Member Info for Boffin

A simplified history of Crescent and the Laverton gold mine can be found here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverton_Gold_Mine

Basically the costs of ore processing , when gold was at a much lower price, was killing Crescent until they did a kind of jv with another processor which in time led to a friendly takeover/merger at quite a decent price whilst AH was CEO

Nice find Haggis. I just wish they had provided some sense of scale but I agree it doesn't seem huge.

Until ECR see the results of the current Creswick holes its difficult to be sure>. But if they look anything like encouraging I would put both rigs there . From a logistics and management point of view its just more efficient as well as getting a JORC standard quicker. Having all the supplies of water, food, maintenance engineers and spares etc. all within a kilometer or so of each other makes life much more efficient. Plus the geologists can focus on analysis, interpretation and modeling and thus make quick decisions as to the specific position and angles of subsequent holes.

I think the Queensland elements will be happy enough to hear that two drill rigs rather than one will be turning up even if they start a few months later. This also provides a bit more time for surveying and sampling there to further optimise drill targets.

AFC still get £2M in cash but its on the balance sheet and not counted as sales revenue. Thus the payment has no impact on the potential price to earnings analysis which is what is really needed to shift the SP.

Of course I am not unhappy with this announcement to me it does show though that at the moment AFC are highly dependent on one large customer who quite understandably negotiate in their own best interests. And actually if I was an ABB board member I might just be proposing, a an example, buying say 100M shares for circa £25M, taking roughly a 15% stake and asking for a seat on the board.

What AFC need is at least couple of other significant customers. I was rather hoping to have heard of some orders for Power Towers or larger from the various construction companies or their hire company partners but nothing so far.

As I've said before I don't want bits and pieces and would rather see a well structured assessment of resource to JORC standards.
And also a purely selfish one. I want to shift more into my ISA at current prices so would be very happy for no announcements until after Easter!

But whilst I am typing I was wondering about how Midas 2 could be used. For example if Creswick starts to look good would we be better off to have both rigs drilling there to speed a JORC standard assessment ASAP rather than send one off to Queensland? The when we've done that we send both rigs to Queensland. That way we get to the same point after say 18 months but we get the JORC assessment sooner

Barcelona11 I think it shows that ABB are in a much stronger negotiating position than AFC. Looking at the SP today the market doesn't seem much impressed with the news either.

Still, it's early days yet. Maybe ABB may decide to buy a much larger stake whilst the SP stays low?

On the Hiiroc news page there is a test project with Centrica which is due to go live in the latter part of 2023. It will use Hiiroc technology to generate hydrogen to be injected into the Brigg gas fired power station. A low level at first of course but its a method of carbon capture before combustion generating solid carbon rather than CO2. So no gases to scrub and/or capture and solid carbon has a lot of potential uses.

Of course it strategically makes sense. But as usual from AFC the message is very short on detail. What is the basic technology being used? Why is it better than anything else that competitors have available or projected? Have we applied for any patents? What will our USP's be?

And 2025? Why is this being announced now. It comes over to me as management saying to themselves "we need some news now". A bit like the fuss about Alkamem a couple of years ago and we are still waiting for an update on progress with it.

Hi. Purely selfish on my part I must admit but I hope they don't rush out too many results. They should take a bit of time to consolidate results and do some analysis before publishing

Wait until we are a week into the next tax year so I get time to stuff a load more in my ISA at current prices before the SP heads north!

From a purely combustion operation and efficiency 95% + is probably OK. So rather less pure than needed by many types of fuel cells. The issue may depend on whether the other components cause any emission problems after having been through the combustion process. Just as a speculative example a small amount of CO2 in the hydrogen may be converted to carbon monoxide and/or some noxious aldehydes. Not nice at all.

