of finance and the reality of the situation is that PREM would need to make repayments of their debt and can only make these repayments if they are producing something they can sell. This make PREM very risky given their track record. The obvious retort is that Suzhou will help PREM to deliver the mine so there wont be any issues. The question I ask you is why Suzhou would do this if instead they could let PREM fail to deliver the mine and pick it up for nothing 12 months later.
But perhaps I overthink these situations rather than expecting the finance for the mine to come without any risk.
Give me 2p a share for a sale at around $800m and I will take that all day long!!
The eternal pessimist, Bickmaster.
Shareholder19,
Hopefully you got in at 0.05p back in late 2020, which I believe is the case, any you've made a killing.
Family always comes first. Best of luck and thanks for your contributions on here.
Bickmaster
Chuggley,
Should PREM go down the route of building the mine rather than selling Zulu or the company, I'd be very surprised if it isn't a mix of debt and equity. Debt must be paid back and to pay it back you need to have an operational mine to produce revenue. We know how bad PREM are at project delivery, especially mine delivery (RHA). In the event the mine build overruns, PREM would need to issue shares to make repayments on the debt - this could be massively dilutive. Anyone who was around a few years ago when Darwin were involved will have experience of this. Shares are issued at ~20% discount to market value, they flood the market driving SP down and the cycle repeats itself.
And of course the debt needs to be secured. Not even the Chinese would give PREM unsecured debt. The only thing PREM have to provide security is Zulu itself. So the risk is the mine build doesn't go as planned, PREM gets significantly diluted and the worse case scenario is the Chinese get the mine as PREM has to default on debt repayments because the SP is eroded and they can't raise funds.
And all of the above will take another 2-3 years to come to fruition.
Hence why I would be more than happy to take 2p per share as soon as a sale could take place.
Bickmaster
Good day today. Half decent volume. Need volume to be in the high hundreds of millions or above a billion to make this move properly.
Good to see the twitter photo with the kit in place to carry out the core splitting on site. That is a positive though it would have been nice to see it a few months ago.
Hopefully we get some serious news this week. It is beyond belief to think that today is the 15 week anniversary of when we last received any results. It is also nearly 6 weeks since the Stockbox interview in late April - the one where GR said he would update us in 2 weeks.
Happy enough to be up about 20% since I took a position here again. Lets hope we get news in the next few days, and it contains lots of positive results and sets out that PREM will not be investing further in MNH or any other new ventures as Zulu needs 100% of PREM's concentration.
In a perfect world the RNS would say that Zulu has been sold for $800m and shareholders will receive a special dividend of 2p per share in the next few weeks. Could you imagine that, getting 2p per share now rather than having to wait another 2-3 years for operations and the dilution which is necessary to get to that stage. Perhaps that is why GR issued the options last week... We can but dream.
Bickmaster
Important to be aware that Chinese majors dont usually get in bidding wars against each other. They share the spoils across Africa and South America so they all have a piece of the pie and don't drive the price higher than they need to pay.
Bickmaster
Acker. Please.
Yes M_Night,
We should thank George for his selfless actions to drive the share price down and give us the opportunity to top up at such cheap levels. It is reassuring to see that, as always, he has shareholders interests in mind.
Bickmaster
Thank you ProfitBags,
And I would love to be completely wrong and see SP rise sharply. The telegram group are doing their best to try to paint a positive out of this when there is absolutely nothing positive about it. A $h1t show of the highest order.
Bickmaster
So....
Based on today's RNS it would appear GR & Co are confident the share price will be above the following levels at the following dates.
1 Dec 2023 - 0.4p
31 May 2024 - 0.5p
1 Dec 2023 - 0.5p
1p by end of June would not appear as likely as certain posters on here suggest.
14 weeks since the last update of any value and this is what management give us.
Congrats to those certain posters who said there would be no further dilution. At least Suzhou paid for their shares. I guess we are all very lucky Suzhou will pay for the pilot plant and fund the mine for free as they also said there will be no dilution for those.
This all clearly underpins why PREM are best placed selling Zulu as soon as DFS is available - it looks like this could be quite a while away. I had expected March 2023.
GR appears to be taking as many steps as possible to keep the share price low rather than drive it upwards. Clearly Suzhou benefit from a low share price given their pre-emption agreement which runs up to early September.
The current state of affairs makes me wonder whether GR is more interested in keeping the share price down to benefit Suzhou or doing anything which may actually see the SP rise to benefit shareholders.
