a balanced article9 May 2015 16:09


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manganese hopeful Ferrex (FRX) is expected to announce a resource upgrade by May for its Nayega project in the West African republic of Togo, having concluded agreement with the authorities on a 150-page mining convention to permit the 250,000 tonne-a-year project to go ahead -- provided finance is forthcoming. Company watchers believe an imminent definitive feasibility study will suggest costs could be significantly less than the $14.5 million previously estimated to tap Nayega’s resources, hitherto reckoned at 11 million tonnes with 13.9% manganese, and suggest a full exploitation permit, the final hurdle, is likely soon after Togo’s presidential election next month.
No doubt managing director Dave Reeves, an Australian mining engineer and financier and onetime luminary of Zimbabwe Platinum, and entrepreneurial chairman, the veteran sector player Brian Moritz, hope improved figures will make it easier for AIM-quoted Ferrex to win backing for Nayega. Claiming the company already has a ‘range of offerors’ and boasting Nayega could be up and running as soon as next summer, Reeves hints Ferrex, which is mindful of the recent fate of financially over-exposed iron ore miners, would prefer a deal involving off-takers of manganese (used in steel making, zinc batteries and even food among other things), with the debt component minimised.
How attractive that might seem to fund providers remains to be seen. Shares in Ferrex, which lost £1.9 million in the year to September, have fallen from a 12-month high of 1.88p to 0.6p today.
That is a third of the 1.8p at which US-based Yeorkville Advisors’ YA Global Master Fund backed a £1.66 million placing last year and some 80% below Ferrex’s 2011 AIM float price of 3p, though it is marginally above the price of a more recent £835,000 Ferrex funding at 0.5p. The present price places an £8 million value on the company, where Reeves holds around 13% and fellow director, Zimbabwean entrepreneur Roy Pitchford, ex-head of Zimbabwe Platinum among other companies and also boss of fellow AIM counter Vast Resources, has around 8.5%.
Reeves argues Nayega’s manganese should win favour even in today’s hard market because of its suitability for blending and says Ferrex will use Nayega’s cash flow to probe other manganese targets. Arguing a strong dollar will boost profitability in local currency, he says Ferrex expects Nayega to be a ‘low-cost’ operation producing a ‘standard-grade product’, though some parts will need silt and sand to be cleared.
Nayega was never the only shot in Ferrex’s locker, but the two other principal ones are on hold, because they are iron ore, which for the time being is further out in the market cold