Member Info for Catbert

There is no public RNS about NOMAD resignation or regulatory investigations, which would usually accompany a more severe or indefinite suspension scenario.

The absence of extreme price dislocation or a collapse in liquidity into the halt, combined with the explicit “at the request of the company” wording and a backdrop of long‑trailed Q4 technical and strategic milestones, points more towards an imminent, potentially value‑defining announcement than a crisis‑driven suspension

The amalgamation of Landore Canada and Lamaune simplified ownership of key ounces near BAM, which is a typical housekeeping step ahead of farm‑in, JV, asset sale or broader corporate transaction discussions.​

Director messaging in results and fundraising RNSs has been heavily focused on “monetising” BAM and on bringing in strategic investors with industry relationships, which is consistent with preparing for larger strategic moves.

Alternativley Major BAM technical/economic update (MRE/PEA) exceeding or diverging from expectations

The company and brokers had consistently guided to an updated BAM resource and PEA in Q4 2025 as the main near‑term catalyst; the equity raise in October was explicitly framed around funding these studies.​

If the final numbers are materially better or worse than the previous 1.5Moz, US$333m NPV 2022 PEA case, the NOMAD may have judged that a temporary halt was prudent while the company finalises the release to avoid disorderly trading on leaks or partial information.

North American markets are still closed so maybe this is a consideration for the BOD.

Hopefully it's good news.

Interestingly Michael Daffey and Eric Minditch were both at Goldman Sachs between 1994 and 2004.

Daffey became a partner in 2002 and Minditch was COO of the equities division prior to leaving in 2004 to set up Eton Park they were both partners at Goldman Sachs between 2002 and 2004.

Daffey built his career in the trading division and held senior roles in equities and global markets through the 2000s and 2010s before retiring from Goldman in 2021. Mindich led the equities arbitrage business in the 1990s and later became co‑chief operating officer of the Equities Division and then senior strategy officer.

Possibly he was Daffey's boss at one time?

Coincidence? Or is it just a small world?

It would be interesting to know if we approached Tamesis or if they approached us.

The implications would seem to indicate a public message that Zanaga is entering a more active external‑engagement phase as it moves toward development funding.​

The suggestion is that management are lining up capital‑markets infrastructure ahead of major project milestones.

Plus there is an increased likelihood of Tamesis notes and marketing materials on Zanaga which could give rise to more visibility of the investment case, which can support re‑rating if fundamentals are credible.

For shareholders, this development implies a move away from “waiting for a white knight” toward a clearly staged plan: de‑risk technically, showcase premium DRI economics, then use a broadened capital‑markets platform and strategic relationships to drive a competitive syndication that can credibly carry the project into construction. I would take the Website redevelopment to be a part of this plan too.

If that works, equity value should increasingly track a financed, build‑ready 30 Mtpa DRI project rather than a long‑dated option on an undeveloped orebody.

My guess is that what we are witnessing are the precursors to a series of long anticipated news releases and updates.

An interesting article on the new site is https://energycapitalpower.com/zanaga-iron-ore-to-boost-congos-mining-sector-development/

This outlines the power plan most likely a 130mw gas turbine at PN with transmission to site- a project of this scale is probably a $2bn capex deal but not for us as CEC would have a tremendous opportunity to build and profit from a project such as this which should be self funding and with the long mine life it should be feasible to develop and earn profits into the $10's of millions per annum range. CB is not short of gas and natural gas is seen as a low carbon input.

P-F thanks for your most excrement post.

Maybe if you have something to contribute have a little think about what you are going to say, do some research and then word it carefully.

Traditionally Banks don't want much more than 50-80% of a project in this case they have 70%.

Mine Finance is streaming or royalty companies and in this case we have a facility for $40m.

You are of course entitled to share the thoughts but as you seem so unaware of what is going on the reality is that we should point out that posting obviously factually incorrect material and showcasing such an evident lack of education on the subject matter is not going to endear you to others here.

My guess Beardozer is that the stock will rerate once we get the strategic investor onboard and moreso once we get the FID. Both are short to near term (1 Year).

Once we are in the build or post FID we might get a bid to take the whole thing out possibly at or near the price of a fully built operation.

This is happening now with Kore Potash. To dislodge the shareholders the bid will have to be very strong. Both assests have unexplored/ underexplored resource upsides and could easily be upgraded to higher nameplate throughput volumes so an exit pre mining could be made to work economically for both a buyer and a seller.

I'll thank you now, if that's ok MM.

Good find!

