Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
He’s gracious whilst making a few character digs at the same fime, how commendable.
No Pbub I don’t agree, he’s achieved nothing of what you’ve said, production of V isn’t where he’d hoped and V prices are too high to get funding those aspirations are history. Gloss it how you wish, I’d not support any finacial subsidy of VRB to impact on bottom line, no thank you. Besides they can’t get one battery working, that’s the truth.
Keep getting production up, that’s all that counts surely, the sideshow stuff is a distraction they don’t need and thus far is clearly impacting on what’s going on.
I like the revenues though $$$
I applaud the ‘young man’ comment, it’s appreciated.
However rather then sleep I’d rather research, plenty of time for sleep in those latter years. I never mentioned VRB again this evening and so I thought I’d google Eskom, here’s an interesting read:-
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-01-31-eskom-planning-to-invest-up-to-r12bn-in-cost-plus-coal-mines/
By looks of things there’s still a huge financial problem and I doubt their ability to invest at scale into energy storage anytime soon, specially as this consists of not only storage but the actually generation asset too. Maybe this has been discussed at length missing out the actuals, just the fantasies.
Still hope they shelve the VRB aspirations for a few years, besides they don’t have the V supply to meet those aspirations as production is poor thus far, maybe 2021 and beyond if they actually meet those increase production targets, fingers crossed hey.
Get a product working though would put them in a good position later when they become viable, here’s hoping. In meantime concentrate on increasing production, all these side-shows have put actually production down the pecking order and that is ultimately what’s driving share price, get it sorted FM, prove your worth.
The saviour of VRB, good research can see them ploughing millions into marketing, if someone would lend them a fiver of course!!
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Think I’ll agree to disagree on this subject, I’ll concentrate on imcoming cash.
Hale
Wrong, I actually moved money here as I feel it’s a better short and longer term prospect for the reasons I have written. Pity nobody can actually understand it’s quite positive.
Production is better then I had anticipated and V prices are improving, simple enough for me short term.
There’s no VRB sales forecast for this year so let’s leave it parked for now.
They aren’t going to release VRB to the world, only Africa, come on get facts right.
Nobody is selling VRB in volume, nobody. Nobody is really trying apart from a select few who have failed so far, that’s a fact. Unless you’d like show me sale of VRB to 1,000 customers over last 12 months? That’s nowhere near what lithium is doing, has been doing for years. It’s in its infancy.
Price fell today for a reason, wake up. It’s an opportunity as the company is making millions from V, forget VRB it’s a longer term aspiration as is that huge production figure.
Sooner folks realise what is reality the sooner we can all have a reasonable conversation of where this headed and when, the future is good for sure but Rome wasn’t built in a day, this will be built but over a few more years then your masters have lead you believe.
For now VRB is dead for mass market, that’s a fact as nobody can sell them in volume. Get BMN vanadium production up, get a VRB working then see how we go with V prices.
Unless anyone can provide details of thousands of customers and not the odd installation, no matter it’s size, there’s no market for it today. We do however have a thriving market for Vanadium. That’s only reason I’m invested, Vanadium not VRB, besides there’s not a working wine sold by bE yet anyhow.
Good luck folks, some need it more then others.
Typhoon
How you can’t see positive in what I wrote is your misguided judgement. Like the lies here about production hitting 5000 this year, it’s not going to happen and likewise neither is mass sales of VRB by BMN or BE.
Sort production first out of the excessive cash then invest into VRB when prices fall. It’s common sense or business sense surely.
Night night.
Faramog asked my opinion, simple enough.
VRB is in its infancy, there’s no mass market, unlike say lithium. That’s for a reason, nothing to do with my opinion, it’s a fact there’s no market for it today.
Quite why anyone here gets upset by that is beyond me, the future here is far better with high vanadium prices then supplying vanadium for a few batteries at a commercial loss today. Besides nobody knows how to makes money out of VRB’s, there’s a tight to zero margin to compete with lithium on production even with low V prices, for costs to really fall inline with lithium it needs mass production, that’s years off. Yes I realise one is power centric and they should compliment each other but facts are facts, it just isn’t working out.
Besides for anyone suppier to create such mass adoption it would cost many many millions, Elon musk might have his faults but his ability to promote a product is second to none.
Meanwhile BMN rake in millions from raised V prices, keep it high who cares about VRB, I’d be more interested in increased production that can be paid for out of inflated prices. Surely sensible business for now.
Leasing is too expensive, finance wants a slice and then you still have cost of vanadium. Drop down to $10lb or maybe a buck higher you might make it pay, might.
Didn’t say it’s unproven, it’s not adopted by mass market like lithium, therefore high risk of your suppier going bump, not in mass production. No mass market, no consumers says the product albeit proven will not survive without customers. It’s a very high risk buy for anyone, like anything in it’s infancy.
Great technology that maybe will come into its own in say 5/10 years time, for now those early adopters will be looking for the next big thing that doesn’t have such a high dependencey on a mineral that’s unstable and in short supply or should I say controlled by one country.
It will take a lot of time to rectify this problem, the moment VrB had has now passed imo.
Daisan, leasing option is a red herring imo, it’s no more financially viable then upfront purchase. Vanadium prices need drop significantly to make any option viable.
Add in problems last year such as no wind in U.K. for weeks the whole industry is taking a reality check, there’s other pains being investigated that look cheaper, don’t take many acres of ugly shipping containers and more importantly the big utilities will continue control. Of course if they work out, more money being thrown at these alternatives the quicker they come to market without need of financial backing by third parties if bought into by utilities.