Bickmaster
Ballymena,
Correct, there is a lack of facts on here - this can be put down to a failure on the part of George Roach. The other issue is that in the absence of factual information many who post here don't set out any assumptions to underpin their claims. For example, Snowking says the new mine can be funded from the receipts from the pilot plant. We still don't know (a) if PREM is going down the route of building a pilot plant (haven't had RNS), and (b) how a pilot plant would be funded if they are to go down that route.
Last week I set out some views, underpinned by assumptions, which show what revenues are likely from a pilot plant. All going well it is possible the revenue from the pilot plant would pay for the pilot plant over say, a period of 8-12 months. There is no way the revenue could fund a large mine, which will cost $250m - $300m to build and would need to be paid for up front.
There have also been posts suggesting the Chinese will fund the mine and get paid back in spod. This is essentially debt funding with repayments in product rather than $$$. The big issue is that the lender (e.g. Suzhou) will need to take security over assets owned by the borrower (PREM). What assets does PREM have which could be used as security against a loan of $250m -$300m? I am fairly sure we all agree this would be Zulu. So the risk is that if PREM does not deliver the mine they lose Zulu to the Chinese.
Hopefully the next RNS will clear up a number of questions but we all know GR has an awful track record when it comes to providing RNSs which have any reliable and useful information.
On the plus side, SP is holding well.
Bickmaster
Snowking,
I've taken the time to post logical assumptions and you pop in a 4 line post effectively saying none of what I have posted is of any relevance. I can't let you away as easy as that!!
Responses below in CAPS.
1. Prem are not selling zulu , it is too valuable - OFFERS ABOVE A CERTAIN NUMBER SHOULD BE CONSIDERED, ANY OTHER ACTION WOULD BE NEGLIGENT. IF PREM WERE OFFERED $600M IN THE MORNING I CANNOT IMAGINE THEY WOULD NOT ACCEPT IT.
2. chinese will not ask for shares in prem for money for mine - SO THE CHINESE WILL GET OUTPUT OF MINE AS REPAYMENT WITH A CLAIM OVER ZULU AS SECURITY FOR NON-PERFORMANCE? THIS COULD TAKE UP THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF MINING (I.E. 2025 AND 2026) WITHOUT ANY REVENUE IF THEY TAKE THE OUTPUT FOR FUNDING THE MINE.
3. 4000 tonnes a month is reasonable but coudl be more as depedns on % lithium , if above 1%. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE PILOT PLANT? IF IT WAS RUNNING AT 5T PER HOUR, 24/7 WITH 100% EFFICIENCY, IT WOULD ONLY BE ABLE TO PRODUCE 3640T PER MONTH. ASSAY RESULTS TO DATE SHOW THE MAIN BODY OF LITHIUM APPEARS TO BE ~40M DOWN AND IT WOULD BE VERY EXPENSIVE TO GET DOWN THIS DEEP QUICKLY, ESPECIALLY FOR RUNNING A PILOT MINE.
4. Bickamster you are way too conserbvative but that is not a bad thing - I DONT THINK MY NUMBERS ARE CONSERVATIVE, I BELEIVE THEY ARE REALISTIC AND UNDERPINNED WITH CLEAR ASSUMPTIONS.
Bickmaster
Shiny,
I don't know if it is the most likely buy I definitely think it is the most sensible. Indeed, my preference would be to sell PREM if the opportunity presented itself.
Bickmaster
ProfitBags
Effectively the options are as follows.
1. Debt funding to build the mine.
2. PREM issues further shares, which are sold to Suzhou to fund the mine. If PREM were to issue 16b share to Suzhou it would take them to 49.5% holding. However, to fund the mine (assuming $250m cost), the shares would have to be issued at a share price of 1.25p to raise £200m - so approx 300% increase in SP from current levels. There is no reason for Suzhou to pay 1.25p given current SP, so the other points below become more relevant.
3. PREM sells Zulu, issues large dividend to shareholders, and focuses on EPO.
4. PREM is sold to the Chinese.
5. Suzhou start acquiring shares in the market and pursue a hostile takeover.
or 6. A combination of 1 & 2 above to take a mix of debt/equity funding.
Bickmaster
Red
When you say 'we' could sell them 50%, does that mean PREM? Because PREM doesn't have the ability to sell them 50% without dilution. For the avoidance of doubt, for Suzhou to hold 50% of the shares would result in issuing just over a further 16b shares.
Other option is Suzhou buy shares in the market and if they were to do that they can push for a takeover, take it private and fund their own mine.
Bickmaster