TBH I was surprised that something like this wasn't in the workflows for the plan released in March. It's reassuring that it is in here. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly an external investor might be slowed up if we hadn't already completed the work to define and embed our ESG processes -they would doubtless ask us to do this so that they could validate it in their DD and secondly we are going to need to onboard and train a lot of local people and we need to have a process to do this which will mean that we don't play fast a loose with people's safety or allow any risk to emerge whereby we compromise any environmental standards.

Having these processes and values defined also helps to validate the financial elements of the project too which takes the people costs of the model beyond a hypothetical XYZ and moves it towards a detailed operational plan.

Seeing a detailed operational plan beginning to emerge is an encouraging sign.

Https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnny-velloza-37a587a9/

Look at Johnny's post at the Africa Investment Forum use the arrow right on the image and you will view a second image is that Clifford Elphick second from the right?

ShrewdDude67 you may be right. Are we all being Gaslit? Possibly. Possibly we are even Gaslighting ourselves given the minimal amount of newflow coming out of Zanaga and the normal human desire to build a complete picture of what is happening.

The insiders can hold here more easily than we can as they have knowledge which we don't.

There is very much a two tier ranking of shareholders with small PIs very much at a disadvantage. But that's life.

Here we have a situation which is both beyond our direct control and beyond the direct control of Zanaga as a company as we are seeking external funds and a developer to help us to turn what has been a stranded asset into a mine.

I am quite a poker fan which is a game where you are required to make bets on situations where there is incomplete information. Most teachers of poker will advise that you closely learn the numerical viability of various starting hands and understand how your position in the hand advantages or disadvantages you but above all they teach you observe the other players to note how they behave.

The question you ask in poker terms is are these people bluffing?

Mildich wanted in and has built a position.

Marty wanted all the shares he could get his hands on. He started with 1,500,000 and he's put his own money in to add quite a few more millions of shares.

Gagan Gupta wanted to get himself a decent slice of the pie too.

Greymont wanted in a have built a stake.

Are all of these players bluffing and if they are what do they expect to gain as a result of doing so?

Looking for the smoking gun is a fun activity to pass the time. Something to distract us from the ever present gnawing uncertainty and discomfort of holding a share which is both high risk and where the management cannot or will not share information with ordinary holders.

Que sera sera.

A bit of a kerfuffle this morning not sure why - it seems either MM driven or possibly some holders were expecting something unrealistic - it was only one drill hole.

Context is everything and in this case the context is that we have proven three theories.

1. That there is continuation at depth.

2. That this sheet or lens of mineralisation reappeared exactly where the Geo's expected it to.

3. That we have continuation of mineralisation ouside of the previously known footprint.

"This first set of results, already give us the confidence to start on the pathway to commercial study work."

Clearly we have a mineralised structure that is open along strike and at depth. Furthermore we have emerging evidence that our Geo's understand something of it's geometry which means that we should be able to define the remainder of the body without drilling too many unnecassary holes.

Not bad for one drill hole even if the market didn't think so.

Hi Extrader, I'm a Headhunter for Engineering and Technical businesses- nearly all of my commercial knowledge is derived from speaking to people who are far cleverer than I am.

I would imagine that your banking background would be more useful in analysing these sorts of things.

Thanks Extrader.

I am now less certain about the pivot from Simandou to Zanaga theory.

From what I can tell Simadou meets Rio's capital allocation rules and has a considerable upside still to come in a market which Rio describe as tight and as of the last decade suffering from under investment.

Simandou obtains beneficial capital allocation status partly because the capital requirements for evcuating the product from the mine to the port are shared with their other partners and thus Rio get to evacuate their entire product without paying for the entire cost of the infrastructure involved.

The challenge for divesting enough of the Chinalco stake to allow Rio a free hand in M&A and buying back it's own shares is estimated at $2-3Bn.

This makes me think that whilst some horse trading may take place on the Simandou asset Rio is unlikley to wish to exit it's position here, indeed they have other assets which may be better suited to fund the Chinalco stake reduction.

What I'm now thinking is that the story which has most relevance to Zanaga is the aspect whereby Rio's reduction of the Chinalco stake offers them more flexibility to do M&A in addition to Rio's current reading of the Iron Ore market, its under investment, the grades issue and what appears to be a tighter pricing environment mixed with an impending under capacity or issues with replacing capacity.

Slides on pages 32 and 33 seem most relevant.

One capital efficient way that Rio might buy Zanaga is by an all share deal.

For this to be most efficient Rio would want it's share price to be in a cylical peak or uptrend something which might be achieved if they can divest the Chinalco stake to the desired level as they would probably get a share price boost because they can do buy backs and M&A deals.

Rio's share price has been in an up trend for a few months now if they can agree something with Chinalco one could easily see a continuation of this price rally.

Once they are free of the constraints placed on them by the current size of the Chinalco stake then they have room to manoeuver.

