Member Info for Daisan

IEH is a salutary lesson on that one.

Well, I can see benefits for both BMN and RED. I would have thought that the logic was obvious as RED will be experiencing a squeeze on its margins currently. Obviously I want both companies to succeed so for me an ideal scenario is for the Vanadium price to reach a supply/demand balance at a level that doesn't kill the VRFB golden goose.

Banter, I hope that my responses did not come across as angry or aggressive as I certainly didn't mean for that to be the case. I always welcome differences of opinion as no investment case is watertight and in order to have a reasonable level of assurance that you are happy with the risk everyone's position needs to be challenged. Everybody agreeing is not a healthy situation.

mikebassetts, I can't comment on holders in ARS hanging on but it is pretty clear from the BMN board that most have to a greater or lesser degree - a number of the largest holders have kept buying from 1.3p all the way up to 17p. The investment case is even more obvious there since the Vametco purchase and Vanadium's astonishing rise (Vanadium has been the best performing metal by far over the last couple of years). I suspect that there is an awful lot of faith in the asset and team here as well. Let's face it, on AIM it is pretty difficult to find a company that combines great assets with a great team so when you find it you keep hold for as long as possible. It is pretty clear that TM knows where he is going and he has been fortunate/astute enough to choose KSK and Beutong as the vehicles to get him there. I am quite happy to ride his conviction.

Actually an awful lot of us have held on in BMN because intrinsic value has not yet been reached. Equally I suspect that a number have held here for the rise as the story in both shares is continually and positively evolving.

Bolgas, Apologies - I see that my language could be misconstrued as 'owning' the supply chain. BMN indeed do not own the technology (although there could be a case for buying a company that does so that it does indeed own the entire supply chain) but owning the resource from ore to electrolyte (a significant component of the input costs of a VRFB) and having a reselling (potentially manufacturing) arrangement with a leading VRFB company does give it a certain amount of control. Would you see logic in combining BMN with RED?

I would reinforce what Tomcorvid is saying here - nobody has suggested that this will go up in a straight line. Anyone who believes that has not been investing in the markets in general or AIM in particular. I actually don't see many signs of the current bull market ending just yet despite the fact that it has been going on for quite some time. I also see signs that we are entering a new commodity cycle with the current rise in prices likely to be just the beginning. The more likely scenario to smash the share price is a black swan event that will hit global markets. Good luck on predicting and preparing for them. To be honest Banter your argument actually appears to be that it has gone up substantially so it will come down substantially. Fine. I have no problem with that - retraces can be considerable even within a bull phase and anyone who follows Fibonacci will be able to suggest various levels. But equally retraces can be relatively mild within the context of the rise and mark just a pause within the larger cycle. I like to look at fundamentals on the whole and there is enough upcoming news here to suggest that the bull phase is in tact. Should the news disappoint or drop off significantly, then it will be time to reconsider. However, from my perspective there really is a commodity bull market on the way on the back of a shift to 'green' technologies and ARS is well positioned to take advantage of that. As such, it is likely to remain one of my core holdings.

Well, good to see a constructive argument as your original post was not suggestive of this ('a few drill results' ignored the 2m tonnes of copper and 2m oz gold JORC compliant resources apart from anything else). As a counter to your technical market argument (i.e. unrelated to the fundamentals of the company), what makes you think the fees are going to dry up? ARS have an aggressive drilling campaign ongoing at KSK and Beutong. This will need funding with the inevitable broker fees. So, by your own argument this should keep the brokers interested for some time. Such funding in the last couple of years has been conducted at an ever increasing share price which is just as it should be for a promising explorer on AIM. If the company keep on delivering excellent exploration results, I see no reason why this should not continue. The markets collapsing is outside of ARS control so not worth considering as a company specific detail - this argument can be applied to all companies and such an event will drag everything down. In terms of production, ARS are in the latter stages of BKM exploration with the DFS due this quarter. They have projected start of production as being late 2019 (which is aggressive) which I believe is substantially less than your intimated time frame. There is a distinct possibility that investors would take profits in the run up to production (it inevitably happens on AIM). However, to presume that this is likely to collapse the share price in the way in which you suggest is firstly to ignore the wider ARS story and secondly is not normally the case in these situations - yes, shares can fall back but they rarely collapse owing to the fact that there are usually more sophisticated investors involved at this stage. The wider ARS story is compelling. I will focus on KSK rather than Beutong as I feel that KSK has much more discover whereas we already know that Beutong is a substantial beast. KSK is looking more and more like a series of mid-sized deposits (consider that one of these deposits is typically all most AIM companies have whereas ARS have multiple such deposits) containing high grade, near surface copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold (let's not consider the diamonds). But this is not the most interesting aspect. Consider that it is possible that some of these deposits may well be considered large (Baroi anyone?). But this is still not the most interesting aspect. The most interesting thing here is that the drilling keeps suggesting that there are very large areas of mineralisation that appear to lie below the near surface ore deposits which may well indicate that there are multiple large deposits yet to be found. This is the real potential of the area. It may turn out to not be as substantial as we can hope for although BK is already suggestive of a larger system. But the travelling is going to throw up pearls along the way and this should keep both investors and brokers interested for years.

That as confirmed in the Q4 update reported in January. The annual report should give useful information on the cash position at the end of the year.

Tomcorvid, Excellent response. Clearly constructed, logical arguments are always preferable to straight insults. Should Banter respond similarly I am sure that we could have a reasonable debate as it would be good to have a contrary view to what would currently appear to be a very positive story.