Heath. I hope you are right about the "shed load" of money but may I point out that we have usually had the year end numbers by now. I am wondering why not. Plus we are awaiting news on other major developments such as the shipping container sized units, Alkamem progress and perhaps a wider operational update as a lead up to the annual report usually published by mid March.
Yes of course todays news is welcome progress but its quite a thin smear of "Jam today" relative to the time and money being spent

Perhaps we should buy another one

Actually most medics degree certificates are headed Bachelor of Medicine. Strictly speaking its they who get to use Dr as a courtesy to recognise that a medical degree at 5 years is longer than a "standard" Bachelor of science at 3 years. A Doctor of Philosophy degree, which is how mine is headed, is of course at least a further 3 years than a BSc ie longer than a medics studies. Anyway whatever popular opinion is academic titles, qualifications and courtesies are decided by the Chancellors Court of every university and I guess they know what they intend.

Well it cost Au$750k when we bought it. So by the time purchase and sale fees and taxes are taken into account its a loss of well over Au$100K.

Piltick You apparently missed I was just responding to Alkins question on use of domestic waste as a feedstock . The inevitably low yield of Hydrogen and high level of CO2 scrubbing/capture for me would make general domestic waste an unattractive / uneconomic use of PHE technology.

The basic issue is that domestic waste feedstock has a lot of paper, cardboard etc which has a relatively low hydrogen and high oxygen content as part of its molecular structure compared to say polyethylene or tyres. This inevitably means higher CO2 production and lower hydrogen yield even when, unlike an incinerator, the PHE thermolysis chamber is sealed from atmospheric oxygen.

Lolworth exploration will certainly need holes drilling. Firstly to determine the size ,shape and composition profile of the overall ore body. Then to understand if all the metals are mixed in together or are each, at least to some extent, concentrated in different areas of the whole. That could significantly effect the mining and ore recovery strategy-and thus cost.
If they are largely mixed together then mining them will cost the same per ton for all of them allocated according to value or quantity.
For me the big difference then comes in the subsequent refining costs once the ore is out of the ground. Lithium will be relatively easy to extract , probably with an acid wash. The gold will probably be next but the approach may depend on how fine or nuggety the gold is. Tantalum/Niobium extraction to some form of concentrate will be the last stage but I have no idea if there is enough and at a suitable starting concentration to make this worthwhile.

Until we have much more data its an interesting start but far from certain that Lolworth is a commercial opportunity

To me Lolworth is certainly interesting but until we have confirmation that these grades, particularly of Lithium, are present at significant depth and thus multi millions of tons of ore then its "watch this space" . My "*** packet" estimate is that at something like these grades we need around 2.5 million tons of ore to have $100 million worth of Lithium in the ground. If it was easy to get to (open pit?) that may just be enough to make it worth mining. But by the time mining and refining has been costed in the profit may be only$10-20 million in total spread over quite a few years. Of course an ore body substantially more than that becomes very motivating. Until we have a few drill cores showing the depth of the deposit its just tantalising speculation.

As regards tantalum and niobium they are rare and are a nightmare to refine requiring very specialised kit. In fact few facilities exist that run the whole process. Mostly one company makes a concentrate which is sent to various "end refiners" based on what the final salt or pure metal requirements are. And in the end its difficult to know what they are worth as they aren't traded on any of the worlds metal exchanges. Its all by direct negotiation from producer to user. The prices occasionally published suggest Tantalum oxide sells for around $150 per Kg. Far less than a Kg of gold currently circa $52,000 per kg. So for me the jury is out as to what these metal ores may be worth

Perhaps I'm being dumb but this announcement has me confused! Gorge creek is bit under 100kms west of Cairns and hundreds kms north of the Lolworth range where we have our licenses and no-where near the recently acquired Hurricane asset.

Any ideas or insights anyone?

Of course it releases the C as CO2. However nearly all forms of manufacturing methanol use CO2 as an input. On that basis the synthesis and use of methanol is a net carbon zero closed loop. However that is to forget the source of energy to power the synthetic process of making methanol. If that is "green" then the overall system will be carbon neutral