I also believe that others such as Vale and BHP might still be in for Zanaga as reading the marco trends seems to indicate that both capacity and grade issues will challenge the market in the next decade.

Therefore one cannot safely say that any player has enough capacity particularly for the highest grade material.

GLA / DYOR

One week to agree the equity element and one week for documentation. That was on the 17th. So where is the RNS confirming it is completed now?

Harry gets to choose his own words. No one is compelling him to say this stuff. Give him a couple of days to have a Nomad agree an RNS and we are at that time now so he needs to either make a statement to explain the delay i.e. who's dropped out or confirm that the deal is going ahead.

He's had months to que up the equity deal so we really shouldn't be wasting any more time on this.

News is now overdue.

BOTS, Tsodilo is an interesting project and has the potential to compete in the same space as Zanaga.

Currently the resource is some 400MT with expansion potential to 6/7 Bn. It's got some good grades and looks like it might make a profitable mine one day. It's currently at PEA stage, one of the blocks abuts a Unesco world heritage site with environmental sensitivities which should be navigable. Their logistics to port plan isn't fully formed and is more aspirational than baked in but is nonetheless conceptually feasible.

As a comparison to Zanaga it is a seemingly very good project however Zanaga is at a far more advanced and derisked stage at present plus it has the plan to add pelletisation in CB. Although no costings have been published yet I would strongly suspect that Zanaga's turnkey mine to port logistical structure will give it the edge on cost of production.

One further observation on the thesis that Rio may be about to pivot out of Simandou and possibly replace their high grade capacity with a stake in Zanaga is that the Zanaga resource is both a higher grade as well as being a far larger resource than their Simandou asset.

Compare the relative costs of the two projects and it is easy to see where Rio might best deploy their capital. Trott has already made statements on this subject.

Not only have the Guineans now decided that inward investors have an obligation to provide widespread economic development aid, Rio also has pressure from Guinea to add a pelletisation facility for which there is no obvious source of power other than a suggested LNG option which would involve also building facilities to import and store LNG.

Plus they already have a messy riverine transfer process which they must share with their Chinese partners.

To complete the project they would need an additional $6Bn to get the port assets to a level where they can remove the complex and at times risky process they currently have. Plus the pellet plant and LNG port handling.

Plus with the precedents that they have set with the Guinean regime Rio are now hostage to the whims of an administration which sees Rio as a free ATM.

Plus they have the pressure to divest a good chunk of the Chinalco holding.

If they saved the $6bn cost of developing the port and sold the rest to the Chinese they'd have enough to buy and develop Zanaga.

As far as I can see it the only reason to continue to hold Simandou is to preserve access to higher grade resources. Something which could be retained via gradual withdrawal.

Yet Zanaga would deliver lower costs, higher grades, a fully integrated mine to port infrastructure and a true DRI product most likley with a pellet plant - all within a more stable political setting.

Perhaps what has kept them in Simandou is that to realise the value there they needed to complete the project - which they have done. Secondly there is the sunk cost fallacy.

It wil be interesting to see what happens next. Certainly the timing of the new website and presentation seems curiously opportune given the upcoming strategic review at Rio.

GLA / DYOR

Https://www.thinkchina.sg/economy/how-china-unlocked-simandou-reshape-global-iron-ore-trade

https://www.mining.com/web/guineas-simandou-construction-linked-with-water-soil-pollution/

https://discoveryalert.com.au/simandou-iron-ore-project-water-soil-contamination-2025/

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/guinea-community-seek-annulment-of-simandou-iron-project-environmental-approvals-over-alleged-ecological-and-social-violations/

https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/08/guinea-iron-ore-megaproject-pollutes-waterways-farmland-communities-say/

https://www.banktrack.org/download/simandou_project_risks_and_impacts_on_water_resources/simandouprojectrisksandimpactonwaterresources.pdf

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/logistics-providers-efficiency-in-difficult-circumstances-advancing-guineas-development-2025-04-04

Rio Tinto is facing notable logistical and environmental challenges with the riverine and port transfer systems at the Simandou project in Guinea. Key risks relate to both the engineering complexities of shallow, silty coastal conditions and mounting environmental concerns, particularly water pollution near the new port infrastructure and transfer zones.​

Logistical and Engineering Constraints

The region’s shallow and silty coastline means that building a true deepwater export port would cost approximately US$6 billion, so the project adopted floating barge-based transfer ships to save on capital. However, these floating units are prone to operational inefficiencies during Guinea’s rainy season when wave action disrupts loading regularly, affecting output and driving up costs per ton.​

