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I've been trying to understand something related to the Orion Financing, but I'm struggling - can anyone help shed some light on this ?

The announcement of the proposed Orion Financing package on 15th September 2022 contained the following as part of the draft terms with Orion :

"US$12.5 million for a gross royalty over tin production (the "Tin Royalty"). This would entitle Orion to receive 4.5% of gross revenue of all tin products produced at the Uis mine initially, reducing on a sliding scale basis to 3.17% as contained tin production increases to 2,000tpa upon completion of the Phase 1 expansion (subject to penalties if this is not completed by 30 June 2024). After the Phase 2 expansion, the royalty rate will be reduced to 0.75%;"

The part I don't understand is - "....contained tin production increases to 2,000tpa upon completion of the Phase 1 expansion (subject to penalties if this is not completed by 30 June 2024)".

In Q4, after the expansion, Tin Concentrate production was 361 tonnes equivalent to 1,444 tpa. Tin Contained in Concentrate was 214 tonnes, equivalent to 856 tpa.

I assume that the "contained tin" referred to in the Orion terms is the same as "Tin Contained in Concentrate", as that is what ATM are paid on, but I might be misunderstanding this. If I am understanding the terms correctly, there's a huge leap from 856 tpa to 2,000 tpa.

Is anyone clear on how the jump to 2,000 tpa of contained tin is expected to be achieved ?

Thanks pekingduck.

Just been looking through their website, and considering Liontown don't even have anything built at the moment (except some accommodation blocks), and won't have until mid 2024, that's quite some vote of confidence in them - even if they do seem fully financed for their build out.

They produced their first bulk sample of Li in November 2021, and signed an final binding offtake agreement with Tesla in June 2022. Looks like they are doing very well, very quickly.

They are also targeting quite some scale - 500,000tpa of spodumene concentrate initially. It shows the interest out there though.

FYI, I was in touch with the company recently to ask if they would publish a schedule of the exact dates when the quarterly updates will be released over the coming 12 months. Whilst we know roughly when they'll come out, I always seem to be doing something else on the actual day they are released and I'd rather know in advance so that I see them straight away !!

Anyway, I can't claim any credit for the idea as they said they already have it in progress, and it's nearly finished and the calendar will be published on the website within the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for it.

And also : https://twitter.com/Andrada_Mining/status/1638897514093899777?s=20

Another recent interview with AV :

https://www.gbreports.com/interview/anthony-richard-viljoen

Quote - “ The share price has given me sleepless nights as it hasn’t, unfortunately, followed the success of our operations. Though disappointing, this is just where the markets are. The moment people realize the scale of what we have on the lithium side, our valuation will change substantially.”

Don't know how I missed this before, but this is a really interesting (long) presentation on Uis by Anthony Viljeon where he's talking to a group of geologists - it was posted just a few months ago in November 2022.

https://youtu.be/gHOpa2q6Ij4

He talks in here about different routes that any offtake agreement might go - be that US or Europe, but seems to be saying that it's only really China that has the facilities.

Very interesting comment at 54 minutes in, regarding the Uis site visits from July 2022 last year, where he basically said the Chinese delegation said "I'll buy this", and that "the numbers were eye watering" - but Anthony said it's not for sale.

Or one is in a safe, well run, multi party democracy, and the other is in the UK :-)

Seems crazy to me that Cornish Metals (CUSN) has a higher market cap than ATM. CUSN have a tin mine that is underground, currently fully underwater, they haven't started pumping out the water yet, let alone building a plant, and they don't expect to start producing tin until 2026. They do have much higher grades, but there's a whole lot of risk between now and when they start producing.

ATM do seem to have got better in recent times in getting their message out, so let's hope it starts to pay off.

I've held these for a couple of years, and it's certainly frustrating to watch this continue to drift lower this year. Over the past 12 months or so the SP is very closely correlated with the tin price, and that has been falling again since late January. The correlation is obviously to be expected, but there have been a number of advancements in the company over the past year, and I would have thought these would have had some positive impact on the SP, but it hasn't happened yet.

Q4 and FY Production Update due before the end of March, so hopefully this will give us news on how the expanded tin plant is running (increased throughput, lower AISC) and information on when the lithium and tantalum pilot plants will be finished. To move the SP, the update will probably need to include details of closing the Orion Financing (which AV has indicated is imminent) and potentially other news on off take agreements.

I have to believe this will take off at some point - a market cap of £65m seems much too low given the potential.