Member Info for ChameleonMan

I think you are correct. I had to check on a satellite image but Boticas is the nearest town to MdB.

It’s only 25km away from MdB so it’s somewhat ambiguous? See this archive: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/20180913-booming-electric-car-sales-drive-lithium-rush-portugal

Just to clarify, I believe these protests took place in Boticas, Montalegre, which is the other lithium mine on the Spanish border ( nothing to do with SAV). There has been a whiff of corruption implied in this licence award if you follow the link within this report : https://www.portugalresident.com/anti-mining-protestors-force-secretary-of-state-to-abort-scheduled-visit/
So no reported problems at our MdB mine ( as far as I know!).

A little local difficulty? https://www.macaubusiness.com/portugal-anti-lithium-mining-demonstrators-de-rail-official-visit/

I’d like to think I spurred them into action, but I am not so vain! Anyway I see DA didn’t dress to impress. Easy to spot the minister but the CEO is very low profile in mufti!

Did it happen? Not a tweet to confirm. Mining operations in Portugal are becoming political hot potatoes due to unpopularity with local voters/ residents. For a minority government it won’t do to be too much in favour and it would seem that this political strategy has been working quite well - “According to a story published in Weekly Visão on September 12, 2017, dozens of licensing applications over the years have led to nothing, as no new mine has been opened in Portugal for 30 years. “
It’s quite an advantage for SAV to have a license in force much to the envy of the likes of Fortescue awaiting the delayed auction that is promised by the year end but shows no sign of happening?

Well I dropped another £7k in this morning so over to you guys!

From the FT today: “Barrick Gold is looking for opportunities to grow its copper business through either exploration or acquisitions, according to its chief executive Mark Bristow.”

And of course not to forget Fortesque who are not finding it easy to secure tenements in Portugal: “ Fortescue has asked for the rights to research mineral deposits in an area exceeding 50,000 hectares in the boroughs of Alijó, Carrazeda de Ansiães, São João da Pesqueira, Sabrosa, Torre de Moncorvo, Vila Flor and Vila Nova de Foz Côa.

Of these areas, only Vila Flor is NOT part of the 26,000-hectare wine producing region that has UNESCO world humanitarian heritage status.

Fortescue’s plans are reported to be “to look for gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, lithium, tungsten, steel and other associated minerals”. https://www.portugalresident.com/lithium-mines-would-threaten-quality-of-douro-world-heritage-wines/

You have to dig around for this in some odd places these days but here he is commenting on the economic benefits to residents in MdB “ UK-based Savannah Resources, which is in the advanced stages of the permitting process for a $110m mine at Covas do Barroso in Vila Real, says it is following ICMM’s advice to the letter and has been in close discussions with local and regional authorities from the get-go. As the project develops (operations are earmarked to kick-off in 2022), it anticipates supporting vocational training for local residents, among other jointly agreed community projects.

From where chief executive David Archer sits in London, the upsides of the three-block, 2.94km2 mine appear “overwhelming”. His firm’s proposed investment promises to create work for 200 people (with an additional 600 or so indirect jobs). And this in one of Portugal’s poorest areas, where the population has halved since 1980s because of few job prospects for young people.

At present, “the area’s biggest export is its people,” Archer observes, noting that the village school recently closed for lack of pupils. Beyond the mine gates, he talks up the possibility of a mineral conversion plant and battery manufacturing facility emerging during the mine’s 15- to 20-year lifespan. Such a vision chimes with the government’s strategy for revitalising the country’s struggling interior, he adds.
http://www.ethicalcorp.com/communities-fail-buy-portugals-lithium-dreams

This sounds like an EU-funded Horizon 2020 industry/academic consortium project to validate the feasibility of the Eu Li value chain? Helps to tick the sustainability/certification boxes in parallel with building car industry partnerships?

This sounds like an EU-funded Horizon 2020 industry/academic consortium project to validate the feasibility of the Eu Li value chain? Helps to tick the sustainability/certification boxes in parallel with building car industry partnerships?

7 million now Muldoon! Catching you up?

Well if SAV needs a mining partner we need look no further than Moz JV partner Rio Tinto which is now getting into the Lithium game. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-10-22/rio-to-begin-lithium-output-in-california-eyes-u-s-no-1-slot

Yes, both!

... “The market is not endless, you can easily calculate how much lithium will be available in the next 10 years,” Müller said.

“Even if somebody finds the biggest deposit on earth tomorrow it takes 10 years until it goes into production, and therefore you have to secure your production now.”

According to Müller, the demand for battery metals is heavily underestimated.

“Every new number that comes out is higher than the old one because it grows faster than expected and it covers much more than only cars,” he explained.

“Two years ago, people were only quoting cars and only passenger cars and they totally forgot all these two wheelers, now buses are becoming very interesting and all these tools at home.”

“They know the reasons why the lithium price is down is obvious and the reasons why it will go up again is obvious too, but it will not happen tomorrow.

“So most of the investors are on the sidelines, because they see there is no immediate need to invest.”

According to Müller, this means Australian miners looking to other markets like Europe to raise money need to go beyond the financial markets.

There is now that corporate connection that companies can tap into, but it requires a different approach.

“What they have done in the past is they found a very cheap project, raised a bit of money, developed it a little bit and hope that somebody takes it over and the stock price goes up,” Müller said.

“In the past you always went to the world markets and you had price volatility.

“Now you have offtake agreements that give you security – it de-risks your project.