Of course there are rural areas such as Africa, might be a niche market for now. Considering how appalling supply if in Africa and costs I’m shocked nobody has taken it up in bigger numbers, I guess like me most businesses are wary of the short term outlook for these vrb companies.
Faramog
See vrb being setback years by rising vanadium prices, simply put no business will invest in this technology now until there’s a security over supply that is pretty much regulated by the Chinese today.
Sure there will be a few government contracts but the mass adoption by business is going to take years now, lithium will be the only choice, imo.
I’m talking as a business owner, why invest in new risky technology that has a high risk of failure when you know the last two years vanadium prices have put this new technology out of business. Vanadium price remains high this year I reckon it could delay mass adoption by years, half decade minimum.
In meantime there’s big bucks going into viable alternatives, I fear the dream of every company having its own independent electricity supply is a bygone dream, that’s the next industrial revolution up the spout.
As for redt I have no idea if they will survive, I sincerely hope so for everyone invested. Besides I’m more often then not wrong so I’d place a bet they will make it big, soon!!
Jersey was only a member of free trade, rest of the carp they didn’t subscribe. Rightly so.
There’s no free movement in jersey and that will never happen either, that said they have a close relationship with both uk and France.
They didn’t vote on uk in out referendum either, expect jersey business to continue thrive no matter what happens here in uk.
Did say phase 3 had been delayed, it was quite clear in last update, although everyone had those posts of mine deleted.
“During 2019 Vametco will continue to progress environmental approvals for Phase 3 of the multi-phased expansion project. In addition, detailed design work and capital estimation will commence with a view to construction commencing in 2020.”
That being said the price drop is unfair so I have taken a few today as a longer term punt, production was better then I had expected for Q4 and V prices look set to destroy all hopes of vrb by continuing its rise.
Nice try Alpha, however truth is it’s a jersey registered company listed on a uk stock exchange, selling a product that’s in part manufactured in Europe. Jersey has a free trade agreement with Europe and is outside of uk control.
Further can you tell the board which German manufacture makes VRB?
Very misleading as usual, no surprises.
Had this from company confirming basket prices not comparable and reasoning for our higher basket price, all looks very good to me from here:-
Thank you for your email. Mkango will be producing a very different product with a different rare earths mix to that which Rainbow is currently producing and so the basket price is not comparable. Not only will Mkango be producing a higher value added product and be coming into production in a different pricing environment, when we believe EV driven rare earths demand will have really gained momentum, but our development strategy means we can also optimise our rare earths mix, which determines the basket price.
Rainbow is producing a rare earth mineral concentrate, whereby hydrometallurgical processing of that concentrate, ie leaching, purification, and separation are undertaken by the customer. In contrast, Mkango will be producing a purified mixed rare earth product, whereby we will complete hydrometallurgical processing ourselves in Malawi. This means that we remove impurities and produce a high grade and purified mixed rare earth product. This has a number of benefits - the more refined the product, the more value added to the product and the greater the marketing flexibility. Furthermore, by completing the hydrometallurgical steps ourselves, it means we can effectively tailor the rare earths mix by removing cerium, which determines the basket value. Cerium is a low value rare earth which makes up a large proportion of the in situ rare earth mix (for most light rare earth projects). During hydrometallurgical processing we will remove as much as possible of the cerium from the rare earths mix as per the 2015 PFS. By removing the majority of low value cerium, it substantially increases the basket value of rare earths in the remaining mixed product by increasing the proportion of higher value rare earths in the mix such as neodymium and praseodymium. Apart from ongoing metallurgical optimisation to minimise costs, we are also evaluating options to produce separated rare earths which has potential to add further value to the project.
- 47bobf - are you not aware of the VRFB's that are being built that are larger than 400MWh in size ?
How those projects doing Alpha, do you have any updates to share?
Thanks
Also worth noting this from interview I quoted earlier:-
The drill results exceeded expectations. The key objective of the programme is to upgrade as much as possible of the inferred and indicated resource categories into the indicated and measured categories. In the pre-feasibility study, the in-pit inferred resource was treated as waste, given that only indicated (and measured) resource categories are permitted to be included in the mine plan and therefore in the reserve. If we upgrade the inferred resource so it can be included in the mine plan, it will potentially enable a longer mine life, increased production, lower strip ratio and lower costs.
There was a research note that dropped mid last year, they also commented on the basket price in PFS and revised their forecast figures based on a few factors, basket price dropping being one.
I copied this content but not the link, I’m sure a little “googling” will come up trumps with said document. Apologies for the formatting, I’d sort it out but I’m off to the pub:-
We have built a cash flow model of Songwe Hill using the key operational and cost
assumptions
from Mkango’s Nov
ember 2015 PFS (p26), but have adjusted to
incorporate some of our own assumptions on how work currently underway as part
of the BFS programme may further optimise the economics (chiefly resource/reserve
upside on further drilling and process flow sheet optimisation, including the
incorporation of an in-house REE separation facility
–
see pp27-30 for discussion).
Using an REE basket price assumption of US$45/kg (some 25% lower than the
US$60/kg used in the PFS
–
see pp17-19 for further discussion) and a 10%
real
discount rate, we estimate a post-tax NPV for the project (discounted from today,
and excluding feasibility study expenditure) of
US$283m
(assuming construction
begins in 2020, with first production in H2 2021). The positive impact of our assumed
reserve upside, reduced mining strip ratio and optimised process flow sheet
(including downstream REE separation) more than offsets our more conservative
pricing assumptions versus the PFS economics (we would derive an NPV
10%
of
US$249m if using the operational, cost and pricing assumptions used in the PFS).