Their core business is simple - the mining and processing of Vanadium. By providing VRFB technology they are securing a route to market that may well be a significant part of the future Vanadium landscape that requires a Vanadium based product, electrolyte, that is a value add and commands a premium. Controlling the entire supply chain means that they can ensure the attractiveness of the offering as they can provide the electrolyte at an affordable price to their own systems. If there is no control of the electrolyte price then a price spike could inhibit the adoption of the technology at this emerging stage of the lifecycle. BMN clearly believe that adoption of VRFBs will underpin Vanadium consumption at an increased level in the future at a price that will make producing Vanadium attractive and with a reduced dependence on a single use. This should enable BMN to produce a decent margin on a much higher production rate than current levels. As they are a tier 1 primary Vanadium supplier, their approach effectively ensures that they are well positioned regardless of the outcome of VRFBs. If the cost of Vanadium stunts or kills VRFB adoption then BMN would have made a fortune in the meantime. If VRFB adoption is significant then this will guarantee long term Vanadium demand and price support.

Pablo2, Apologies. My post was a little rushed. Firstly, the mine life. Mine life is determined by the reserves available rather than the resources. The last resource statement did not include reserves so it is difficult to see what the mine life is. However, previously reserves have been estimated as just over 500k at Tulkubash. Not all of this will be recoverable (I don't recall the recovery percentage but it will be in the region of 90%+ for the oxide I should imagine) so a mine life of around four years is entirely plausible. This is where it is interesting. Typically for projects you want a mine life of seven years or greater so that investors can see with reasonable optimism a return on their initial investment. A mine life of four years implies a higher capital expenditure to process more ore. Note that the original intention for Tulkubash was to produce at 60k oz per year by processing 8000 tonnes per day. This has increased to 100k oz from 13500 tonnes per day with the resultant reduction in mine life. The higher production rate will require a greater capex and investors will hesitate to support this. I would expect the FS to come in with a relatively high capex (compared with a 60k oz operation) combined with a short mine life and a commensurately lower NPV. Which begs the question, why the hell are they doing this? Well, the only reason I can think of is that they are so confident of the ore body and what they will find from further exploration that they are going for the long term operation straight off rather than have a pilot operation for the oxide which will be expanded before producing a pilot operation for the sulphide which will be expanded. Their plans look to be to go for a 100k oz oxide operation which will produce cash flow to support the development of a 2-300k oz sulphide operation (note that originally the whole operation was planned to produce 211k oz per year and this has now been upgraded to 3-400k oz per year). Simply put, and reading between the lines, this is a marketing document to whoever did not stump up for the latest funding round and is basically saying that the FS is not what you should be looking at, the potential and vision is so much bigger. I also think that they have the financial clout to do this anyway but that they would rather have whoever this entity is on board. If this is the case then we could speculate on who it might be but in reality we don't know. My last sentence was appalling - forgive me! I was merely looking at the revised processing volumes envisaged for the oxide operation and speculating. For a 'normal' operation that mines open pit and underground ore, the ore is usually mixed and processed together. The production levels are controlled by controlling the grade through the mix. As sulphide and oxide ore are processed differently I was wondering whether at any point there was commonality that would enable such a grade control process such that 13500 tonnes was for

I don't suppose you have a handle on the potential for mixing the oxide and sulphide ore? I don't believe that they can be processed in the same way but I was wondering whether there was some commonality likely in processing. The reason for asking is that the volumes specified as being processed in the first phase would likely be the volumes processed for the sulphide phase.

The feasibility study is only for the oxide resource. Interestingly, they have increased this to 100k oz per year, presumably to create fcf earlier in the cycle and build a processing facility more commensurate with the long term production profile. However, this is at the expense of mine life (4 years) which will mean that funding will require some prodding as the norm is more like 7+ years. It will be interesting to see the fs as I would have thought that they could get more than 4 years @ 100k oz from a 1m oz resource. I have to confess I looked at the long term prospects more as the numbers are quite eye opening.

Interestingly they are getting closer and closer to saying that the ultimate resource here is 12*current oxide resource and 8*current sulphide resource in previous updates they have clearly stated that the mineralisation is remarkably consistent along strike whilst here they are indicating that the strike is 24km. Not too difficult to work out that their target is 12m oz in oxide and 43m oz in sulphide. A total of 55m oz! Way beyond what I have been considering and a world class resource by any measure. They do seem to be confident enough on this to openly suggest it. Such a resource would be worth in the billions. If it was producing it would be worth several billions.

A significant statement of intent and shows that our chairman sees this as a strategic vehicle for a much larger vision.

So the conspiracy theory is back again. Interestingly the share price has gone down despite Steve's recent PR. Sorry, 'ramp'. What is the conspiratorial theory this time? Are you sure you believe in TA Chartist2?

Oh joy. We are going to get the conspiracy theories back again. In reality anyone who understands TA would realise that the price movement was very normal.

Every time I see an interview with Steve I can't help thinking that I wished that I enjoyed my job as much as he appears to! A couple of scout holes from silver mountain have been drilled with results expected within a couple of weeks. I am really looking forward to that. He suggests a drilling programme is likely if the results come back confirming lead/zinc. I am hoping for significant silver as well. A BKZ to the south of BKM. News likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

I think that you have to take into account the fact that they have been investing heavily in capex to move underground. These figures will not be included in the AISC. Capex should reduce substantially this year now that NLGM is largely complete and Singida is on the back burner. The key figure to focus on is net debt. If that doesn't start reducing significantly this year then there really is something wrong.