“You may have the chance to have prepaid offtake agreements, which gives you the opportunity to raise money outside of the financial markets without dilution for example.”

But very few companies in Australia have cottoned onto that fact yet.

“They still think that it’s enough to do business like they have done in the last 20 years,” Müller said. “That maybe right when you have a big gold business somewhere or copper or something like that but when it comes to battery minerals, it’s totally different.”

Müller said many Australian resources companies underestimated the importance of corporate connections.

“They still only look for financial markets connections,” he explained.

“They think they come over one time a year and do a little roadshow and that brings them money and knowledge and share price trading volume.

“That’s not the case, if a company is doing it right and they sit on a project that is really promising, they have to do it all [in Europe] and attract the industry and not only the financial markets.”



Major carmakers cashed up

The amount of money it takes to develop a mine in Australia pails in comparison to the level of cash the major European carmakers have to splash around.

“If you go to a junior miner and ask him what he needs to finish the DFS or whatever, then you may get an answer of between $10m and $20m or something like that,” Müller said.

By comparison, BMW’s R&D department alone spent somewhere close to €6 billion last year.

“Lots of that [R&D] becomes part of the next generation of cars, but lots of it doesn’t,” Müller said.

“So spending $20m to secure a long-term delivery of a resource that you for sure need, it’s nothing.”

And supply is getting tighter while demand is still growing, which means big car and battery makers will only be getting more desperate for resources.....

Read this article from Stockhead.au and you will understand why it’s a big big deal that SAV are talking to the EV car makers. Its Aussie miner-focused but the opportunity for a European source like SAV is that much greater. I feel that the silence from SAV currently could be leading up to a big announcement on a tie-up with BW, BMW or similar?

”With capital still hard to come by for early stage battery metals explorers, there is a need for those in the industry to rethink their approach. And this is where Europe is offering a massive opportunity, especially for Aussie companies.

The major European carmakers have decided to bypass the trading houses and go straight to the source – and Australian battery metals are a priority on their radar.
“Things are different these days because lithium and cobalt and other battery minerals will go through offtake agreements and not through the world market any longer, and you need direct agreements,” Stefan Müller, CEO of Frankfurt-based consultancy DGWA, told Stockhead.

“BMW, for example, officially announced that they want to bypass the trading houses in the future, which means they won’t go to Glencore any longer, they will go directly to the mine,” Müller said.

And everyone is watching the big three given that Europe’s automotive industry is the largest in the world.

But the major carmakers won’t just pick any old mine to buy from, they want sustainable and ethical supply, which is why Australia is high on their list.

Müller said the sustainability discussion was “proceeding with high speed” in Europe.

“It’s clear that in the future for every mineral you will have green mines and dirty mines, and when your mine is in Australia for example it’s of course a sustainable mining product,” he said.

“I think it will end up in a situation where you will have two different prices at some point — that mines that produce a dirty product can’t sell at the same price as mines that produce sustainable and green.

“So the industry [in Europe] is more and more interested in these companies.”

Investors still on the sidelines

European investors are a little savvier when it comes to battery metals and they didn’t bail out in droves when prices started to fall.

However, they are very much aware that there is no rush to get into the market because the main event is still coming.

“Every single day there is something regarding EVs and the investors know that the boom is coming, that is absolutely obvious,” Müller said.

READ: Expert view: ‘Go to Europe for 3 days – you’ll read 20 articles about the coming EV boom’

“They know the reasons why the lithium price is down is obvious and the reasons why it will go up again is obvious too, but it will not happen tomorrow.

“So most of the investors are on the sidelines, because they see there is no immediate need.....

I think the expression is a damp squib as most squid are by nature rather clammy? However I share your frustration. Nevertheless outside of SAV’s unreported progress, the market opportunity is coming along nicely. Look at this quote from the FT today:- “ The market in lithium-ion batteries is expected to expand by at least tenfold in the next decade, from 151 GWh in 2019 to 1,748GWh by 2030, according to BloombergNEF. Some predictions estimate that it will be worth about $25bn by 2025. The European Commission goes further, suggesting that by 2025 the global market for lithium-ion batteries for electric cars alone could reach €40bn-€55bn a year.”
TENFOLD! Behind the scenes they must be building their supply chains?

“ Japanese carmaker Honda has brought forward a goal to only sell electric and hybrid cars in Europe by three years to 2022, a leading company executive said on Wednesday (23 October).

“Our full line-up will be electrified by 2022,” said Tom Gardner, Honda’s senior vice president in Europe.

“Customers are quite quickly moving towards cleaner, more efficient vehicles,” with the rapid electrification of Europe at the forefront of Honda’s business strategy, Gardner told AFP in an interview.

Gardner made the announcement in Amsterdam, where Honda was presenting the new fully-electric Jazz model for the European market. Last month, Honda said it would phase out all diesel vehicle sales in Europe by 2021 in favour of electrified vehicles.

The new two-motor hybrid Jazz will be available for European markets by mid-2020, Gardner said, with the roll-out of five other models planned by 2022.

Previously the world’s seventh-largest car maker according to Global Manufacturing Magazine aimed for launching those models by 2025.

“We see a big change happening in Europe and today we are announcing our response to that.”

“We can also feel the fact that the market around us is expanding. Obviously the legislation around the environment is getting clearer as well. It is the track we are on in terms of the development of the new fully electrified line up,” Gardner explained.

The European Union has set new rules for carmakers to reduce carbon dioxide vehicle emissions from next year, or face fines.”
Source: Euractiv