Rio Tinto estimates that shipping alone adds US$20–$30 per ton depending on weather and port logistics, making their delivered iron ore costs higher than peers in Brazil and Australia.​

The integrated multi-use railway and barge system are still in testing and commissioning phases, which can bring further risks during ramp-up—especially given the scale of up to 120 million tonnes per year to be exported.​

Environmental and Community Impacts

Recent scientific analyses show concerning levels of water pollution near construction and port areas. Elevated acidity and bacterial contamination have made water unsafe for consumption without treatment, and coastal Moribayah fishing zones have suffered decline due to sediment runoff and pollution.​

Project construction has led to cracks in housing, pollution in local water bodies, and degradation of ecosystems. Acid mine drainage is suspected as a significant factor linked to construction and materials processing.​

Local advocates and international observers have called for urgent water treatment, construction practice modifications, and transparent environmental monitoring, warning that delays in addressing riverine impacts could escalate remediation costs.​

Outlook

While the transshipment system is operational, operational weather disruptions, water pollution, and growing local scrutiny mean Rio Tinto will likely struggle with riverine transfer issues unless substantial additional investment is made in environmental mitigation and infrastructure upgrades. The tension between economic objectives and environmental responsibilities remains acute at the port end of the Simandou project.

The Hamilton Project has consistently recommended putting an explicit, gradually rising price on carbon—preferably via a carbon tax or similar fee—paired with revenue recycling to protect low‑ and middle‑income households and improve overall tax efficiency.​

Core carbon tax design

The Project has endorsed a nationwide tax on greenhouse gas emissions starting at a modest level (for example, an initial rate on the order of $15 per ton of CO₂‑equivalent) and rising predictably over time to drive sustained emissions reductions while giving firms time to adjust investment.

It recommends levying the tax “upstream” on fuels and other major emission sources, covering the broadest possible base of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, to minimize administrative complexity and improve cost‑effectiveness.​ Upstream can also mean Iron Ore production.

Revenue use and equity

A central proposal is a “carbon tax swap”: use the revenue from the carbon tax to finance reductions in other distortionary taxes and targeted credits, making the reform revenue‑neutral and distributionally neutral or progressive overall.​

The Hamilton Project specifically backs refundable tax credits or offsets for low‑income households and tax reductions tied to earned income, to counteract the regressive impact of higher energy prices.

Voluntary carbon markets for higher‑quality project types have mostly traded around 5–20 USD/tCO₂ in recent years, with premium engineered removal or top‑tier nature‑based credits sometimes achieving 20–40 USD/tCO₂ in bilateral deals.​

Compliance‑market benchmarks: EU ETS allowance prices have been roughly 50–90 EUR/tCO₂ in recent years, with significant volatility; North American explicit carbon prices (e.g., Canada’s federal backstop path, California‑Quebec) sit in the 30–75 USD/tCO₂ corridor depending on year and jurisdiction.

Regardless of the current prices for Carbon taxes the assumption by the Hamilton group is that the direction of travel is one way - these will be increasing over time.

Zanaga has the capacity to generate ;

Conservative case (1 MtCO₂/year at 10 USD/t)

≈ 10 million USD/year in gross credit revenue.

Mid case (3 MtCO₂/year at 20 USD/t)

≈ 60 million USD/year.

Optimistic case (5 MtCO₂/year at 30 USD/t)

≈ 150 million USD/year.

At the upper end of this scale these carbon tax credits are going to add billions to the NPV of the project.

If you want to generate a fortune through carbon tax credits you need a project which can save a huge amount of CO2 from being generated. Steel making is the most cabon intensive industry bar none and Zanaga is the lowest carbon deposit.

If we were to add 5% inflationary price increases to the carbon credit at $30 USD in 5 years it is $38.2 in 10 years $48.9 and in 15 years it's $62.4.

If carbon tax credits are bankable then it makes the chances of Zanaga being developed more likely.

Https://api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/cle/6f8e886b-bba.pdf

Worth noting the prices they are working to for the pellets see page 7. They also have a reference to a Pointe Noire pellet plant (there is one in Canada) how strange that there is another Pointe Noire and that both might one day have pellet plants working on them.

The FID for Iron Bear is 2028 so they are a little bit behind Zanaga.

I think they want the MRE.

I've got some Mila too but Mila has no resource yet and whilst it has lots of potential Landore is way more advanced and has a sizeable resource which is poised to become even greater. Mila has a market Cap today of £16m. Landore's of today is £14m.

One has zero ounces and only a few thousand meters drilled the other has 70 plus Km of drilling and a 1.5m Oz resource.

As the Americans love to say "Go figure".

The spread has really tightened a lot. Not sure what that means. It looked like a lot of buys at the end of last week. Big ones too.